Book traces idea of painting quilt designs on barns

A new book from Ohio University Press chronicles one of the fastest-growing grassroots movements for public art in the U.S. and Canada: the American Quilt Trail, which isn't a national trail but is clearly a national happening, aimed at boosting tourism and community pride.

Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement by Suzi Parron and Donna Sue Groves, who says she started the movement, was published in March. The book tells the history of the movement and details Parron's travels across the country in search of local quilt trails.

Groves writes that helped start the first trail in Southern Ohio in 2001 by helping get one large square painted to look like a quilt pattern mounted on a small rural barn. The quilt paintings are placed on barns visible to motorists. "Today, quilt squares form a long imaginary clothesline, appearing on more than 3,000 barns scattered along 120 driving trails," says the website of Swallow Press, producer of the book. It says Parron documents "a movement that combines rural economic development with an American folk are phenomenon." Parron also maintains a blog about her quilt-trail experiences.