I am fascinated by the concept of the barn quilt. I have been thinking a lot about the similarities and differences of barn quilts with other building adornments like historic advertisements that we see here in Ellensburg, WA. As well as their connection to graffiti and contemporary murals found in urban spaces.

My understanding is that the history of barn quilts in the United States traces back 300+ years (early 1700's) to Pennsylvania and the immigrants who moved/settled there from Germany, Austria, and Netherlands. They brought traditions of barn decoration with them. At the time the high price and scarcity of paint, led people to create barn quilts as a way to add decoration to their barn but with limited materials.

They were also used at the time as navigational aids to help identify and direct people to a particular family’s farm. I can hear them, “Take a left at the barn with the “Broken Star” quilt and then go aways until you reach the barn with the Red Cross pattern.”

As the price fell and availability of paint increased, the popularity of these barn quilts increased through the end of the 1800's. There even became a market for specialized artisans who did some of this design work and painting. The 1900's brought with it the rise of barn advertising, probably most well know was Red Man Chewing Tobacco. This commercialization of these facades coincided with a diminishment of barn quilts.

In the early 2000's Donna Sue Groves is credited with creating the first Barn Quilt Trail in Adams County Ohio. She envisioned this as a way to share her communities arts and heritage with the broader community as well as honor her own family’s Appalachian heritage. By this time they had long since lost their function as a navigational aid, but were a destination themselves as rural arts objects reflecting heritage and identity.

We do see in our area the adoption of barn quilts including some that communicate more modern identities such as reflecting profession of firefighter or support of a football team. The quilt squares I have been painting diverge from the tradition of the geometric quilt square pattern. Instead they explore imagery from my family history, place that surrounds me, and rural identities real and imagined.

This series is not finished, I will update as I explore and learn more from working creating these quilts.