Quilt Presentation at Vesterheim

Peggy Derrick and Linda McShannock will present "Two Norwegian Silk Quilts in America" at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum on Sunday, March 13, at 2:00 p.m. in the Gathering Room of the museum’s Amdal-Odland Heritage Center at 523 W. Water Street. The program is free and is the final presentation offered in conjunction with Vesterheim’s exhibition "Pieces of Self: Identity and Norwegian-American Quilts," which is on view through March 20.

Two nearly-identical silk quilts were brought to America by Norwegian immigrants. These quilts, one in the collections of Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum and one at the Minnesota Historical Society, share characteristics that place them in upper class Norwegian society of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Derrick and McShannock will present research on the families that made them and handed them down. Their research includes analysis of the materials and construction of the quilts, as well as their style, designs, and aesthetic qualities within the context of Northern European quilting traditions.

Peggy Derrick is the curator at the La Crosse County Historical Society in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She has been a quilt researcher, designer, and quilt maker since 1990. She holds a BA in Art from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and an MA in Textile History (Quilt Studies emphasis) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She curated “Visual Systems: The Quilter’s Eye,” an exhibition of quilts from the International Quilt Study Center collection in 2008. Derrick has been an intern and a volunteer at Vesterheim, where she researched and photographed their collection of approximately 110 quilts.

Linda McShannock has been a collections curator at the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) since 1995. She holds a BS in Fashion Merchandising from the University of Minnesota, and an MA in Textile History (Quilt Studies emphasis) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a curator at MHS she explores themes related to Minnesota history. She recently curated “Minnesota Contemporary Quilts,” an exhibition of quilts from the Minnesota Historical Society’s collection and “Underwear - A Brief History,” which opens May 2011 and features 100 years of Munsingwear history.

The exhibition "Pieces of Self: Identity and Norwegian-American Quilts," highlights the ways Norwegian Americans have expressed gender, family, community, religious, and ethnic identities through quiltmaking. Sponsors of the exhibition are Candace and David Arp; Karen Owen Tuzcu and Ertugrul Tuzcu; The Children and Grandchildren of Ruth Nesset: VaLois and Orlin Mandsager, Diane and Larry Grimstad, Roxann and Mark Steine, Jennifer and John Lembezeder, Beth and Tom Wahlberg, Amy and Keith Bruening, Annie and Seth Muir, Emily Kellog, Ben and Padrin Grimstad, Joe and Ann Grimstad, Mary and Eylon Grimstad-Benari, Sarah and Paul Gostonczik, Hans and Denae Steine; Jill and David Amdahl; Barbara and Harry Davidson; the Northeast Iowa Quilters Guild; David and Kirsten Heine in honor of Kristie Lehman; and Jack Thompson.