Barn Quilt Trails of North America (Kentucky)

Whenever I visit Kentucky, I am struck by the beautiful "painted quilts" that can be seen featured on barns that sit along the smaller highways.  More of these quilt murals can be seen on city businesses, the lovely colorful tributes to handmade crafts and Appalachian culture providing an interesting contrast to the colonial architecture of the area.  If you often drive on country roads through mainland U.S. or Canada, you may have seen these so-called "Barn Quilts."  They are large square pieces of  wood or metal that have been painted to resemble a traditional quilt block.  A few are more ambitious, and incorporate tiny blocks or try to create the illusion of flowing drapery, but most of the ones that I have seen were simple, beautiful, brightly-painted blocks that are easy to see at a distance.  Some lovely examples of the different kinds of Barn Quilts can be found here.

The “Quilt Trail” tradition is believed to have begun in Ohio in 2001, with a set of 20 quilts along a trail. A woman named Donna Sue Groves wanted to find a unique way to celebrate her mother and her Appalachian roots, and worked with several committees to create the first official route of painted quilts. She ended up starting a tradition that spread throughout North America.   Many of these Quilt Trails are now sponsored by entire communities, or by arts-based organizations.  For just two examples, here are the lovely websites dedicated to the "Quilt Trails" of McDowell County, North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina.

You can read a little more about the history of Barn Quilts on Wikipedia, although it looks like there are some disagreements between websites about the origin of the trails, and about just how many states feature Quilt Trails at this point.  There are also links to some lovely maps that have been made that incorporate barn quilt thumbnails if you wish to design your own Quilt Trail Tour.   The set of maps that I've found is from 2011, but there are probably more recent maps available.  Here is the map for the Barn Quilts in Madison County, KY, which is where I was visiting. 

Here are some photographs of the Barn Quilts that I was able to see while I was in Madison County (apologies for the darker images):

On Barns:

 

That same barn, close up:

Painted quilts on local businesses:

 

 Some musicians playing in front of the gallery during a "First Friday" event:

 And this one looks like a pixelated weaving draft:

It's fun to drive around and find these painted quilts.  It's sort of like an Easter Egg hunt on a country drive.  And I think it encourages me to look at familiar crafts and techniques as inspiration for a wide range of media.  Don't you want to paint quilt blocks or turn textile patterns into stationery now?