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Helen Evans: In July 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, and curator Amelia Peck recorded this conversation about the Museum’s Signature Quilt. The quilt was included in the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions". Amelia Peck: My name is Amelia Peck. I’m a curator in the American Decorative Arts Department of the American wing here at the Metropolitan. And my responsibilities are both the period rooms in the American wing and American textiles. And I was a research assistant many years ago, starting in 1981, and I came to the Museum, and I worked on the Frank Lloyd Wright Room, which was a wonderful introduction to the Museum. And after a couple of years I left because funding had run out of that project when it was finished. And very luckily some of the people in my department valued me and came up with funding for me to come back as a curatorial assistant. I was in my mid-twenties and I was very thrilled to be working at the Museum and a little overwhelmed by the whole experience. And one of the first things that happened was I was brought to meet the director. And Lew Sharp, who was my—the administrator of my department—brought me into Philippe and Philippe listened to what it was I was here to do. And I said, “And I am going to work on American textiles.” And he looked up at me and said, “Are there any other American textiles beside quilts?” And |
