BRISTOL —
Friday was the last day of work for Nick Hoffman, who has served as director of the Elkhart County Historical Museum the past four years.
Hoffman helped host the opening Friday of the Heritage Quilt Challenge, a display of 17 re-created quilts by the Maple City Quilt Guild. That new exhibit runs through Aug. 31 at the Bristol museum and will coincide this summer with the quilt garden tour. A quilt garden will be planted at the museum this spring.
"The quilters did such a good job," Hoffman said Friday. They reproduced and reinterpreted some turn-of-the century quilts that are on display.
The quilts vary in size from small crib quilts to massive queen-size bed covers. Several of the quilts will also be hanging side-by-side with the original quilt used for inspiration.
Hoffman especially pointed out a "vortex" quilt that is a spiral of blocks.
The red and white vortex quilt was made this winter by Claire Baker, Middlebury. She took the design from a book of the top 100 quilts in America in the 20th century.
Coincidently, Baker explained, the original antique quilt is part of an exhibit in a New York City museum that also opened on Friday. But that exhibit is only open for six days.
Many temporary displays
During Hoffman’s four years in Elkhart County, he worked to involve the museum in a lot of temporary exhibits that used part of the museum’s collections that people may have not seen in recent years.
"One of our goals was to get the museum projected in the community," he said. The quilt challenge was one example of such a project to involve the community in the historical museum.
The quilt exhibit opened Friday night and will be on display all summer.
Hoffman, a Wisconsin native and graduate of University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, has accepted a position as curator of exhibits and 3-D artifacts at the History Museum at the Castle, Appleton, Wis.
His wife, Kristi Helmkamp, will also assume a new role as manager of visitor services and learning experiences at the Building For Kids children’s museum at Appleton, a few blocks from Hoffman’s building.
Hoffman starts work Monday, and has several big project to get involved in, he said.
Rebecca Oestreich, Goshen, who has been curator of education for two and one-half years, has been named interim museum director.
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