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A museum gallery with interactive music-themed exhibits, warm ambient lighting, and visitors engaged with hands-on displays

Smithsonian Honors Black Panther

The Smithsonian African American Museum unveiled a new exhibit paying homage to Chadwick Boseman's iconic Black Panther costume.

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Two children exploring a hands-on museum exhibit, engaged and curious, in a warm and inviting gallery space

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Articles

When Quilts Cross The Line Into Art
A quilt can be a bedcover, a family record, a political statement, or a carefully composed work intended for a gallery wall. The phrase “quilt as art” sounds…
How Quilting Can Support Mental Health Through Museum Workshops
A quilt begins with small decisions: selecting cloth, matching colours, cutting shapes and joining pieces. In a museum workshop, these actions become part of a…
Preserving the Legacy of African American Quilt Guilds in the South
African American quilt guilds across the Southern United States have long served as places of creative practice, mutual care and historical memory. Their…
Inside the Museum’s Interactive Quilt Design Table
A new interactive touch table is giving visitors a fresh way to understand quilts as works of art, records of family life and examples of practical design.…
Reading Trade Routes in Quilt Fabrics
A quilt can preserve a map of movement in its fibres, colours and printed motifs. A piece of cotton may have been grown in India, spun in Lancashire, dyed in…
The economics of quilt making in the 1800s
A nineteenth-century quilt was shaped by household budgets, trade routes, available cloth and the value placed on skilled hands. Its finished appearance can…
Stitches That Carry the Smoky Mountains Forward
In the misty ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains, quilting is more than a decorative craft. It is a family language, a record of place and a practical response…
Why the museum is digitizing its entire quilt pattern library
A quilt pattern can look like a simple arrangement of shapes, yet it often carries instructions, family history, regional style and evidence of changing…
Turning wedding dresses into heirloom quilts across generations
A bridal gown is far more than a single day of satin and stitching. Once the ceremony ends and the photographs are filed away, the dress often lives on in a…
Foundational Reads for Quilt History
Quilt history has moved from a quiet corner of American folk studies into a vibrant interdisciplinary field that draws on textile science, social history,…

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