The Quilts of Gee's Bend, Alabama
Generations of African-American Women Have Created These Pieces
Mar 1, 2009
Unaccustomed to living in the lap of luxury, the creators of the Gee's Bend quilts are practical mothers, daughters and granddaughters for whom family is important. Now the talents of these quilters,some of whom live near the bends of the Alabama River on property once owned by Joseph Gee, are recognized by museums which present shows of their work.
The most recent large exhibition of their work was Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, a traveling show of 75 quilts by 38 artists. A third of the quilts in this show were made after 2002, when the last Gee's Bend quilt show opened.
Quilt Styles
If the quilts exhibited in Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt must be classified by design, in general they can be classified as being housetop (also called log cabin or pig in a pen), which focuses on concentric squares; traditional African-American blocks and strips; and European- and American-inspired quilts based on quilt patterns found in pattern books. But these creative women improvise on all the above designs and more.
A lot of The Architecture of the Quilt work looked like abstract art. Many quilts were colorful. A few were monochromatic. And visitors saw quilts that were hung for exhibition, permitting the pieces to be seen in their entirety.
Quilting Is In the Blood
Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935) said in the companion volume to The Architecture of the Quilt that she pieced her first quilt when she was 12. She observed too that quilts combine what the quilter takes from the world in which she lives with ideas taken from viewing the quilts of family and neighbors. Bendolph recalled seeing her mother and other female relatives quilt when she was growing up.
At least one family can trace quilting back at least five generations. Quilter Arlonzia Pettway said in the same book that she watched her mother Missouri Pettway and her grandmother Sally Miller quilt. Loretta Pettway Bennett and Andrea Pettway Williams are fourth- and fifth- generation quilters
But not all the women have quilted throughout their adult lives.The success of The Quilts of Gee's Bend which opened in 2002 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and then traveled to New York's Whitney Museum of American Art and at least nine other museums put a favorable spotlight on their quilts. Some older women were inspired to resume quilting while some younger ones decided to take it up for the first time.
At the Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art was the last stop for The Architecture of the Quilt. The show closed on December 14, 2008 after having traveled to a total of eight American museums since June 2006. On September 13, 2008, Bendolph, Louisiana Randolph, Nettie Young, Revil Mosely, China Pettway, Lucy Mingo and Loretta P. Bennett assembled before a capacity audience in the museum's auditorium .
The appreciative attendees put questions to the onstage quilters concerning their lives in an area with a long history of segregation. No bitterness, only matterof-factness was in their replies. One woman expressed gratefulness to God and William Arnett for helping to change the lives of the quilters for the better. Arnett is a white collector of the works of African-American artists who have not been trained at art schools. He "discovered" the quilters in 1998 and has organized all their exhibits.
Workshop for Community Quilters Held
Quiltmaking requires sewing skills and design skills/imagination. Nettie Young said in the exhibit's companion book that making a quilt was like building a house. And Nancy Pettway said that before sewing a quilt, a person should decide how it will look.
In conjunction with the exhibit, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented Quilt Your Heart Out: The Art of Quilting, a day-long workshop on quilt design led by local quilt artists Emily Richardson and Christina Johnson. The response by quilters to the first announcement was so overwhelming that a waiting list had to be compiled.
Those wanting to see Gee's Bend quilts need not wait. Click here to see the schedule of exhibits.
Sources:
Arnett, William and Paul Arnett. eds. Gee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Atlanta: Tinwood Books in Association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 2002.
Arnett, Paul, Joanne Cubbs and Eugene W. Metcalf, Jr. eds. Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt. Atlanta: Tinwood Books. 2006.
Gee's Bend Quilters. Roundtable Discussion. 13 September 2008. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia.
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