Three red and white barns on the Fairfield County Fairgrounds stand against the mountainous Appalachian landscape of Mount Pleasant. Ninety-four wooden quilt squares hang neatly around the barns’ perimeters, each one colorfully and stylistically different from the next, and just about every single one is crafted by a Fairfield area student.
Web and Diane Rice, the organizers behind this artistic display, are proud of what they’ve accomplished in just three years.
“It seems like kids in sports, every week there’s something in the paper about them,” Web says. “And somebody that’s got an artistic talent about themselves, you don’t really hear a whole lot about it, and we thought this could be a way to at least showcase what they can do.”
Husband and wife Web and Diane Rice, both born and raised in Lancaster, originated the public art collaboration between the fairground and Fairfield County art students, with the first quilt blocks displayed in the spring of 2023.
Barn quilts play a special role in Ohio’s rural scenery, as the state is widely regarded as home to the country’s first barn quilt trail. Donna Sue Groves, the creator of the movement, started the Adams County trail in 2001 as a way to “promote regional tourism, support artisans and preserve old barns,” according to the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio. Since then, multiple trails have popped up in Ohio, including one in Vinton County, which totals over 25 stops and quilts.
After learning about the trails and with Web as a former fairgrounds superintendent, the couple imagined what they could do with this idea. As an inclusive, neighborly act, Web decided to reach out to local schools to see if their students were interested in participating.
So far, the couple has recruited high school art teachers Shannon Fish from Lancaster City Schools and Kim DeKay from Bloom Carroll School District, and Web recently heard from a teacher at Pickerington Central.
The first year proved a slow start, with four-by-four-foot painted quilt squares located solely around the side of the art hall situated in the corner of the property, but as Web and Diane received more student contributions, two more buildings were added into the mix to make room.
“Every single one of the school buildings in the district is represented with at least one quilt square on the fairgrounds,” Fish says.
Fish recalls how student artists return, excited to tell her they drove past the fairgrounds and could show their friends and families, pointing out specifically which one they contributed.
The project’s goal is to have every school, in every district in the entirety of Fairfield County, contribute to the quilt square fairgrounds display.
“Beyond that, just being able to have that public space for the students is really special for the kids to be validated in their work, but then also the literal visual enrichment for the whole community to see that,” Fish says.
Though dating back centuries, quilt creation ranges to contemporary, modern works holding symbolic meanings, such as cultural representations. The quilt display opens a new world of art history to the students.
“Quilting has a history probably as long as humankind,” Fish says. “We had to have some way to keep warm, for example.”
Fish teaches her students about artists like Faith Ringgold, known for her painted story quilts. Her work, according to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, focused on “stories about African American life, history, and identity, especially in her resident community of Harlem.”
Fish also discusses the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was first displayed at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Considered the largest community arts project in history with 50,000 panels representing over 110,000 individuals, the quilt commemorates the lives lost to HIV/AIDS.
She hopes these stories will encourage students to cultivate creations that are personal and special to them, whether that be something about their personal life, memories of the fair, or the way they connect to their neighborhood and area.
“While they’re working on these quilt squares, there’s a little bit of themselves in the story behind the quilt that they are making,” Fish says.
Some squares follow the traditional, symmetrical pattern, but others take a spin and add their own creative flair.
“The funkiness makes me like it,” Diane says, specifically mentioning a square with a painted deer face in the center.
Web and Diane can still describe the young artists behind the quilts, from kids whose relatives have served in the military, to foreign-exchange students, to Taylor Swift fans, even as the number of quilt squares continues to grow.
“It’s something for the kids who are artistic,” Diane says. “Give them something to feel good about.”