We've learned that real mean do eat quiche, but did you know that they make quilts, too? That revelation is the impetus for a lively and unusual exhibition, "Man-Made Quilts," at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg.

	ART PREVIEW "Man-Made Quilts" and "Shawn Quinlan: Quilted Art" Where: Westmoreland Museum of American Art, 221 N. Main St., Greensburg. When: Through April 17. Hours: 11 a.m.;to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and until 9 p.m. Thursdays. Admission: $3 suggested donation; under 12 free. Events: Exhibiting quiltmaker Jim Mikula will give a free talk at noon April 6. He'll demonstrate quilting in the galleries from 5 to 9 p.m. April 7 and 14 and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 9. Information: 724-837-1500 or www.wmuseumaa.org.

Organized by the highly regarded Museum of the American Quilter's Society in Paducah, Ky., this juried invitational show includes 19 quilts by as many contemporary male quiltmakers from California, New Hampshire and points in-between.

Westmoreland curator Barbara Jones has supplemented the exhibition with seven works by two local quilters -- Jim Mikula of Ligonier and Pete Buchan of Latrobe -- and Tristan Blakeman of New Haven, Conn.

The reasons the men give for quilting are as varied as the individuals exhibiting, including artists but also representatives of such left-brained professions as civil engineering and computer science. Some of the quilts are formally and methodically traditional while others align with contemporary directions in fiber art, but all retain aspects of their lineage.

For example, as with quilts throughout time, these have stories, sometimes carrying on family traditions or marking life's passages. Upon reading the short label that accompanies each, one invariably wants to know more.

Giving a spin to the "golf widow" who takes to the greens for companionship, Paul Aschenbrenner says, "I took up quiltmaking in self-defense as my wife is an excellent quiltmaker and teacher. It gives us another activity that we can share. Besides, it is FUN -- most of the time." Aschenbrenner's graphically bold red and blue "Let the Games Begin!" came from his interest in sports, especially the Olympic Games.

"I find the psychological and sociological aspects of sports interesting," he says.

Miles Fairchild began exploring quiltmaking in 1962, when he decided to make a wedding quilt for his wife. His attention later turned to crazy quilts -- which feature patternless free-flowing designs -- "sparked by finding an old family piece in a trunk and a decision to wear bow ties." His delightful "Kaleidoscope Crazy Quilt" is made of cuttings from a 20-year collection of silk ties joined by rows of embroidered flowers, snowflakes and fancy chains.

"Statie Quilt," Buchan's first, falls in the memory quilt tradition and was made after he retired from the Pennsylvania State Police, with uniform shoulder badges in use between 1930 and 1985. His latest quilt, "Nines in Hearts," is more formal in pattern and technique and shows that he's on his way to competing with the best.

Quiltmaking has historically been considered women's work, but men frequently assisted by building quilting frames and designing blocks and patterns, and some engaged in the entire process. According to the Paducah museum, sewing has long been employed as physical therapy and there are records of young men born with disabilities who were taught to quilt so that they might contribute to their households. The museum has found that quiltmaking among men generally rises after wars. There is also a contemplative benefit gained from the soft rhythm of needle, hand and cloth.

In retirement, Roger Sandy and his late wife, Donna, traveled across the United States to quilt shows until 1995, when she developed cancer. He entered quiltmaking by creating her templates and patterns "and then came into quilting on my own." His beautifully crafted and sensititive "Autumn's First Snow" reflects his preference for "traditional pattern work, primarily with fall or earth colors."

Mikula, who participates extensively in regional arts festivals, "began quilting in earnest as 'after-school therapy' " while teaching high school English and drama. Now retired, he makes five or six large quilts a year, such as the 87- by 110-inch bright and cheerful "Cobblestones" and 86- by 103-inch pastel and restful "Butterflies" that hang in the galleries near the frame that he will periodically quilt at during the exhibition.

Among gender distinctions noticed by the Paducah museum are that men are less interested in the social aspects of quilting and more interested in technical challenges than women are.

For instance, musician and quiltmaker George Siciliano's visually reverberating 13¹/₂ -inch square "Industrial Resolutions" is a modification of the traditional "log cabin" pattern (classically represented by Mikula's full-sized, dominantly green "Log Cabin" across from it), one of 100 variations with which he's experimented.

Also playing optical tricks through use of interplays of color and patterns are "Kings X," by John Flynn and Scott Murkin's pulsing "Chromatography IV Overlay." Brian Clements' perky "3-D" exercise seems to have begun as a traditional work that literally lifts off its background.

J. Bruce Wilcox dubs his designs -- such as the memorable "Wild Wood" -- "architectural tessellations," a mosaic reference reflected in the composition of the abstract work. A different aesthetic informs picture-pretty "October and White-Crown Sparrows," into which J. Phil Beaver incorporated his own painted fabrics to create a realistic scene of birds and sunflowers. It was inspired by life on his family farm in French Lick, Ind., in the 1940s and '50s, he says, when October was a "brief, elegant prelude [that] assured all was well with mind and soul as it slowly glided into cold winter."

In a class of their own are Gerald Roy's exquisite "Complementary Composition," its regal blues and browns forming, then breaking, then reconstituting pattern; and the exemplary "Alhamba Star," a 1994 quilt by the late Paul Pilgrim, who was the subject of a solo traveling exhibition at the Westmoreland in 2002.

Other quilts range from those that validate the lasting quality of traditional patterns to experiments that challenge historic form and material.

Shawn Quinlan
Running concurrently with "Man-Made" is a provocative solo exhibition by Pittsburgh artist Shawn Quinlan, who also was included in the national traveling show. The artist has gained local and national recognition with his hotly political works constructed of dense compositions of appropriated imagery -- often found fiber or media images photo transferred onto fiber -- overlain with intensely patterned quilting.

For example, "What Would Jesus Drive?," exhibited here and in the 2003 Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annual, sites the infant Jesus at the wheel of a tractor surrounded by a spiral of vehicles. "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" and "The Almighty Dollar" both use as a point of departure a rug-sized, faux-velvet painting image of Jesus, the head replaced by a bar code in the latter.

Of 16 fiber works made between 1997 and last year, the earliest is "You Made the Indian Cry," a Last Supper scene compromised by the likes of Coffee-mate, TV dinners and a Campbell soup can on the table; a star-studded universe polluted with spacemen and highway route markers; hazmat-uniformed beings; and nuclear mushroom clouds, one of which surrounds a man's eyes welling with tears.

In contrast to Quinlan's in-your-face art, his Paducah entry, "Palm Tree Quilt," commissioned by a California cousin and inspired by a visit there, is a landscape, though atypical with its towering perspective. It's supplemented here with a small fiber "sketch" he made in preparation for the final 72- by 41-inch quilt.

Complementing the exhibitions are eight vintage quilts from the museum's collection displayed in the McKenna Gallery.