The Impulsive Traveler: Paducah, Ky., will bring out the artist in you

And then there was the wooden quilt. “Floating” by Fraser Smith is made of carved basswood stained with watercolor. From afar, I couldn’t even tell that it was made of wood.

I’d thought I’d be bored, but I actually had to pull myself away from the quilts to walk to the Yeiser Art Center in the historic Market House downtown. The April exhibit there, “Fantastic Fibers,” featured conceptual garments, felt sculptures and contemporary baskets. “Osmose,” by Briguitte Amarger, consisted of 11 male figures made from X-ray film. I got as close as I could without toppling the figures to see where the pieces of film were sewn together. It looked like something out of “The X-Files.”

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• Paducah, Ky., will bring out the artist in you
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Paducah is a river town — it hugsthe Ohio below the mouth of the Tennessee — so I made my way down to the water. And what did I find there? More art, of course.

A series of murals along the floodwall, painted over the past 15 years by Robert Dafford and a team of artists, depict scenes from Paducah’s history. (The town was formed in 1815 as a community of Native Americans and white settlers. Explorer William Clark inherited the land from an older brother in 1827 and named it after Paduke, a Chickasaw Indian chief who’d lived there.) One of the more than 50 murals portrays life in a Native American village. Another shows the three riverboat “queens” — the American Queen, the Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen — visiting Paducah. Still another portrays the 1937 flood that sent thousands of residents fleeing to higher ground.

When the wind started to pick up, I ducked into the River Discovery Center, a museum about the Ohio in the oldest surviving antebellum building in town. In the pilothouse simulator, I tried my hand at piloting a speedboat, a Coast Guard vessel and a rowboat. The rowboat was the most difficult to maneuver, requiring the skillful ma­nipu­la­tion of two throttles. The speedboat was much easier, though I still managed to crash it. After that, I was reluctant to speed with the Coast Guard vessel. “Give it some power,” urged employee Virginia Manchester.

Back in LowerTown, I strolled past the 19th-century storefronts, popping into gallery after gallery. The artists welcomed me into their studios, which also double as their homes and, in some cases, as B&Bs. I stayed in one of the suites at the Egg and I gallery, where Carol Gabany carves images of tigers, roses, fish and fruit into emu, ostrich, duck, goose and chicken eggs.

At Bryerpatch Studio, Caryl Bryer Fallert, one of the country’s most successful quilters, gave me a tour of her workspace and living quarters. My favorite quilt of hers, which happened to be hers as well, was “On the Wings of a Dream,” a self-portrait she made after the death of her husband. “It’s about moving forward,” she said.

Moving to Paducah from a Chicago suburb was also a way of moving forward for the former flight attendant. “As an artist, it’s nice to be part of an artist community,” she said. “As a human, it’s nice to be a part of a community, period.”

After just two short days in Paducah, I almost felt part of the community, too.