By Shawn Hartley Hancock For years, the late Jane Fitzpatrick, whom we’ve unreservedly and respectfully called the queen of the Berkshires, displayed a crazy quilt on the wall of her office at Country Curtains, the business she founded with her husband Jack back in 1956. Country Curtains is headquartered in Stockbridge, Mass., at the Red Lion Inn, which the Fitzpatrick family continues to own and operate. Turns out, in addition to being a leading businesswoman, Mrs. Fitz, as she was often called, was also an inveterate collector, from Staffordshire, toleware and Majolica to fine art and furniture (she even had a Santa Claus collection); she seems to have collected almost anything of beauty and utility. Jane's affinity for textiles, however — her first and best love — may have been the driving force behind her love of quilts. Over the decades, Jane collected quilts in all sizes and style and that span more than 100 years, representing the best of this domestic art in terms of design, craftsmanship and innovation.
"Quilts were always important to Jane," says Marilyn Hansen, a 40-year employee of the company who also tracked Jane's collections. "If the quilts weren't displayed, they were used in some other way, even as picnic blankets. Jane never got upset about using her quilts — nothing was ever squirreled away." After Fitzpatrick died in late 2013, her daughters Nancy and Ann discussed where their mother's quilt collection might go. Country Curtains has a store in Old Sturbridge Village, and also at Strawberry Banke in New Hampshire. Either museum would have been a natural recipient. It was daughter Nancy who suggested the collection "stay local" and go to Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass. "Jane just wanted them to be appreciated and preserved," Hansen says, but Nancy knew they needed to stay in the Berkshires. The bequest from the Fitzpatrick Family to Hancock Shaker Village included more than 70 quilts of all styles and sizes, which makes the current exhibit of the Fitzpatrick quilts at Hancock Shaker Village seem more an extension of the owner's actual spirit than simply another collection on display. Hancock's curator, Lesley Herzberg, welcomed the quilts into the museum's education collection, and with curatorial assistant, Sarah Browne, recently organized a colorful and dynamic exhibit of them — 26 in all — that are now on view in the Shaker museum's Brick Dwelling. Living Designs & Shared Values: Highlights from the Jane P. Fitzpatrick Quilt Collection will remain on view through October 30, and is included in regular admission.
"It was a challenge to review the group of 70 quilts and get it down to 25," says Browne. "We chose the quilts in the best condition and grouped them by visual interest." There are seven quilts with a garden theme, for example, including those that follow classic patterns like the Cactus Rose, Honeycomb, Flower Basket and Kentucky Rose. In the community quilt category, a nine-block appliqued quilt from the 1850s called the Whig Rose or Democrat Rose, conveys its maker's political bent. It is joined by a handful of classic "community" patterns, including the friendship album and old-fashioned star patterns — quilts made by many hands to serve a community need, as, say, a wedding gift for a local couple, as a community fundraiser, or to mark a special occasion, such as a minister's departure. Creativity is celebrated in another category of the exhibit that features the Sawtooth Star, Virginia Star, and Four Winds, all patterns from the 1840s to the 1890s. The colors in this group come alive in the serenity of the Shaker setting. HSV's curatorial team got essential support from HSV's Quilting Friends, who made minor repairs to many of the quilts, including sewing on sleeves so quilts could be safely and appropriately hung, and who also helped with exhibit setup. (To see a fast-motion video of the collection as it was photographed for the HSV archives, click here.)
Fitzpatrick's eye for detail, her quest for excellence and her intuitive leadership style inspired admiration and respect throughout the Berkshires. It's no wonder her quilts reflect those same qualities. Domesticity is the underlying theme of the exhibit. Like their Shaker counterparts, the women who toiled to make these remarkable examples of design and craftsmanship, many whose names will forever be unknown to us, balanced the needs of their families, their community responsibilities, their precious time and all other available resources to create them. Most quilts in the collection have no direct connection to the Shakers, except one. In the category of Crazy Quilts — the one behind Fitzpatrick's desk for all those years! — bears a Shaker provenance: It was made around 1910 by Josephine Jilson for Sister Annie Bell Tuttle when she lived at the Shaker community in Harvard, Mass. (Tuttle eventually moved to the Shaker community at Hancock.) Several of its patches are made from Shaker silk scarves, and one includes a typewritten blessing from maker to recipient: "I cannot find a truer word nor fonder to caress you. Nor song, nor poem have I heard is sweeter than God Bless You." Living Designs & Shared Values: Highlights from the Jane P. Fitzpatrick Quilt Collection on view through Oct. 30 Hancock Shaker Village Open every day through October 30 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
