Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement

The story of the American Quilt Trail, featuring the colorful patterns of quilt squares writ large on barns throughout North America, is the story of one of the fastest-growing grassroots public arts movements in the United States and Canada. In Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement Suzi Parron travels through twenty-nine states and two Canadian provinces to visit the people and places that have put this movement on America's tourist and folk art map.

Through dozens of interviews with barn artists, committee members, and barn owners Parron documents a journey that began in 2001 with the founder of the movement, Donna Sue Groves. Groves's desire to honor her mother with a quilt square painted on their barn became a group effort that eventually grew into a county-wide project. Today, registered quilt squares form a long imaginary clothesline, appearing on more than three thousand barns scattered along one hundred driving trails.

With more than fifty full-color photographs, Parron documents a movement that combines rural economic development with an American folk art phenomenon.

Suzi Parron is a quilter, backwoods traveler, and avid collector of folk art. She holds a Master of Arts in English from the University of Florida, with a concentration in the literature of the American South. She teaches English at Lakeside High School in Atlanta.

Donna Sue Groves launched the Ohio Quilt Barn Project in 2001. She was formerly the Southern Ohio field coordinator for Ohio's Appalachian Arts Initiative and the Southern Ohio field representative for the Ohio Arts Council. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2010 Ohio Governor's Award for the Arts in Community Development and Partnerships.