Woman’s quilt to be featured in Smithsonian’s state fair exhibit
By Kayla James
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DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — An Iowa woman is getting the chance to see one of her creations hanging in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s newest exhibit, State Fairs: Growing American Craft.
The exhibit is described as a culmination of five years of work and research dedicated to artists’ crafts at state fairs across the nation. There are more than 240 works on display, with each gallery looking at “personal stories of craft found in different areas of the fairgrounds, from the art exhibits and heritage villages to the parades, dairy barns, and rodeos.”
One of Mary Shotwell’s many blue ribbon-winning quilts, called My Millefiori, will be displayed in the exhibit.
“Millefiori is actually the name of a style of quilting that goes back quite some years to British quilting, where it was all done by hand,” said Shotwell. “What you would do is you’d take a small piece of fabric and wrap it around some cardboard. Then you would stitch that so you could hardly see the stitches to the piece right next to it, and you’d keep doing that until gradually you built blocks.”
For the next year, the exhibit is up in the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.
“The Smithsonian is an institution I’ve been to several times, and I’ve always been in awe,” said Shotwell.
Shotwell began working on the quilt in the late 2010s. She remembers finishing it in 2022 and then showing it at the Iowa State Fair and in the Des Moines Quilter’s Guild show in 2023.
“The fact that it got a special award at the Iowa State Fair for handwork also meant a lot to me, because English paper piecing is a very time-consuming but relaxing kind of activity,” said Shotwell.
By November, she received a letter from the curator of the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery.
“It was telling me that they had seen my quilt at the State Fair and they had selected it to be part of a state fairs special exhibit,” said Shotwell, who said the curator was asking for permission to display the quilt. “I won blue ribbons, that sort of thing, but this was beyond my wildest dreams.”
Quilting is something Shotwell is passionate about, but she’ll be the first to tell you it didn’t come too easily to her.
“When I first started, frankly, I wasn’t any good at it at all,” said Shotwell.
However, nearly 30 years later, something she says she wasn’t good at is now taking her to D.C. for the exhibit’s gala opening.
“The more I learned and the more I got into it, the more I loved it,” said Shotwell. “I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve had very good teachers. I’ve had very good friends who encourage me.”
The exhibit began Aug. 22 and goes on until Sept. 7, 2026.
Iowa’s iconic State Fair butter cow is also part of the year-long exhibition.
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