Manhattan Heat Wave, 1987, Elizabeth Cave, H. 66.5 x 81.5 inches, Mansfield, OH

Wild By Design: 200 Years Of Innovation And Artistry In American Quilts was sponsored by P& B Textiles, with additional support from: Mancuso Show Management, Nancy & David Bischoff, The Nouveau Magazine, Pidcock Partners, Sew Smart Fabrics, Steve Darlington of Prudential Fox & Roach, The Historic Lambertville House, and Triumph Brewing Company.

The making of a quilt brings together beauty and practicality, as well as history, community and culture. The exhibition features 24 dynamic quilts from the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and explores originality, abstraction, and figurative design by quilt makers from the early 1800s through today.

Album, ca. 1860-1880, Maker Unknown, H. 80.5 x W. 78 inches, United States

"Many people think of quilts primarily as exercises in rigorously geometric repeat patterning," said Janet Berlo, co-curator of the exhibition and Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester. "Yet a great free-wheeling tradition exists in quiltmaking in which improvisation, asymmetry, and experimentation are the norm... this creative and original artistic impulse can be documented back to the early years of quiltmaking in this country. For at least two hundred years, American women artists have made quilts in which off-beat color placement and manipulation of printed textile patterns have combined with bold experimentation in block formation and appliquié.

A quilt grows out of many aspects of the makers' life: scraps of fabric saved from worn garments can be reminders of good times and bad times. Some quilts record an event, portray a story or symbolize the nature of the human spirit.

	Changing and Permanent Exhibits

	In Doylestown: Lilli Gettinger: Memory Transformed Color: Ten African-American Artists Elliott Erwitt: Dog Dogs In New Hope: Art and the River