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PHOTO: An 8-by-8 foot barn quilt square on the LaCasse Bat Factory, 4 Madison Ave., Skowhegan. (High Peaks Creative Council photo)
FARMINGTON – A grant to the High Peaks Creative Council has resulted in 15 new quilt block murals created and installed across Somerset County.
The murals are in Lexington Township, New Portland, Anson, Embden, Madison, East Madison, Solon and Skowhegan. They join a similar effort in Franklin County that has resulted in 30 barn quilt murals. The HPCC plans to add 20 more in southern Franklin. The trail is part of the American Barn Quilt Trail network.
The High Peaks Creative Council received a Community Building grant from the Maine Community Foundation and the Jean and King Cummings Fund to support the public art project. In May, the HPCC hosted nine days of free community workshops at the Solon Hotel, East Madison Grange, SPACE on the River in Skowhegan and Madison Lakewood Clubhouse. Saskia Reinholt and teaching assistant Jessica O’Brien, instructed community participants on the history of barn paintings, drafting designs, color theory, brush handling and painting techniques.
“Barn quilts connect two parts of American culture, quilt block patterns that were designed and handed down through generations of families and rural agriculture,” Reinholt said. “There are over 7,000 barns quilts in North America, it is the largest grassroots public art movement in the history of our country. We chose to bring this project to our rural communities to celebrate an art form born from American culture and to teach geometry, color theory and painting techniques to people of all ages.”
She said that in the first round, they taught more than 600 children in five schools and since the pandemic have worked with nearly 200 people between the ages of 5 and 91 in community workshops.
The largest murals are 8-by-8 feet on the LaCasse Bat Factory on Madison Avenue in Skowhegan and on the old Skowhegan Grange on U.S. Route 201. The HPCC plans to put out a comprehensive map guide to include the new barn quilts.
A book documenting the barn quilt project is envisioned as a fund raising project for 2022. For more information, visit www.highpeaksmaine.org.
