Spotlight: Linda LaPinta, Author

Linda LaPinta is an experienced and highly regarded academic, researcher and author who has published several books and numerous book reviews and magazine articles. Her work often highlights subjects that are unique to the Kentucky region, so it’s appropriate that her new book Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers explores the rich and social history of quilts in Kentucky.

Although there are many quilting how-to and pattern books, this fascinating book is unique as it delves into Kentucky’s pivotal role in shaping significant aspects of American quilt culture. Rounded out by colorful illustrations, enriching commentaries from notable quiltmakers, and enthralling discussions of the key players who have conserved, celebrated, and showcased the commonwealth’s extraordinary quilt culture, LaPinta’s new book is an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to learn more about one of Kentucky’s most stored traditions.

Tell us about what inspired you to write your book.

It’s funny how one’s interests and endeavors can collide in fascinatingly unpredictable, collage-like ways when one least expects it.

For example, in the mid-1990s when I conducted oral history interviews with Kentucky writers while teaching college English and journalism and earning my doctoral degree, I asked each writer I interviewed how they defined the nature of creativity and how they manifested creativity in their work. I also read each author’s body of published work to see whether their books represented their beliefs about creativity.

What a wow moment it was when I realized that among the dozens of writers I interviewed, five perspectives about creativity emerged, and each author’s view of creativity distinguished their work! And so, my dissertation focused on Kentucky writers and the nature of creativity.

Fast forward to the second decade of the twenty-first century when a University Press of Kentucky acquisitions editor asked me to write a comprehensive book about Kentucky quilts and quiltmakers. Despite my not being a quiltmaker or even a sewer, I saw quiltmaking as a creative endeavor that, like writing fine poetry and prose, is an art. What’s more, I realized that while how-to and pattern books have their place, I needed and wanted to write a social history, which is a history of women, a few men, and some enslaved workers, as well as a history of material culture. Hence, I wrote my book Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers: Three Centuries of Creativity, Community, and Commerce.

What stories do the quilts you write about tell?

What thrilled me as I researched and wrote this book is the tremendously exciting roles Kentucky has played in the quilt world from the last quarter of the eighteenth century to the present. A small sampling of the quilt artists I discuss include nineteenth-century standouts Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell, famous for her graphic and poignant Graveyard Quilt, and Virginia Ivey, honored for her exquisite, intricately stitched Russellville Fair whitework quilt. Among outstanding twentieth-century quilt realm influencers is Ruth Clement Bond, who, in the 1930s, designed the ultra-modern TVA Quilt, and Alma Lesch, whose infamous 1968 quilt, Bathsheba’s Bedspread, aided in launching the art quilt movement while inspiring soon-to-be-Kentucky and international quiltmaker superstars Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, Jane Burch Cochran, and Terrie Hancock Mangat. 

Do you see quilts as a medium to share history?

Absolutely! All material objects simultaneously represent and reflect history. Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers discusses why particular quilt patterns and colors proved popular in particular eras and how quilts mirrored (and still reflect) the values and aspirations of their makers. My book also delineates ways in which women, whose political expression and social activities may have been limited, communicated and socialized through making art, by designing and creating quilts.

Is there such a thing as the Kentucky quilt mystique?

The late quilt historian Cuesta Benberry suggested that the extremely fine handstitched quilts that originated in 1930s Kentucky, as well as the overwhelming number of Kentuckians in that decade who won quilt contests, indicated the existence of a Kentucky quilt mystique. My research suggests that Benberry’s point should not only be well-taken but should be cinched by the number of Kentucky quilt world “firsts.” For example, Kentucky was the first state to undertake a statewide quilt registry project, a practice soon followed by all other states and numerous nations. Kentucky’s own Eleanor Beard stood as an exemplary quilt world entrepreneur who paved the way for such lifestyle brands as Martha Stewart and Ralph Lauren. The American Quilter’s Society was founded in Paducah, as was the museum that became The National Quilt Museum of the United States.

What have you learned about quilt culture in your work?

Quilt culture is much like U.S. culture in that it is comprised of so many components that can and often are viewed as disparate by those adopting narrow viewpoints. Often, makers of traditional quilts and art quilts argue that one is superior to the other and that quilts belong on beds, not walls, or vice versa. I see such debates as trivial wastes of time, much as I would regard the disagreements of painters and sculptors vying to establish which medium is superior. The quilt world is huge. It is a world of creative expression, a business enterprise predicted to be worth $5 billion in sales by 2025, a historic treasure trove, and a culture in which ethical concerns exist as surely as they do in every other realm.

What’s next for you?

For the past year I have researched my next book, which will be another Kentucky-centric book that will cover lots of territory, literally and figuratively, from the eighteenth century through the end of World War I. I have learned so much from the reading I’ve done and the places I’ve seen that I can’t wait to share my discoveries with audiences who love history’s stories as much as I do.

Interview posted July, 2023