The Ridge Tapestries: A Community's Story

Museum of Northern California Art
Chico, California
June 25–August 8, 2026

The Ridge Tapestries depict the creativity and dedication of a community founded in a rural area of Northern California over 50 years ago, and their ongoing efforts to protect the watershed they call home. The stories of the San Juan Ridge, nestled on the western slope of the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, are told through these collectively-stitched, brightly-colored tapestries.

Inspired by the 900-year-old Bayeux Tapestry, the late fabric artist Marsha Stone first envisioned the Ridge Tapestries in 2005. “We would stitch stories, not of an invading army conquering England in 1066, but of back-to-the-landers resettling the San Juan Ridge in the 1970s.” Stone convened a small group of Ridge “elders”, including the renowned poet Gary Snyder, to inform the subject matter. She then invited Mary Moore, an expert quilter, to lead the embroidery effort, and Jennifer Rain Crosby, a visual artist raised on the Ridge, to make illustrated templates to guide the stitchers. Over 200 volunteers participated in the remarkable creation of the 12 tapestry panels.

Like the Bayeux Tapestry, the Ridge Tapestries are hand-embroidered using wool thread on linen backing and composed of a larger main narrative panel and a lower elaborative panel with a thematic border. Spanning 83 feet in length, the work was created in sections for biannual display between the windows of its home at the North Columbia
Schoolhouse Cultural Center. The other six panels are currently on exhibit at the Schoolhouse’s Sierra Storytelling Festival. This museum debut of six tapestries marks the first time any of these tapestries have travelled outside of the Yuba Watershed.

San Francisco-based filmmaker Jeanne C. Finley reflects on the project through a video on view, and her related award-winning, feature-length documentary, A Radical Thread (2024). A new 200-page, full-color companion book is available for sale at the Museum.