Ohio's Barn Quilts-- Part 1

From the April 21-27 American Profile "Barn Quilts: Folk art movement covers the countryside" by Marti Attoun.

Donna Sue Groves and her mother, Maxine, bought a farm in Adams County, Ohio, in 1989 and came up with an idea of how to add some pizzaz to it and honor her mother by painting a quilt square on it. She remembered in her childhood watching her mother and grandmother sewing and socializing with friends over magnificent quilts.

In 2000, she expanded her folk art idea and, as an Ohio Arts Council employee, decided she could enlist local artists to paint them on barns throughout the county and this would also draw tourists.

The Adams Count Quilt Sampler Committe was set up and drew guidelines for the 8-foot-by-eight-foot painted wooden quilt squares. On October 2001, an "Ohio Star" quilt debuted at the Lewis Mountain Olde Thyme Herb Fair in Manchester, Ohio.

The squares caught on right away and soon barns all over the county had them and tourists began driving the back roads looking for them. "Donna Sue's gift to her mother had become a gift to rural America."

And, I Like to See Patterns on Local Wooden Barns. --RoadDog