Head to the Shasta District Fair grounds in Anderson for a cozy festival celebrating America’s bisesquicentennial and featuring some 300 art quilts — a tribute to 250 years of fiber arts culture.
“‘Quilt America, 250 Years of Creativity’ … marks 250 years of creative expression,” said Lucinda Williams, president of the exhibit’s hosting organization the Quilters’ Sew-Ciety of Redding. It celebrates centuries of fiber artistry, craftsmanship and precise technique.
Themes vary from Americana and historic scenes, to pastel watercolors of Northern California’s natural beauty — all commemorated in cotton, wool and other fiber media. Styles include the traditional and the contemporary.
The event also includes a Quilts of Valor military presentation, a fiber artists’ movement that reaches out to service members and war veterans.
There’s also a boutique shop, demonstrations, presentations on quilt history, food, vendor booths and a raffle for baskets and quilt prizes, Williams said.
The festival is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, May 1; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at the Shasta District Fair and Event Center, 1890 Briggs St. in Anderson. Tickets are $10.
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Quilting evolved from ancient practice to modern art form
The exhibit is a shout out to fiber artists who make the utilitarian beautiful or interesting, and who helped create this culturally significant means of expression in North America, event planners said.
Once a means of making a household staple a work of art, quilt making morphed a modern art movement, with amateur and professional artists embracing it, according to art historians.
While the show in Anderson commemorates quilting from the 1800s and later, the practice of stitching together layers of fabric and fiber dates back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, India, China and other locations around the world.
Native American and pioneer quilting practices refined this ancient craft for centuries. By the 20th century, stuffed and quilted fiber artwork included three-dimensional sculptures displayed in museums and galleries.
Some quilters create pieces to commemorate a rite of passage like a birth or wedding, or make a social statement.
The largest collaboration of quilters, the AIDS Memorial Quilt grew to roughly 50,000 panels since its beginning in 1987. Each panel remembers more than 110,000 people who died from HIV/AIDS related illnesses, the National Aids Memorial said.
If you go
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica on Record Searchlight Facebook groups Get Out! Nor Cal , Today in Shasta County and Shaping Redding’s Future. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Quilt festival coming to Shasta fairgrounds to mark important birthday
Reporting by Jessica Skropanic, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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