Filmmakers

Shelly Zegart, executive producer and host, was a founding director of The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc. (1981), the first state documentation project — a model used around the world, and The Alliance for American Quilts (1993). She curates exhibitions, lectures and writes on all aspects of quilt history and aesthetics. Exhibition projects include Mosaic Textiles: In Search of the Hexagon, Rouen, France (2003) and antique quilt exhibitions curated for the Great International Quilt Festival in Tokyo (2005, 2007, 2008). Her book, American Quilt Collections: Antique Quilt Masterpieces was published by Nihon Vogue in Tokyo (1998). Her article “Myth and Methodology: Shelly Zegart Unpicks African American Quilt Scholarship” was published in Selvedge Magazine, London, England, (2008). She bought and sold fine quilts for more than 30 years, building many significant public and private collections. Zegart appraises public and private quilt collections. Her personal collection was acquired and exhibited by The Art Institute of Chicago (2002).  For several years Zegart worked  on producing the documentary series, Why Quilts Matter: History, Art and Politics. Zegart holds a B.A. in education from the University of Michigan.In 2020 Zegart received a Kentucky Governors Award in the Arts for her decades of work with quilts