Quilts on Barns

Goddard Barn quilt Kentucky photo by Chris Breeze  (everystockphoto)

I've been hearing more and more about rural communities getting excited about revamping barns and having 8 foot by 8 foot quilt paintings created to hang on the exteriors to beautify the architecture and create tourism.  I am looking into this subject more because of my own interest and because I think it may be a nice way to connect to an art lesson for this fall.

Last week in our local paper a nearby community was recognized for it's barn quilt fame.  It all started as a personal interest of one person but it grew on the community and so many more people became involved as the project gained fame.  Rosemary of  Rosemary's Blog has written a lovely post about several of the quilts on the barns near me in Caledonia Minnesota.  I also have a friend that is going to loan me the calendar that was published last year as a fundraiser for the Chamber of Commerce.  If time allows, I'll take a little drive there myself to do a little photo shoot to get some good reference photos for the kids to use.  If I happen to see new calendars, I'll pick a few of those up too. 

Here is a link to the article that I noticed in the La Crosse Tribune. 

I'd like to create a power point presentation with photos of barns around the state.  Wisconsin certainly has some interesting ones.  I know that the southeastern side of the state also has many barns with the quilt designs.  It might be fun to connect the students with the blog that Jen writes as she specializes in drafting patterns for the barn quilts she photographs. 

Quilt Patch Barn photo by designatednaphour (everystockphoto)

Although it might be nice to do a full color piece with the barn quilt, I am also thinking it may show emphasis if we rendered the barn in strong values of black, white, and gray and did the quilt design in vivid color.  Wouldn't that be spectacular?