By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

TROY, Ohio — There is a quilt display in Miami County, but you won’t find it in a typical venue. These hand-painted quilts adorn 60 barns that are scattered throughout this county in southwestern Ohio.

The Miami County Visitors & Convention Bureau (MCVCB) calls it the Barn Quilt Driving Four. It was started in the spring of 2006 and coincided with the Miami County bicentennial the following year. Barns in Piqua, Tipp City, Troy and Covington sport different designs, and each carries a theme chosen by the barn owner.

These quilt designs have been hand-painted with true folk art renditions of quilt patterns. Each design measures 8-by-8-feet and dot the landscape as visitors venture from town to town. The purpose of this countywide exhibit is to celebrate quilting and the architecture of farm buildings.

“Sixty barns is all we’ve painted for now,” said Diana Thompson, executive director of the MCVCB. “We thought we’d have more painted, but our artist didn’t come back this summer.”

That artist is Rafael Santoyo, a native of Villa Modera, Mexico. He has been painting murals for 16 years, and paints the barn patterns free-hand, with a picture of the pattern as his only guide.
Santoyo spent between 35-50 hours on each barn, using a four-step process of sealer, primer, paint and final sealer.

“The agricultural community has been very receptive of the idea,” Thompson said. “Our staff here at MCVCB oftentimes came up with some designs for the barn owners, but the owners came up with the original ideas.”

Each barn quilt has a story and a design name. One barn in Troy on State Route 55 (with a design called “Texas Star”) is an oblong frame structure on a stone foundation, built of oak and ash timber, wooden pegs, handmade nails, hinges and doors. It was built in the early 1840s when the farm was established and the land was cleared, and has maintained its original shape and size.

An interesting historical marker is found at the west end of the barn: A 1959 National Geographic Geo-physical year elevation marker, which records the property as 1,052 feet above sea level. Legend has it that if water reaches that mark, it will be to the hips of the statue on the Miami County Courthouse in Troy.

East of Troy on State Route 41 sits a barn with a Card Trick design. This Pomeranian Style Sweitzer bank barn, built in 1827, was originally constructed of wood. The history of the farmstead itself is connected with an Irish-born man who arrived in 1813, one of the earliest settlers in Elizabeth Township.

Buildings on the land were constructed of bricks made from clay on the farm, as well as wood which was cut from a sawmill he erected on the property.

The original owner also operated a grist mill and a distillery.
The barn design, called “Grandmother’s Fan,” was chosen by the family because their grandmother had a quilt in a similar pattern. Mariner’s Compass, on the side of the barn owned by Dr. and Mrs. Robert Malarkey, points true north. The various sizes and colors of triangles give this intriguing design a three-dimensional effect.

Some barns are on a quiet country lane. Busier roadways lead to others. All are embedded with history.

At the Piqua Historical Area, the brilliant colors of the quilt pattern “Princess Feathers” stand out on the double-penned barn, the oldest log barn in Ohio. A red, white and blue Texas Star design highlights the Duff barn, built in the early 1840s.

Credit for this concept has been given to Donna Sue Groves of Adams County. Groves wanted to honor her mother, an expert quilter, so in 2001 Donna started putting quilt squares on barns in that county and highlighted the shared heritage of the Appalachian region. The idea caught on and has moved into west-central Ohio.

Funding for this huge project was secured through local business sponsorships, along with donations from the Troy Foundation and Miami County Foundation.