Roberta Gellner's March 30 Presentation Complements Quaker Heritage Center's Current Quilt Exhibit
Complementing the gallery exhibit on quilts at the Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center is the program, "Peaceable Labors: Quaker Quilt Connections from Virginia to Ohio," on March 30, at 7 p.m., at the Clinton County History Center, 149 E. Locust St., in Wilmington.
PICTURED: Visitors view the Quaker Heritage Center's "Quilts Through Time Honoring Quaker Women" exhibit.
Roberta Gellner will share her vast knowledge of Quaker quilts from southwest Ohio. The program is free of charge and open to the public.
Gellner grew up in West Virginia and learned to sew and quilt at an early age. Upon retiring from a career in environmental engineering, she obtained a graduate certificate in quilt studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has served with the West Virginia Quit Documentation Project and this past year she assumed leadership of the Project.
Since 2019, Gellner has been studying Quaker quilts from southwest Ohio, including the Walthall family quilts that are part of the collection at the Quaker Heritage Center. She is a member of the American Quilt Studies Group.
The March 30 program at the History Center is a companion presentation to the Quaker Heritage Center Gallery exhibit titled "Quilts through Time: Honoring Quaker Women and Quilting in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries through the Quilts of the Meriam R. Hare Collection." Normal gallery hours are weekdays, through Aug. 2, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The QHC is located in Boyd Cultural Arts Center, corner of College and Douglas streets.
In this exhibit, viewers will witness the painstaking artistry of three generations of Quaker women quilting in Clinton County, Ohio, from the 1840s to the 1960s. "As you travel through time, you will view 13 quilts drawn from the collection of Quaker Heritage Center founder and Quaker Meriam R. Hare (b. 1928-d. 2003).
"Hare collected and cared for these quilts throughout her lifetime, consistent with her deep desire to pass on Quaker heritage to future generations. Quaker women created textiles and quilts for a variety of reasons: artistic expression, economic support for their families, social connection and to express political views and beliefs. It is because of these same reasons that many individuals continue to quilt today and why quilting remains a powerful medium of human expression in the present.”