Above image: bars and string-pieced columns by Jessie T. Pettway. Collection of the Tinwood Alliance
Gee's Bend quilts
Four generations of African American women reinvent the Euro-American quilt
By Ling Ma
Published: September 9th, 2004 | 3:42pm
It wasn’t until the ’60s that the rural community of Gee’s Bend became accessible by land to the outside world with a single road, thus paving the way for the art world to take notice of the quilts being produced from the southwest Alabama region. The verdict of the cultural elite? The four generations of African American women of an isolated region had single-handedly established their own tradition of quilt-making, and had, quite possibly, resubmitted a plebian craft form as an art form consideration.
The quilts of these female descendents of cotton plantation slaves and of later tenant farmers have been likened more to 20th-century abstract paintings rather than other quilts in the Euro-American tradition. What sets them apart at first glance is that the quilts don’t adhere to the strictly consistent patterns of the Euro-American quilt-making conventions, meaning the lines are less straight, and the patterns less stridently symmetrical and geometrical. Not only are they more compositionally improvisational, the color schemes are comparatively more vibrant and the designs more idiosyncratic. The quilts were also often sewed together from materials of everyday conditions, such as work clothes, cotton, and even polyster-knit basketball jerseys.
Though the quilt-making tradition has been continued by few women in Gee’s Bend today, the quilts remain a testament to the generation-spanning female community whose bold, experimental artistry developed out of the necessity to provide warmth for their families.
In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, put together an exhibition of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which appeared at the Whitney later that same year. The traveling exhibition will be shown at major cities until 2006, including Memphis, Boston, and Atlanta. The quilts are also available as a more portable commodity, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend: 30 Postcards (Chronicle).
More information may be found at Tinwood Ventures.
Above image: bars and string-pieced columns by Jessie T. Pettway. Collection of the Tinwood Alliance
Issue #35
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