In 1973, Marilynn Gelfman Karp, an artist and designer, planned a personal way to commemorate the United States 1976 bicentennial. Drawing from quilts’ higher profile in the art world (partly thanks to Abstract Design in American Quilts) and their historical place in women’s lives, she organized a “contemporary art friendship quilt.” Karp invited her and her husband Ivan Karp’s friends in the New York art scene to make fabric blocks that included their names and something symbolic of themselves. Many contributors were friends known through Ivan Karp’s OK Harris Gallery, Works of Art in SoHo. Among them are Richard Artschwager, Ralph Goings, James Wines, and Alison Sky.