Quilts

The second-graders at Linthicum Elementary School had some presents Friday for AIDS babies at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore: quilts.The students helped make three quilts this spring, as part of their studies of historical figures who made a difference in the lives of others, and presented them to Carol Sue Carmon, head of the Maryland chapter of At-Risk Babies Crib Quilts, known as ABC."We made these quilts because these people made a difference in our lives and we want to make a difference in someone's life," second-grader Dustin Wiltrout told Carmon.

EVERY NINE weeks during the school year, pupils in Peg Dear's seventh-grade home economics class at Harper's Choice Middle School make a delivery to Howard County General Hospital. Each quarter, they donate about 25 quilts they have made in class to infants in the hospital's Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). "The parents love having these quilts for the babies," said Debbie Fleischmann, nurse manager for the unit. "The staff likes them because it helps us create a more homey atmosphere in the unit, to balance some of the impersonal sorts of things that they see."

Quilts about Katrina -- Slayton House Gallery on Wilde Lake Village Green, Columbia, will present an exhibit of Quilts about Katrina and Home by Patricia Ciricillo and Asylum, a mixed-media exhibit by Sarah Ingber from Tuesday through Oct. 14. Both women live in west Columbia. A reception with refreshments and classical guitar music is planned from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 16. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

PEOPLE ALL OVER the country are seeking ways to memorialize victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Members of the Faithful Circle Quilters Guild, which meets at the First Presbyterian Church in Long Reach, believed the best way to show they cared was to do what they do best -- make quilts. "A quilt is love made manifest," said Margo Cramer, a Kings Contrivance resident and guild member. "You can `hold' somebody with it and say, `We care about you.'" The guild has made 40 quilts for 40 families of firefighters lost in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Jane Johnston pokes her hands with a needle when she quilts. She jokes that after months of sewing her fingers to the fabric, she had no choice but to replace needles with paint. The result - painted stitches - has established her in the national quilting arena. Her multifaceted talents have culminated into teaching projects, awards in national competitions and frequent coverage in a national quilting publication. "Jane's quilts are definitely the quality of work we put into our magazine," said Patricia Bolton, editor-in-chief of the quarterly Quilting Arts Magazine.

Jean Hoblitzell grew up on a farm in Glyndon, and rode horseback through crisp, browning late-autumn fields, watching the sun set in a blur of purple.It's all there, in her quilts.Somewhat later, Jean Hoblitzell was an architect in New York, moving through a hard-edged urban grid of straight lines and jutting angles.That's all there, too, in the quilts.Ms. Hoblitzell, a contemporary quilt artist whose work is on display this weekend as part of a four-woman show at St. John's Episcopal Church in Glyndon, has a lot in common with those traditional quilters who created an art form out of scraps of cloths and thousands of tiny stitches.

The quilts of Gee's Bend, Ala., now on view at the Walters Art Museum, have brought national prominence and hope to an isolated rural community once thought of as an artistic backwater. The bold, improvisational quilts have been exhibited around the world, cataloged in books, celebrated in magazines and newspapers, reproduced in licensed merchandise and documented in films, turning the quilters into icons of American art. If You Go Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt runs through Aug. 26 at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. Call 410-547-9000 or go to thewalters.

You don't have to be an connoisseur to be bowled over by the quilts from Gee's Bend, Ala., which go on display tomorrow at the Walters Art Museum. With their bold patterns and vivid colors, it's the kind of contemporary art anyone can enjoy. In a remote, geographically isolated corner of the rural South, dozens of African-American women created the beautiful bed-coverings out of a practical necessity to warm body and soul. Yet the quilts of Gee's Bend have been hailed as some of the most significant works of 20th-century American art - and it's easy to see why. If You Go Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt opens tomorrow and runs through Aug. 26 at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. Call 410-547-9000 or go to thewalters.

The O'Malley Senior Center, 1275 Odenton Road, will hold a vendor and bake sale from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday. Handmade and commercial craft items such as jewelry, needle crafts, purses, quilts, artwork and other items will be available. Call 410-222-0140 for more information.

The Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis expanded with a four-story addition almost a year ago after outgrowing its space in the restored Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church. The current exhibit, Trails, Tracks, Tarmac, highlights African-American communities in northern Anne Arundel County through artifacts, oral-history recordings and documentary quilts. Museum director Wendi Perry says she is planning more programs to share African-American culture with a wider audience.