Ardis Butler James, a leading quilt collector and philanthropist, died July 7 at the age of 85 in Stamford, Connecticut.

James had a lifelong love of fabric. Growing up in Omaha, her mother was a quilter, and James was a respected amateur quilter in her own right, too, before collecting became her focus. She even owned a fabric shop in Chappaqua, New York, for nearly a decade.

She and her husband, Robert, were longtime residents of Chappaqua, and among the first collectors to start aquiring contemporary quilts, collecting work by Nancy Crow and Michael James, among other studio art quilters. They were also instrumental in the founding of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in 1997 in their native Nebraska. Their donation of nearly 1,000 quilts to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln became the foundation for the largest publicly held collection of quilts in the world, and a lead gift from the James family helped to build the center an impressive new home in 2008.

She talked about why she loved quilts in the December 1987/January 1988 issue of American Craft, when the James collection hovered around 250 pieces:

"I can't imagine collecting painting or sculpture," she said. "They are so sharp-edged and hard. Cloth is malleable, strokable, lovable."

"A quilt has to speak to me. It hits me in the chest and says, ‘Take me.' Each is special and personal. I bought the Turkey Tracks quilt because of the splayed, deformed toes. I bought another Mariner's Compass because its hundreds of small felt pieces are so remarkable. I bought a signature quilt because I was moved by the idea of a church raising money that way."