Haffner’s art adventure...barn quilts
by Debra Meyer-Myrum
Cindy Haffner of rural Rose City has been designing and painting barn quilts since 2014. After reading an article in a magazine about barn quilts, she thought it was a creative adventure she wanted to attempt. She thought to herself, “I’d like to try that!”
She is gifted in being able to visually use color and create designs and turn them into works of art to put on display. But there was a lot more to the learning curve experience that produced many barn quilts in our local area and beyond.
A bit of history
Barn quilts are a form of folk art that celebrate rural life. They were used to identify families, mark roads, and during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were used to signal safety and supplies.
The artist who most influenced modern day barn quilts was Donna Sue Groves. Groves and her mother bought a farm in Ohio in the late 1980s. She wanted to honor her mother’s quilting by painting a quilt block on the family’s barn. This led to the first official quilt trail in Adams County, Ohio in 2001.
The adventure begins
Once Haffner decided to jump in with both feet and make a barn quilt, she quickly realized this was new to her and the area. She would have to learn by trial and error to produce a high quality durable barn quilt.
The biggest challenge was finding the right type of board to use. At first she used plywood, but soon realized the paint would fade quickly and the outside lifespan would be about four years....