What Quilts Carry: Eighteen Years of Quilting at KCAI
Twenty-seven alumni return to explore the lasting influence of Quilts: More than the Sum of Their Parts, a studio course developed and taught by Kim Eichler-Messmer at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Exhibition Dates: September 4 –December 5, 2026
Location: Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2012 Baltimore Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64108
Opening Reception: Friday, September 4, 2026, 5:00 - 8:00 pm
Artist Talks: October 17, 2026, 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Admission: Free and open to the public
What Quilts Carry: Eighteen Years of Quilting at KCAI brings together the work of twenty-seven alumni of Quilts: More than the Sum of Their Parts, a studio course developed and taught by Kim Eichler-Messmer at the Kansas City Art Institute since 2008.
Although the artists represented in the exhibition have built remarkably different practices, they all began in the same place: a traditional quilt sampler made during the course. From that shared beginning, What Quilts Carry asks what continues to be carried forward—not only technical skill, but new ways of seeing and enduring relationships to material, making, and one another.
Representing students from the course's earliest years to its most recent, the exhibition brings together artists who have taken that shared foundation in many different directions. Some continue to work in quilting, while others have carried quilting's ideas into painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, and other material practices. Displayed together, the student samplers reveal a common point of departure, while the finished works demonstrate the many forms that foundation has taken over nearly two decades.
Work by Eichler-Messmer is exhibited alongside the alumni, reflecting the ongoing relationship between teaching and studio practice and the ways each continues to inform the other.
More than an alumni exhibition, What Quilts Carry celebrates eighteen years of teaching, learning, and making. It honors the generations of quilt makers whose knowledge has been passed from hand to hand while looking toward the artists who continue to expand what quilting can become.
Erica Alexander, Dye Study Quilt
Nathan Ford, I Hate When They Are So In Your Face About It
Sascha Merryfield, kindnesses
Lena Klett, Stone Seeds
Rebecca Vaughan, Foundling No. 11877, the child was feral
Yulie Urano, This Quilt Is For You and Me
Kim Eichler-Messmer, Class Sampler 2020
Kim Eichler-Messmer, Class Sampler 2023
About Kim Eichler-Messmer
Kim Eichler-Messmer is an artist, educator, and Associate Professor of Fiber at the Kansas City Art Institute. She creates hand-dyed quilts inspired by structure and pattern in the natural world, using color, geometry, and repetition to explore ideas of labor, memory, and place. Working primarily with natural fibers and dyes she grows or forages herself, her practice draws on both historical textile traditions and contemporary art to examine how materials accumulate meaning over time.
Since joining the KCAI faculty in 2008, Eichler-Messmer has taught quilting, natural dye, and surface design, encouraging students to think of textiles not only as materials, but as a way of investigating ideas. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in numerous public and private collections.
What Quilts Carry brings together artists from eighteen years of her quilting course, celebrating the many ways quilting continues to shape contemporary studio practice.
Participating Artists
Aneesa Shami Zizzo, Catherine Rybak, Erica Alexander, Gabriella Poulos, Gwen Murphy, Hadley Clark, Houda Derbas, Jaedyn Roberts, Jordan Geiger, Kadie Nugent, Kim Eichler-Messmer, Kit Landwehr, Lena Klett, Lexie Abra Millikan, Lily Mueller, Lizzie Green, Michelle Chan, Miranda Pratt, Mol Mir, Nathan Ford, Nina Littrell, Olivia Clanton, Olivia Mills, Rebecca Vaughan, Sarah McMurry, Sascha Merryfield, T Palermo, Yulie Urano
Media Contact
Kim Eichler-Messmer
Email: keichler-messmer@kcai.edu
Phone: 785-764-2310
Website: www.kimemquilts.com