Barn Quilts come to Caribou

Over the weekend, local artist Daphne Allen walked a group of interested artists through the process of painting barn quilts, an artistic fixture in the eastern United States which is slowly making its way west. 

According to Daphne, when she teaches a similar class in Kansas, it is standing room only with a waiting list.  “It just isn’t as well known here,” she says.  “But it’ll get here.”

The small but dedicated group that showed up to join her on Saturday morning certainly seems to agree.  

Daphne starts the process by having people choose a pattern that they would like after a number of choices.  There are many patterns available online and in reference books, but she needs to know exactly which ones the students would like to use so that she can prepare the boards with the line work.

She uses a primer on the board and then draws the requested design onto the board with wax pencil.  When the students come to the workshop, the boards are ready for them to paint.  The barn quilts use a permanent outdoor acrylic.  

Daphne is well-versed in paint types and performance after many years running a sign company.  

Artists can follow a completed pattern, or use their own color combinations to come up with different effects.

As the painting process goes on, blow dryers are often used to speed the process along.  Tape and stencils can be used for clean lines, although most of the artists on hand Saturday seem to prefer to approach the process free-handed.  

The typical size for a barn quilt is two by two or two by three, though they can be any size the artist wants to use.  

As Daphne explains, she gives the students a choice of twenty or so designs to choose from, but out of the many students on hand, they mostly all chose one of three patterns.

Betty Watson and Debbie Hill were working on a sunflower pattern, while Kim Warren, Patty Anderson, Amanda Allen, and DeeDee Clark worked on a patriotic pinwheel.  Sandie Warren, Cindy Call, and Marilyn Warren were working at a different table on yet another design.

Betty plans to gift her finished product to her daughter to use on a new shed, which is certainly within the spirit of the art form, while Debbie intends to place hers on a shipping container she uses at the Grace airstrip to store various tools and materials in order to make it a little more interesting.  

Patty, Amanda, and DeeDee are working on a form of the barn quilt called a “porch leaner” which is exactly what it sounds like, a painted board that can be leaned against the wall on the porch.  In their case, the color scheme was red, white, and blue in honor of the upcoming holiday.   

Daphne explains that the origin of the barn quilt art form comes from the nineteenth century.  It has been connected to the Underground Railroad.  According to a some sources, the painted images were hung on barns and other outbuildings to provide “secret” map directions to runaway slaves and “conductors” on the underground railroad.  Some of the oldest patterns can be decoded to show the direction that travelers should head, warnings about places to avoid, and information about where to find resources.

“They would see, for instance, flying geese, and that would tell them about what direction food and water was,” Allen explains.  The history of the barn quilt, then, is deeply tied to the history of America.  It also helps to explain why the art form is so much more prevalent on the east coast and across the south.  

 Sometime down the road, Daphne would like to create a map of different barn quilts around the county with a route visitors could follow to look at all the creations.  “Even the same pattern can look a lot of different ways just depending on the colors,” she says.

“Everybody in here is pretty self-sufficient today.”

Daphne was born and raised in Kansas, where she still returns to connect with family and her roots periodically.  In the meantime, she lives up Skinner Canyon in Caribou county “off the grid” at above 7,000 feet.  “We get the snow earlier up there, but I don’t mind.  Every time I go back to Kansas I think ‘now THIS is cold,’ and I want to come back to Idaho,” Allen laughs.

She plans to keep spreading the art of the barn quilt throughout the area, and hopes to get more people involved in the process. 

“I’ve found that ‘of you paint a barn quilt, you’ll end up with more than one!’” Cindy Call says, and the rest of the group laughs.  “It gets in your blood,” she says.

Daphne will hold another barn quilt class in July, which anyone can attend.  She can be found at the Farmer’s Market during the summer in City Park on Thursdays, or online as “Daf Allen.”