This collaborative work by Mary Johnson and her daughter Mary Linn Sandberg, translates lived experience into quilted form. The design reflects the garden where Sandberg grew up, with vegetable plots, berry bushes, orchards, flower beds, and the birds and insects that inhabited the space. Drawing on historic garden imagery along with inspiration from "The Art of the Kitchen Garden" by Jan Gertley, Sandberg developed the layout, presenting the central vegetable plots to her mother for her 75th birthday. Johnson then appliquéd and embroidered each block, completing the quilt in 1991. 

Exhibited and recognized at the 1991 American Quilt Society Show in Paducah, Kentucky, the work exemplifies intergenerational collaboration, meticulous craftsmanship and the translation of personal memory into a richly detailed textile narrative.

This quilt is currently on display at the IQM as part of "Material Nation: 250 Years of American Quilts."

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Mary's Garden: A Time To Reap A Time to Sew

Mary Linn Sandberg

Made in Munster, Indiana; dated 1989-1990

Cotton

IQM 2019.124.0003