The quilts shown here from the Hart Cluett Museum’s permanent collection are often as valuable as a documentary artifact as they are a utilitarian object. Quilts follow clothing trends in colors and patterns as the fabric for the quilts were taken from bolt ends or scraps of materials that had been used to create a shirtwaist or dress. Quilt designs followed different historic themes from the Log Cabin design in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, to crazy quilts that became popular during the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Visitors were entranced by the Japanese Pavilion’s art and design and replicated those designs on quilts. Signature quilts help to identify family or community members, as the red and white signature quilt seen here that was signed by members of the Methodist Church in Grafton, NY. The fact that these quilts have survived is a testament to the meticulous way they were stitched and cared for by multiple generations before being donated to the museum.

Ally DeRusso is a printmaker, photographer, and fiber artist working in Upstate New York. She explores concepts of memorialization, recollection, and domesticity within her work. She graduated with a MFA at the University at Albany in 2025 and BFA in Studio Art from The College of Saint Rose. She has exhibited at venues such as Opalka Gallery, Collar Works, and CREATE Council on the Arts. In 2022, she was a recipient of an Individual Artist Regrant from Saratoga Arts.

• Artist Statement: Through printmaking, photography, and textiles, my work explores themes of domesticity, recollection, and memorialization. Mining my personal archive of images, I create quilt-like objects that encapsulate moments in time. My photographs are translated onto fabric using silkscreen, etching, and woodcut. With each printing process, the original photograph becomes fragmented and information is lost—underscoring the malleability and fallibility of memory. Influenced by traditions of vernacular photography, I adorn my works with floral surface patterns, using the flower as an allegory of life and mortality. Printing the photographs onto fabric enhances the image’s ability to provoke remembrance through the presence of touch and the body. Each step of translating an image—layering, repeating, shifting to a larger scale—simultaneously erodes and commemorates the photograph’s previous stage, mirroring the process of remembering.

Victoria van der Laan is a textile artist working in Troy, NY. Victoria's heritage is quilt-making and she carries this knowledge and tradition forward in her textile works and sewn paintings, echoing the work of her forebears while innovating new possibilities for the form. She has been awarded multiple residencies including the Penland Winter Residency, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, and Millay Arts Residency and has exhibited her work widely throughout the Northeast. A strong proponent of the Solidarity Economy, Victoria has become known for her Pay What You Can project and offers all of her work with an equity pricing scale.

• Artist Statement: My work is an abstract interpretation of the traditional quilt-making techniques I learned from my Grandmothers. The painstaking handwork of my forebears never far from my mind as I work, I am committed to revealing the inextricable connection between the traditions of Women's Work and fine art.

  I am passionate about equitable access to art and subverting the gate-keeping that is so pervasive in the art world. I believe in alternative economies and want my work to be accessible to all. I offer an ongoing series of textile sketches with a pay-what-you-can model on Instagram and have recently shifted to a sliding scale pricing model for all of my work. I am always looking for ways to increase my role in the solidarity economy.

  Gravely concerned about the climate crisis and the harmful role the textile industry plays in it, I use only secondhand, repurposed, or vintage textiles in my work. Even the tiniest clipping of fabric and thread is kept for use in future work as I strive for a zero-waste practice.