Doreen Speckmann Remembered

November 19, 2020–January 31, 2021

Doreen Speckmann Remembered featured twenty-five years of quilts made by the renowned Madison, WI, quilter Doreen Speckmann. Speckmann grew up learning how to sew. As the eldest of six she made all her own clothes and was introduced to handwork—crocheting, knitting, and needlepoint—at a young age. She had eschewed quilting, however, as an art for "only little old ladies on metal folding chairs in church basements." Worse yet, she feared at twenty-six she had missed the window for learning: "I had heard rumors of quilts that were started by one generation and finished by another." But in 1977, while expecting her daughter, Megan, she decided she absolutely had to make a baby quilt, and thus, began an obsession with quilts that produced two how-to books and numerous international quilting cruises until her untimely passing in 1999, at the height of her career, while she was leading a quilting retreat in Ireland.

This exhibition, organized in partnership with the Iowa Quilt Museum, shined a light on this influential artist, who was known for her wit and wisdom, her characteristic Berkenstocks, iconic dance moves, and impeccable patchworking and design skills.

Support for Doreen Speckmann Remembered was generously provided by the Wisconsin Arts Board and Susan Graham Wernecke and Bill Wernecke Jr.