Many of the quilts I saw deserved to be hung in a museum or an art gallery. See them here. Article content A couple of weekends ago, the Boundary Bay Quilters Guild staged a quilt show at the South Delta Recreation Centre in Tsawwassen. Advertisement 2 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Sign In or Create an Account Email Address or Article content I can’t tell you how unexcited I was at the prospect of this. I know nothing about quilts. I have never had the urge to take up quilting. For one thing, I do not sew. For another, quilting requires patience, and I do not do patience. Article content Recommended Videos We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team. Pete McMartin: A disinterested husband falls in love (and awe) with quilts Back to video We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team. Article content But it was my wife’s idea to go to the show, so I, in husband mode, tagged along, mildly disinterested, with the expectation that I would see nothing much more than the image I had of quilts in my mind’s eye — patchwork bedspreads, pleasant granny stuff, that sort of thing. And yet what I saw there — some examples of which you see here — astounded me. There were quilts the size of murals. There were quilts exploding with colour. There were funny quilts, quilts that tugged at the heart and quilts that expressed every iteration of love — for babies, children, spouses, the dead. There were quilts so luminous they transcended craftsmanship and rose up to the realm of art. They deserved to be hung in a museum or art gallery, not a gymnasium. “If you walked the show,” said Dawn Fielden, vice-president of the Boundary Bay Quilters Guild, “you saw the range of quilts that were hung there, and some of them are very utilitarian. It’s like you look at a quilt and you’d say, ‘Yep, that’s lovely and it’s going to go on somebody’s bed.’ Article content Advertisement 3 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content “But there were lots and lots of pieces in that show that were art. It’s simply another medium of expression, like painting in fabric, really. As much as painting or sculpture or any type of tangible art is, it’s an expression of the person who makes it.” That expression can manifest itself in different ways and under different schools of quilting. The modern quilting movement, for example, tends to attract younger quilters, leans toward abstraction, impressionism, solid colours and negative space. Readers can see examples at the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild’s website, vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca The Studio Art Quilt Associates promotes quilting as fine art, and works tend to be more painterly and figurative. Readers can see examples at www.saqa.com And then, Fielden said, there are the “craftivists” — quilting as a form of activism to advocate political and social change. One of the most famous examples is the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the world’s largest piece of community folk art. Begun in the mid-1980s, it weighs 54 tons, spans