Collecting Secrets Revealed 12-22-11

I don't know if there is an instruction book for starting a collection, of quilts or anything else.  Perhaps, like me, people don't think they are starting a collection.  There is a saying, "Two are a pair, three is a collection."    I bought one quilt.  A few years later I bought another.  And then another.... until I had to start organizing records and storing everything.  I am up to 180 quilts of many different sizes.  Right now they are stored in several different places in my house, but the twelve inch square quilts are either on a wall or in an archival box - each encased in a mylar sleeve.  They are the easiest pieces to store, fitting well into one of the 13"x13"x6" boxes in the pictures below.   I have been working to get them all in order for a special exhibit of forty 12" x 12" quilts from the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection at Visions Art Museum in San Diego that will open on February 3, 2012, at the same time as the SAQA exhibit "Art Meets Science".

When I first started using these boxes I hadn't thought about carrying the them around, but it turned out that I needed to do that.  The only large sturdy bag with handles I could find at the time was this one from California Pizza Kitchen.  Since that day I have thought often of making a fabric bag to fit the box, but that job is way down on my "To Do" list.  As long as this one holds out I have no incentive.  When not being carried somewhere the boxes sit nicely on a shelf and don't need a bag or a handle.

The archival boxes come flat with all the scoring and cutting done.  One just uses the archival tape to put the boxes together. 

 

Each box holds twenty to twenty-four quilts - the quilts are different thicknesses and I don't want to squeeze them in too tightly.  In this picture some of the quilts are in the plastic covers that SAQA uses for their auction quilts - I did not have enough Mylar sleeves, but have recently ordered more.

Larger quilts are rolled around a "stuffie" or a covered pool noodle for storage on shelves.  And the REALLY large ones are generally flat on the guest bed.   I also have larger archival boxes to store those pieces that cannot be rolled or that have fragile bits that need special protection; although I no longer buy quilts that require special boxes or storage.

The reception for the exhibit is February 3rd from 5pm to 8pm at the VAM.  It is open to the public.   http://www.visionsartmuseum.org/

The archival boxes and Mylar sleeves are from http://www.talasonline.com/