One Quilt, One Person, One Camera, Three Minutes: Quilt Alliance's Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! Project

• In Event: OHA Poster Session and Project Bazaar

Abstract

Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! (GTI), a project created by the national non-profit Quilt Alliance (QA) to document quiltmaking traditions in the 21st century, centers on one person talking about one quilt for up to three minutes. We film GTI interviews ‘in the field' where quiltmakers gather: large quilt shows, local guild meetings, and museum exhibitions. Since its inception in 2013, we have collected over 320 GTIs with quiltmakers, curators, quilt recipients, and others who love quilts.

QA created GTI during a transition with its longstanding oral history project, Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (QSOS), which began recording long-form audio interviews in 1999. By 2013, volunteers had interviewed over 1200 quiltmakers, but the archive was rarely accessed and grassroots collection of interviews had slowed. GTI aims to supplement QSOS audio and transcripts with short, easily shared videos.

GTI complements QSOS by 1) requiring less investment of time, training, and equipment for QA staff and volunteers, 2) engaging our audiences on social media, 3) broadening the scope of QA's projects to include not just quiltmakers but quilt owners, family members, curators, collectors, and other quilt appreciators. We are in early stages of creating training documentation and equipment loans for groups and guilds interested in collecting stories in their own communities, a self-sustaining grassroots project centered around individual quilts.

At the Project Bazaar, we will share Go Tell It! videos at several 'viewing stations' (laptops/tablets with headphones) and information about the Quilt Alliance and its projects.

Authors

• Emma Parker, Quilt Alliance

• Janneken Smucker, West Chester University