Shelly Zegart is a world renowned expert on American quilts. She’s just returned to Louisville from presenting at an exhibition in Japan and was kind enough to share her thoughts on loving Louisville.

When Michelle asked me to write something for Consuming Louisville, I quickly realized this was going to be tough because it is impossible to only love one thing about Louisville. In 1968 when we decided to come back here, my husband’s hometown, to start his Ob-Gyn practice, I thought I would never survive in this perceived to be backwater place with poor education and little culture outside of basketball. In 1968 Louisville was not what it is today that is for sure. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Louisville though, especially as the numbers of people moving here from other places augmented an already interesting community of activists, community leaders and artistic people of all varieties. Louisville is a best-kept secret and we love it that way. Personally we never wanted Louisville to become an Atlanta but instead for Louisville to grow in depth and breadth both economically and culturally, yet retain its sense of place. People who live here love it and people who come here can’t believe all that is here.

To focus: One of the great things about Louisville is the enormous
number of international “stars” in many fields who come here to speak
and interact with us and with the university students, giving
Louisville, for its size, unprecedented opportunities for access to
great minds and great talent. To mention just a few, recently we heard
the author Michael Pollan speak about the food chain and the health of
the planet and his newest book, In Defense of Food, brought to us by
the Kentucky Authors Forum. A few months ago we heard Gorbachov speak
as part of the Global Issues Forum Series sponsored by the World
Affairs Council of Ky and Indiana. We have heard Bob Woodward speak at
Bellarmine, Anna Quindlen at the Library, and others at the Festival of
Faiths. We’ve also recently been to the multiple venues around town
exhibiting the art of Frederick Hart and I am not even beginning to
list the many great musical opportunities, plays, art exhibitions,
sports events and other incredible happenings going on at places large
and small- like the Clifton Center, many of which are free of charge.
Simply put cultural opportunities abound in Louisville.

In the early 90′s when The Kentucky Quilt Project was producing a major
quilt event called Louisville Celebrates the American Quilt we brought
onto our team a woman from New York. She stayed downtown for several
months and was constantly astonished at the level of the cultural
opportunities easily accessible to her here that she could not even get
tickets for in NY let alone having to pay the NY prices. What would she
think if she came back now? It’s virtually impossible to get to all the
wonderful things happening in Louisville because there are just so
many.  

Here are few things coming up soon that are definitely worth doing: go
to the Gee’s Bend quilt exhibition at the Speed over Valentines weekend
when 16 of the most amazing elderly African American quiltmakers from a
tiny isolated area of Alabama will be here to talk about their lives,
their quilts, and how they have been nationally and internationally
recognized by the art world (when all this started one of the
quiltmakers said  she  didn’t know what art was), buy tickets from the
World Affairs Council to hear Colin Powell in April  and don’t miss
Greg Mortenson’s talk about his book, Three Cups of Tea when he comes
to the Authors Forum in April. Most of all stay tuned to Consuming
Louisville for these and other special events, places and people.

Louisville is a treasure. We wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. So
many people, when they retire, leave for Florida and elsewhere. We are
staying right here to become even more active members of this wonderful
community and to be a part of all that Louisville has to offer.