Jeana’s Journal

We live in a quiet small town that has a reputation for remarkable historic homes (the entire town is on the National Register for Historic Places) and a reputation for being home to many well-known Utah artists. To celebrate both of these assets, one day each year twenty-homeowners open their historic homes for a tour and 30 to 40 invited artists donate a 12″ x 12″ piece of their work to a silent auction. The proceeds of the auction are donated toward the restoration of The Old School. This year’s Spring City Heritage Day is next Saturday, May 26.( The link in the last sentence will take you to Spring City’s website with information about the event.) This year, I have been invited to donate a piece to the Art Squared Auction. I believe it is the first time a quilter has participated.

This is my contribution to the auction. I just finished it this weekend. It is called Spring City Summer.

 

One summer many years ago, we saw an ad in the Sunday paper advertising a historic home for sale here. It was July and it was hot. We knew that the elevation in this part of the state was higher–thus, hopefully, it would be cooler. We made plans for a weekend visit and a few days later we drove here to explore a part of Utah that we had not seen before. Not only was a cooler, it was quiet, it was uncrowded, and best of all it was beautiful! Spring City is set in a small fertile valley with mountains protecting it on two sides. Small towns dot the landscape with green fields on every side. All of the towns are charming, but Spring City was our favorite.

 

The one characteristic of Spring City that I loved and remembered the most from that first trip was the sweet peas. They were everywhere. Sweet peas were growing on picket fences, ditch banks, hedgerows and in vacant fields. Some of them were cultivated and some were not, it made no difference, they were blooming with abandon. And so, when I was invited to contribute a piece to the auction, my immediate thought was about the sweet peas and how they were part of the appeal of Spring City on my first visit.

Over twenty years later we have realized our dream of being able to live in this place. It is everything, and more, than I had hoped it would be. I am very pleased and proud to be a small part of this year’s Heritage Days Celebration.