An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles traces the relationship between the environment and traditional quilting practices through a selection of quilts from the Museum’s rich collection, dating from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

The show’s co-curators—AFAM’s Deputy Director and Chief Curatorial & Program Officer, Emelie Gevalt and the Museum’s Art Bridges Fellow, Austin Losada—will lead a walkthrough of the galleries in dialogue with one another. Together, the speakers will highlight selected quilts and accompanying materials on view—including watercolors, historical illustrations, swatch books, raw fibers, dye stuff samples, and instructional video—while exploring the botanical knowledge and industrial techniques involved in producing textile materials, colors, and patterns.

With a focus on the environmental impact of quiltmaking, this walkthrough is a unique opportunity to learn about the many facets of global material culture that emerged in the early modern period and profoundly shaped the United States in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

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Emelie Gevalt is Deputy Director and Chief Curatorial & Program Officer at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Her exhibitions at AFAM include the critically acclaimed What that Quilt Knows About Me (2023) and Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North (2023). Gevalt received her B.A. in art history and theater studies from Yale University, her M.A. from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and her doctorate in art history from the University of Delaware. Her two decades of art-world experience include positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Christie’s, New York, where she was a Vice President in the Estates, Appraisals & Valuations department. 

Austin Losada is Art Bridges Fellow working within the Curatorial and Collections & Exhibitions teams at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. He is a scholar and curator of American art and material culture with a specialty in the history of photography from its invention to the present day. Losada earned his M.A. in Material Culture Studies from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware and a B.A. in Art History and German from Rutgers University. He previously served as the Andrew W. Mellon Post-Graduate Intern at the Zimmerli Art Museum where he curated several exhibitions, including “Beauty Among the Ordinary Things”: The Photographs of William Armbruster.

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Space is limited; advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.

Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.” 

Closed captioning will be provided in English. 

For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.

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Left: Tree of Life Cutout Chintz Quilt, probably Wiscasset, Maine, c. 1925–1935, cotton, 96 x 90 in. Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in honor of Elizabeth V. Warren and Sharon L. 

Middle: Nicolas Regnault (1746–1810), “L’Anil, ou, l’Indigo [indigo],” from La botanique mise à la porteé de tout le monde; ou, Collection des plantes d’usage dans la médecine, dans les alimens et dans les arts [Botany made accessible . . .], 1774. Hand-colored engraving. New York Public Library. 

Right: 14. Wholecloth Quilt, England or United States, c. 1785–1790, cotton and linen, 96 x 93 in. Gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in honor of Laura Fisher