Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red & White Quilts

Designed for the American Folk Art Museum and presented at the Park Avenue Armory, this exhibition featured 651 quilts on loan from the collection of Joanna S. Rose.

Six 30-foot-high cylinders of red-and-white quilts surround a 50-foot-high spiral of quilts rising out of a circle of chairs: an homage to the vibrancy and creativity of quilters working together through the generations. Thinc responded to the collector's wish to see all the quilts on display simultaneously, and the curator's desire that they be arranged not by pattern, time period, or region, but in a visually exciting manner. The resulting space speaks to the geometry, creativity and social nature of community quilting circles, striking a balance between immense quantity and intricate detail. The exhibition set a record for weekly attendance at an Armory show, drawing quilters and non-quilters into an exuberant experience that grew daily through word-of-mouth and wide-ranging press attention.

"Designed for the American Folk Art Museum and presented at New York's Park Avenue Armory, this playground of visual and tactile delight...done with steadfast grace and exquisite vision can afford us a glipse of heaven on earth."
- Simon Schama, CBE, FRSL
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