Quilting Connections

by Laura Sims Peck

The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is an exceptional teaching and research collection. Home to nearly 14,000 global textiles, the state-of-the-art facility is nestled within the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture in the School of Human Ecology. Hosting students and scholars from across campus, the country, and even the globe, the collection is used for coursework, object study, design analysis, and publications within a museum lab environment.

For the 2025–26 season, our team is honoring the recent gift of Nancy M. Bruce’s family in recognition of her keen interest in quilts. The collection contains over 100 quilts dating from the 18th century to today. The theme “Quilting Connections” brings together many of the collection’s quilted objects in two stunning exhibitions.

Curator Marina Moskowitz, professor of Design Studies and the Lynn and Gary Mecklenburg Chair in Textiles, Material Culture & Design, presents Parallel Lines: Quilts and the American Landscape in the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery. Focusing on 19th- and 20th-century American quilts, the exhibit explores the individual creativity and innovative designs derived from some of the most familiar quilt forms—such as nine-patch squares, eight-pointed stars, and “log cabin” blocks with cloth strips radiating outward from a central square “hearth.” Visitors are encouraged to view American quilts through a new lens, by comparing these geometric motifs to the terrain, boundaries, pathways, and structures of the built environment.

Find Your Quilt, curated by Dr. Sophie Pitman, the Pleasant Rowland Textile Specialist and Research Director of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, is on view in the adjacent Ruth Davis Design Gallery. Calling visitors to chart their own pathways through the exhibition, Dr. Pitman defines and then redefines what quilts are, have been, and could be in the future. Through the exhibition, attendees are invited to make their own personal connections to the quilts on display. Intended for the quilt enthusiast, the quilt curious, and the quilt skeptic alike, this bright and bold exhibition presents quilts and quilted objects that span the globe, materials, and time periods, showcasing the breadth and variety of this form.

Both exhibitions take careful yet varied approaches to quilts and quiltmaking. The breadth of the textile collection highlights the versatility of the medium. Historic objects are displayed in conversation with loans from contemporary makers in Find Your Quilt and with complementary historical objects and images in Parallel Lines. Both strategies invite dialogue and reflection. What is a quilt? What can it tell us about the maker? The maker’s community? The time in which it was created? These two exhibitions present quilts as distinct objects of study within a textile context and well beyond, inviting all who visit to rethink what they know about quilts. 

Laura Sims Peck is the Senior Operations Manager at the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture.