The Nantucket Historical Association will launch a Community Quilt project corresponding with their 2025 featured exhibition, Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket. The project invites Nantucket community members to contribute a panel to a conceptual quilt. A celebratory display of works of art will be revealed at the NHA’s Community Day, slated for Monday, August 4. Additional Community Quilt panel contributions and displays will continue into the fall at NHA programs and events and conclude with an exhibition finale celebration in October that will include an auction of the Community Quilt panels.
“We are very excited to launch another initiative directly tied to our exhibition and theme for the year. After the success of Morton, the Sea Monster, and our Tony Sarg exhibition, we wanted to work to create programming and initiatives that all members of the community can take part in and experience while inviting them to visit our exhibit,” said Niles Parker, NHA Gosnell Executive Director. “There is a long-standing history of community quilt-making that our exhibition touches on and that we have examples of in our collection, so we are excited to spearhead the creation of a piece of work that can be in this same spirit and showcase the story of the Nantucket community today.”
The Community Quilt project will invite contributors, including individuals, organizations, and businesses to interpret what the Nantucket community means to them. All art mediums are welcome, from fabric to paint and more, with the NHA providing a 8”x8” wood diamond panel to each contributor for their artwork, thanks to the generous support of materials from Nantucket Create. In addition to community member contributions, the NHA will be making a series of Community Quilt project panels at many of their programs and events to provide community members with an opportunity to view panel-making in action. The NHA will launch the making of the first Community Quilt panel on Friday, April 11 at Unwind Under the Whale: Transcription Night from 5:30-7 pm at the Whaling Museum.
Textiles have long been made by and for communities to express social connection and reflect local identity. From the mid-19th century “album quilts” or “friendship quilts” with their distinctive signatures to embroidered crazy quilts with whimsical designs, many quilts commemorate friendships and community gatherings and are themselves products of communal work. The NHA collection holds many examples of these meaningful pieces, some of which will be displayed in the exhibition Behind the Seams.
The NHA’s exhibition Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket will go on display at the Nantucket Whaling Museum on Memorial Day Weekend and is supported by generous funding from presenting sponsor Nantucket Looms and the Charina Foundation and Murray’s Toggery Shop.