American in Asia, Niki Bonnett.

Thirty quilts from the tenth biennial Quilt National Collection are on display at the Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery through April 3. Quilt National '97, produced and circulated by the Dairy Barn Southeastern Ohio Cultural Arts Center in Athens, is a juried international exhibition that showcases transformations in the world of quilting.

The works in Quilt National '97 were chosen from more than 1,250 entries submitted by nearly 600 artists from 26 states and eight other countries.

Each work in the exhibition was judged on its maker's mastery of technique, overall design and concept. Quilts were chosen for their depth of style, content, technique or emotion. "Today's quiltmakers are simply doing what has always been done: making choices and shaping available materials into objects that give us a glimpse of something meaningful," said Hilary Fletcher, Quilt National project director.

The Riffe Gallery showcases the work of Ohio's artists and curators and the collections of the state's museums and galleries. The gallery is in the Vern Riffe Center, State and High Streets, Downtown Columbus. Open every day. Admission is free. For more information or to schedule a tour call the Riffe Gallery at 614/644-9624 .

Initiative Connects the Arts to Life

The Ohio Arts Council's Community Development Initiative is gaining momentum. The CDI was launched last fall as a long-term project in three Ohio communities to demonstrate how the arts are connected to core community values and everyday life.

Akron, Hamilton and Portsmouth-Scioto County are working in partnership with the Ohio Arts Council to assess and address local values, issues and concerns through arts and culture. Each community will gather information to use as a starting point for the project, which is expected to run for five to seven years.

Local project teams have been hired in each community to facilitate CDI activities. Akron team members are project director Loretta Haugh, evaluation officer Ronni Sterns and project assistant Katya Bissell. Hamilton team members are project co-directors Nancy Wiley and Jim Paulus. Portsmouth-Scioto County team members are project director Kim Cutlip, evaluation officer Brian Lanning and project assistant Sue Carol Lehman.

The teams have begun to define community boundaries and create a network of individuals and organizations that will help gather data about values, issues and concerns within each community. The research phase of the CDI is expected to last 12 to 18 months.

Once the data is gathered and synthesized, probably in June 2000, the OAC will publish a report and executive summary of the planning process undertaken by each community. The report will document an authentic, experimental approach to building communities through the arts that may become a model for communities across the country.

Beginning in June 2000, each community will work with a consultant to design a comprehensive plan that will coordinate existing arts and cultural programs and organizations and develop new programs to address the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the local public. Using the inventories of arts and cultural organizations and programs that were developed in the research phase, each community will assess the program's potential for connecting the arts to people's everyday lifes.

The OAC will conduct an evaluation using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. At the end of a three- year implementation phase, the communities will again call on the local network of organizations and individuals to survey the public, to ascertain the local success of the Community Development Initiative. A final report will be published in 2005 that will compare and contrast the initial data collected and the final assessment. For more information contact Ohio Arts Council Community Development Coordinator Christy Farnbauch at 614/466-2613.