RIPLEY, Ohio – Donna Sue Groves of Ohio initially wanted to display a painted quilt design on her family’s Adams County barn as a tribute to her late mother, who was a quilter. Taking it one step further, Groves, a member of the Ohio Arts Council at the time, organized the first collection of barn quilts across southwest Ohio in 2001.

Groves advised others to take the beautiful and colorful designs found in the rural folk art of quilting and place them on the side of barns throughout the countryside as a public art project to boost tourism.

The seed of Groves’ idea grew into the first barn quilt trail, one which adorned 20 barns in her county. Neighboring Brown County, Ohio, created a trail soon after. Then other counties in Ohio followed. There are now 33 counties in Ohio that have quilt barn trails. In the decades since, the idea has stretched far beyond Ohio, with barn quilt trails found as far away as California and Texas.  

Barn quilts are painted squares that are mounted on a barn or other farm building.

“One county took the idea and then another county took it,” said Tom Cross, executive director of the Adams County Visitors Bureau. “It started right here.”

Two years after the ‘birth’ of these barn quilts, Kathy McCarty invited Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement author Suzi Parron to speak to her Ashtabula County quilting group. Before long, McCarty was painting her first 4-by-4 foot barn quilt square.

 “I made the first six in my garage,” McCarty said.

 Today, there are a total of 113 4-by-4 foot and 8-by-8 foot barn quilt squares throughout the Ashtabula County Barn Quilt Trail, including on some of the area’s famed covered bridges.

 “We have 27 townships, and the idea was to put one in every township,” McCarty said. “But you find out you don’t plan your trail, your trial kind of plans you.”

 Many Ohio counties have their own names for their particular trails. Lorain County has the Patchwork Trails, Vinton County has a Stitch in Time trail, and Carroll County displays its quilts in the Carroll County Quilt Square Park. Carroll’s 14 squares depict culture, history and landmarks in the county.

 The quilt patterns are often applied to large sheets of plywood, painted in traditional quilt patterns that reflect something about the area or the artist. Some of the squares are projects of 4-H clubs, service groups, or artists, as in the case of Mexican folk artist Rafael Santoyo, who gave the Miami County quilt squares a look all their own through his bright color choices and freehand painting style.

Kentucky developed its own grassroots committees to spearhead the creation of these barn quilts. Kayla Speis, communications director at the Murray Convention and Visitors Center, in Kentucky said residents joined Ruth Dodd in 2010 when she started organizing the creation of barn quilts alongside the Calloway County Extension Homemakers Association to attract tourists to the small city in western Kentucky. Calloway County has one of the largest quilt trails in the region with more than 60 recorded locations.

“Painted versions of traditional quilts can bring communities together,” said Chris Cathers, Kentucky Arts Council Executive Director. “They work together to create them, often in tandem with a Cooperative Extension Office, and the finished products proudly displays a connection to culture and history.”

 The rich tradition of quilting across the nation has lent itself to the modern public art form, and Cathers said that’s what makes barn quilts so valuable to local culture.

 “You see people in a community being motivated by this art project and this display of public art, and then connecting it through history in their communities or with families and then utilizing the resources that are there in the community to make it happen,” Cathers said. “It has its own special kind of magic.”