Katalin Horvath

May Tree was created for the special exibit and contest named Traditions, that took place at the Huston Quilt Festival 2013. It was elected to the 22 best and travelled with the exhibit in the US for a year. In 2015. it was exhibited at the Quilt Festival in Birmingham, UK.

In Hungary, on the last day of April and first day of May, young men place a May Tree in front of the house of the girl they love. They decorate it with flowers and gifts and guard it all night, so that rivals will not take it. This is the celebration of spring and the rebirth of nature, a tradition honored in Hungary for hundreds of years and still alive.

I used traditional folk motives for the flowers of the tree with authentic coloration. The skirts and hair of the girls, the shirts of the boys are three dimensional, they stand out of the surface of the quilt and if you peek under the skirts, you can see the white, laced underskirts. In a distance there are traditional Hungarian villages and in the foreground characteristic Hungarian flowers.

Materials: cotton fabrics, vlies, wool, nylon threads.

Size: 130 ×173 cms, / 51" × 67"