Common Threads, Common Bonds

The Quilters Guild of Brooklyn is exhibiting twenty-five colorful quilts at the Brooklyn College Library. The exhibit, Stitch by Stitch: Works in Fabric, opened Wednesday, June 11. The works of twenty-two guild members will be on display until August 22.

“These same works were shown at Brooklyn Borough Hall before we brought them here,” said the guild’s co-president, Madeleine Appell, who graduated from Brooklyn College in 1968 with an M.A. in art education. “It has become a traveling exhibit.” A quilter for thirty years, Appell’s work is also part of the exhibit.

A quintessential American craft, quilting has gone through several changes over the past decades and, according to some critics, has become a medium of artistic expression as well. Although modern quilts abide by the same quilt-making tenets, each has its own particular style. And while some conform to traditional quilting standards, others exhibit new techniques or include social or political statements.

“Most of them have a sentimental value for the quilter, and some are done on commission or to celebrate a special occasion,” said quilter Susan Contento, who has three pieces in the show. “I did one of them at my son’s request, as a tribute to Ireland,” she said, noting that the Quilters Guild enjoys doing charitable work. It recently donated sixty-one quilts to Iraq war veterans at the Walter Reed Hospital.

A panel discussion about the importance of quilting and the personal journey of each quilter will be held on Tuesday, June 24. Moderated by Appell, it will include Micki Segel; Janet Finello, public relations coordinator for the Brooklyn College Library; and two other College alumnae, Marcie Brenner, ’77, and Ellen Piccolo, ’77, M.F.A., ’81.

Library hours are Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (and until 9 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday). For more information about the exhibit—including possible purchases—contact Janet Finello, (718) 758-8209 or jfinello@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The two-hundred-member guild will be celebrating its fifteenth anniversary at the end of the month. You may visit the guild’s website at www.QuiltBrooklyn.org.