New Successes for Teri Klassen’s Work in Quilt Studies

Teri Klassen has recently completed her doctoral qualifying exams in folklore here at Indiana University in preparation for a doctoral dissertation focused on the social life of quilts in the United States. She has also now received grant funding for a phase of her project titled “Quilt Styles of West Tennessee Sharecroppers and Tenant Farmers of the Early to Mid 1900s.” Her award is the 2008-2009 Lucy Hilty Research Fund Grant  given by the American Quilt Study Group.

Earlier this year, she curated the exhibition “Family Patterns of Tradition” for Bloomington Restorations Inc. It is an exhibit of 32 quilts made from about 1930 to 2000 by Erdine Brown and two of her daughters, Betty Cates and Faye Doolin, of western Kentucky. The exhibit will be open to the public one more time, from 1-4 p.m., Saturday, May 31, at BRI headquarters, 2920 E. Tenth Street, Bloomington IN 47408. For more information, call BRI (812) 336-0909.