PADUCAH, Ky. _ Here's an intriguing travel question � when you think of a charming, culturally significant, Southern river city, what springs to mind? All the usual suspects, of course: New Orleans. Memphis. Charleston. Savannah.
One that probably isn't on your list, but just might be the quintessential Southern river town is Paducah. In this city at Kentucky's extreme western edge, four rivers define the way of life. The Ohio and Tennessee rivers meet here, with the Mississippi and Cumberland rivers located just a few miles away.
Walking through Paducah's historic downtown, you'll see elements of the other Southern gems _ courtyards with tinkling fountains a la Savannah. Musical melodies trilling through the night just like in Memphis. And if you stand in front of Market Square, you might think you were at New Orleans' French Market.
And yet Paducah has something that none of these cities do _ designation as a UNESCO Creative City, one of only nine in the United States.
Along with Santa Fe, N.M.; Tucson, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; San Antonio; Seattle; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; and Iowa City, Iowa, Paducah has been tapped for offering something unique to the culture of its region in one of seven categories: literature, music, design, film, media arts, gastronomy and crafts & folk art.
In Paducah's case, the designation is for crafts & folk art, due in large part to its incomparable National Quilt Museum.
If you visit the museum thinking that this is a journey back to the days of quilting bees and your great-grandmother's patchwork offerings, well you're partly right.
Opened in 1991, the National Quilt Museum does provide insight into the history of quilt-making as a form of American self-expression, but it goes far beyond that. Its three galleries covering 27,000 square feet showcase the finest quilt and fiber art in the world.
With 500 quilts in its permanent collection, the museum has something to suit every taste _ from a small quilt the size of a bath mat depicting pop icon Prince to an epic quilt illustrating scenes from Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins' journey in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Spotting all the intricate details in this one would take a day of standing and staring.
If the quilts have put you in an artistic frame of mind, stroll a couple of streets over to the riverfront to see "Paducah Wall-to-Wall," a three-block long collection of murals by renowned American muralist Robert Dafford.
The backdrop for these colorful displays of art is the protective wall built along the bank of the Ohio following a disastrous 1937 flood. The 50 murals painted on it depict the city's history from pre-Colonial days to the mid-20th century.
If by now you are inspired to test your own arts smarts, head over to MAKE Paducah, where Kijsa Houseman, a classically trained fine artist and muralist, offers a wide range of hands-on projects from calligraphy to watercolor and print making.
As she guided me through a fun session of making photo transfers (similar to brass rubbing), she confided her own philosophy of art.
"I want MAKE to be a place where anybody of any level can come in and get creative," she says.
