NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

7/10/2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES-The Natchitoches/NSU Folk Festival will host a Louisiana Quilt Documentation Clinic conducted by Dr. Susan Roach, folklorist for the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program at Louisiana Tech, July 19-20.

Visitors to the Festival can bring their quilts for documentation on July 19, from noon until 4 p.m. and July 20, from 11 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Quilt makers and/or owners are invited to bring their quilts made in Louisiana during any period from the days of earliest settlement of the state to the present. Additionally, information regarding quilt preservation/conservation will also be available.

The quilts documented at the Festival will be included in a Louisiana Quilt Web site with a searchable database to be posted on-line through the Folklife Program in the Louisiana Division of the Arts.

The documentation will be held in the west concourse of the Prather Coliseum on the Northwestern State University campus. This is the 12th documentation site for the series of clinics held by Dr. Roach. Among these documentation sites are the Louisiana State Cotton Museum, Concordia Parish Library in Vidalia, the Old Courthouse Museum in Natchitoches, the Lincoln Parish Museum and the Stagecoach Museum in Mt. Lebanon.

"Although we already had one documentation in Natchitoches, what I saw convinced me that I needed to see even more," said Roach. "I hope to see some of our state's oldest quilts of both the fancy and everyday varieties. They don't have to be in great condition or award winning. This is not a quilt beauty contest, but a scholarly effort to see the scope of quilt production in the state."

The documentation will include identification, measurement, photographing and
collection of stories on the quilts and the quilt makers. According to Roach, the long-
term goal is to collect enough information on quilts from all areas of the state to develop
community and statewide exhibitions and a publication on quilts from Louisiana. Handouts on quilt care and on-line and bibliographical resources on quilting will be available at the clinic. Current books on quilting will also be displayed.

Drawing from her years of research on traditional quiltmaking, Roach, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on rraditional quiltmaking of North Louisiana women, has developed the Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project, based on quilt documentation projects done in Mississippi and other states.

No appointment is needed; however, people bringing more than five quilts may wish to contact the Louisiana Folklife Center at (318) 357-4332 or Dr. Roach to set a special time or to obtain documentation forms ahead of time since it takes some time to complete a form for each quilt. To schedule an appointment for documentation or for more information, contact Dr. Susan Roach at the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program at (318) 257-2728 or e-mail at msroach@garts.latech.edu.

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