Monday, July 11, 2005 10:39 AM CDT
Historic handiwork Quilts from Folk Arts Collection now on display at Tarble
CHARLESTON -- All of the quilts in the Tarble Arts Center's Folk Arts Collection form the core of this summer's exhibition at Eastern Illinois University.
The exhibition, titled "Quilts, Rugs and Cushions From the Folk Arts Collection," runs through Aug. 14 in the main galleries. Admission is free and the public is invited to see the exhibition.
The quilts range from an example of a red and green appliqué quilt circa 1840 to the recently completed Tarble Arts Center Teaching Quilt created especially for the Tarble by members of Quiltworks. The exhibition also includes an overshot coverlet, rugs, pillows and seat cushions dating from the early- to late-20th century.
Perhaps the most unusual piece in the exhibition is an unfinished "Barn Raising Log Cabin" quilt top by Elvia Tarble, the mother of Newton E. Tarble, benefactor for whom the Tarble Arts Center is named.
Born in New Hampshire in 1860, Elvia came to Illinois in 1868 as an orphan to live near Casey with relatives. Elvia Baker married Martin A. Tarble in 1881. Together they raised six children at the Tarble home near Martinsville, where Elvia lived until her husband died in 1923.
The quilt was started while Elvia Tarble was convalescing from a broken hip. Complications set in, from which she never recovered. The quilt top's edges remain unfinished as they were at the time of Elvia Baker Tarble's death in 1932.
Making up the bulk of the exhibition are pieces by the Mattoon quilter Cora Meek. Born in 1898, Meek did not gain attention as a folk artist until she was in her 90s. She received an Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Award at the age of 101.
Meek's quilts are included in the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution. In the Tarble exhibition are crazy quilts, embroidered denim quilts, and quilts made from satin funeral ribbons. Meek died in Charleston at the age of 111.
Also exhibited is a circa 1930s star pattern quilt is reported to have come from Oakland. Illinois Amish pieces include a wool quilt and a seat cushion circa 1910 by Katie Kauffman, another early-20th century wool quilt by an unknown maker, and a crib quilt by Eliza Schrock from 1984.
Pieces collected as a result of the National Endowment for the Arts-funded folk arts surveys conducted by the EIU College of Fine Arts in the late 1970s and early 1980s are: quilts by Virginia Buckner (Decatur) and Louise Hageman (Danville); a coverlet by Charlotte Baker (Charleston); rugsby Helen Albin (Decatur), Iline Clark (Mattoon), Zora Moore (Oakland), the Macon County Historical Society Woman's Folk Art Group, Alice Sturgell (Elbridge), Lola E. Wade (Ingraham); a braided chair cushion by Albin; and pillows by Hageman and Brose Phillips (Harrisburg). The rugs are hooked, crocheted, braided, woven and stitched.
The works on exhibition were acquired through donations from Quiltworks, Nell Settle and Earl Tarble, and Louise Hageman, with purchases made through donations from Nell and Philip Settle, Tarble membership contributions, and grants from the Charles E. Merrill Trust and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Many of the Meek quilts are on extended loan from the artist's estate.
The Tarble Arts Center is located on Ninth Street at Cleveland Avenue, on the Eastern Illinois University campus in Charleston. Summer hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday; closed Mondays.
For information call 581-ARTS (-2787), log on to www.eiu.edu/~tarble, or e-mail cfmw@eiu.edu.
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