Everything But the Bedroom Quilt
October 20, 2022, 7p | In-person and Zoom Webinar
With Nick Powers, Curator of Collections, Museum of Shenandoah Valley
Attributed to an unidentified maker living at the Shenandoah County Alms House, possibly Catharine Snarr
Maurertown area, Shenandoah County, Virginia
While the Shenandoah Valley is known for its strong quilting tradition, quilts are only one facet of the tapestry of textiles produced and used in the region. Samplers and needlework pictures, sumptuously decorated whitework, homespun blankets in vibrant colors, and even firebags emblazoned with owners’ names transformed Shenandoah Valley houses into homes. Drawing largely from the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley Collection, this lecture will explore “everything but the bedroom quilt.”
Nick Powers is Curator of Collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia. A native of the Shenandoah Valley, Powers graduated from James Madison University in 2011 with a degree in History. In 2014, he graduated from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware. At the MSV, Powers researches, exhibits, and lectures on the museum’s collection of Valley fine, decorative, and folk art, as well as the collection of American, European, and Asian art assembled by museum benefactor Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910-1992). Powers is the author of several articles on Shenandoah Valley and Southern decorative arts and material culture.