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By MEG HERNDON | Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – The Shelby County Arts Council will open its Quilts from the Heart exhibit on Saturday, Feb. 26 during Columbiana Cowboy Day. The free exhibit is a curated display of over 40 art, contemporary, modern, traditional and vintage quilts crafted by local quilters.

“The cool thing (is) they’re all from about a 35-mile radius,” said Lindsay Dyess, art and education manager with the Shelby County Arts Council. “They’re all from right here.”

Agnes Pool, a co-leader of Columbiana Quilts for Kids and a master quilter, is one of the curators of the exhibit.

“I wish everybody would come to this display because we’ve got something to interest most everybody in this town and most everybody out of town,” Pool said.

Bruce Andrews, the executive director at SCAC, asked if Pool would be interested in doing a quilt display during the open slot of late February and early March. Pool asked other local quilters if they’d be interested, and they all were excited to join.

Some of the local groups participating include Columbiana Quilts for Kids, Crafty Divas from Shelby Shores and Senior Center Quilters. There will also be other individual local quilters participating.

The exhibit will feature both hand and machine quilted work.

“There is one that is an angel that is narrow and long. There is a heart that is made from different little quilt squares. Oh, there’s some beautiful quilts down there you have to to go see it,” Pool said.

Additionally, there will be teen-sized quilts and kid-sized quilts for children in foster care and Children’s Hospital patients made by the Columbiana Quilts for Kids quilters. The Craft Divas from Shelby Shores will also have a Quilt of Valor, a comforting and healing quilt designed to cover service members and veterans touched by war, on display.

“People say that quilting is a dying art,” Pool said. “I think that this (exhibit) really disproves that theory. This is not a dying art, it’s very much alive and well.”

Quilts from the Heart will be open from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26 and will be on display in the EBSCO Fine Art Gallery and the music suites hallway in SCAC until Friday, March 11.

SCAC’s gallery hours are Monday-Thursday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Wednesday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.