Exhibition curator Jill D’Alessandro of FAMSF explains, “Although Amish women first learned quiltmaking from their ‘English’ [non-Amish] neighbors, they quickly developed a unique sensibility of their own, coupling distinctive choices of quilt patterns and fabrics with unusual spatial arrangements. They were made to be both aesthetically pleasing and utilitarian and, yet, still had to adhere to the code of the Ordung , an oral tradition of religious rules governing Amish social customs and moral life. A decade or more of feminism now permits us to acknowledge what was previously devalued as “women’s work” for the Amish adhere to rigid gender roles and the quilts are always made by women. Amish, the art of the quilt / text, Robert Hughes ; plate commentary, Julie Silber.

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