Looking at Anne Lewis’s quilts recalls the advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson that we should draw out of the past genuine life for the present hour. These quilts wrap the past in and around the present, not just as works of art, which they are, but even more magically as extraordinary/ordinary objects of everyday life.
    Anne has lived in Hebron for 33 years, during which time she has watched her neighborhood of Hope Valley transition from a rural environment to a suburban one. During these years she has raised two sons to adulthood and worked 7 ½ years as Assistant Town Clerk of Coventry.  Anne enjoys participating in local events like Colonial Day where, dressed in Colonial costume, she greets visitors to the textile exhibit.
Anne began working with crafts as a little girl. She had a grandmother who quilted and a father who liked to sew. ”My mother hated to sew,” she recalls, “but my father loved- still loves to.” Her father gave her a quilting kit as a college graduation present.

  
Above: Antique quilt by Marie Smith Ballard, prolific Hebron quilter, 1800s

Right: Antique quilt from Anne's husband's family, 1800s.