On Monday we all took a day out of our glamorous, busy lives to trek into New York City to see the “Infinite Variety” quilt exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory. This was something we’d heard rumblings about a few months ago from various quilt blogs, and we were looking forward to it in a sort of “it’ll be a day off from work and we’ll look at quilts” kind of way. Then, in the weeks leading up to the exhibit, we started hearing a lot more rumblings from a lot more outlets about how this was a Big Event, a massive (and free!) public art installation of overwhelming beauty and grandeur. We began to feel a bit intimidated; public art installations of overwhelming beauty and grandeur are scary, yo! But we put on our brave pants and geared up for adventure, and boy we were ever glad we did.
This exhibit was literally breathtaking. Literally. The display space is a 55,000 square foot hall in the Park Avenue Armory, and it was just towering swirls of 650 red-and-white quilts that started at floor level and spiraled up in brightly-lit columns. It was simultaneously staggeringly enormous and intimate and approachable, and the experience of spending a leisurely morning strolling in and among so many stunning quilts was truly one of the most delightful things we’ve ever done.
It was also a photography dream come true, and we took bazillions of pictures of the exhibit and of the quilts:
IPB Living 