2025 Fall Celebration

Join us in celebrating both exhibitions in the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture's Year of Quilts: and .

October 16, 2025 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Nancy Nicholas Hall Link and WI Idea Room (1199)

Parallel Lines: Quilts and the American Landscape (September 3, 2025 – May 10, 2026) explores the parallel processes of quilt-making within the American home and place-making on the American landscape. Featuring nineteenth- and twentieth-century American quilts drawn from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, the exhibit examines some of the most familiar quilt forms – such as nine-patch squares, eight-pointed stars, and “log cabin” blocks with cloth strips radiating outward from a central square “hearth”– as the basis for individual creativity and innovative design. Visitors will be encouraged to view American quilts through a new lens, by comparing these geometric motifs and strong linear compositions to the boundaries, pathways, and structures of the built environment.

Find Your Quilt (October 8, 2025 – March 1, 2026) invites visitors to make their own personal connections to the quilts on display by offering a range of ideas and perspectives about the meanings of quilts. This bright and bold exhibition presents quilts and quilted objects that span the globe, materials, and time periods, showcasing the breadth and variety of this form. Intended for the quilt-enthusiast, the quilt-curious, and the quilt-skeptic alike, this exhibition explores how we define and then redefine what quilts are, have been, and could be in the future.

Support for these exhibitions comes from the Anonymous Fund.

Also check out other Exhibitions in Madison.