Lucy Mingo

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Lucy Mingo
Lucy Mingo cropped.jpg
Mingo in 2015
Born
Lucy Marie Young

1931 (age 92–93)
Boykin, Alabama, U.S.
Known for Quilting
Notable workChestnut Bud
Movement Freedom Quilting Bee
Gee's Bend Collective

Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo (born 1931) is an American quilt maker and member of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. She was an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, which was an alternative economic organization created in 1966 to raise the socio-economic status of African-American communities in Alabama. She was also among the group of citizens who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Contents

Mingo is a recipient of a 2015 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. [1]

Early life

Lucy Young was born in 1931 in Rehoboth, Alabama, [2] a settlement near Gee's Bend to Ethel and Earl Young. [3] Her nickname is "Toot". [4] Her father was a sharecropper who also worked as a longshoreman in Mobile, Alabama which required him to be away from the family for long periods of time. Lucy and her siblings worked the fields growing corn, peas, potatoes, peanuts, and cotton [3] to earn a meager living. [5]

Mingo went to Boykin elementary school, and at age 13 was sent to the Allen Institute in Mobile. After graduation from Allen, she moved back to Boykin and married David Mingo in 1949, at age 17. [3] She and David had ten children, seven of them daughters but only one of her children (Polly) quilts. [2]

She is a fourth-generation quilter, with her mother, grandmother, and older close family friend all inspiring her and teaching her their art. She pieced her first quilt top at the age of fourteen.

Career

Non-quilt making career

After she married, Mingo returned to farm labor and continued there until 1965. She then worked as a cook in the school cafeteria for ten years, but was laid off. She worked in Selma for a year, and then got a job as a homemaking educator for the Auburn University extension service for more than 20 years, teaching people how to cook, can, and freeze. [5] [6] She retired at age 69, after her mother became ill. [3]

Like many women in Gee's Bend, Mingo squeezed in quilting time after completing work at her other jobs. [7]

Freedom Quilting Bee

Mingo was a founding member of the Freedom Quilting Bee (FQB), [2] [7] which began during the Civil Rights Movement. Their quilts were sold across the United States and brought much-needed money back to the Gee's Bend economy. Mingo had a reputation within the Bee as an excellent teacher, and one of her specialties was the "Chestnut Bud" which had a deep-seated history in Wilcox County, Alabama, but at the time Mingo claimed she was the only member of the FQB who knew how to make that quilt, so she taught her fellow members the details of that pattern. [2] Two of Mingo's black-and-white Chestnut Buds were sold via the Bee to Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland. Estelle Witherspoon, the Bee's first manager, and Mingo led a twelve-woman team that produced a Chestnut Bud quilt, sofa cover, and drapes for CBS chairman William S. Paley and his wife. [7]

The women of the FQB were very aware of and many were active in the civil rights movement. Members of the FQB heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Gee's Bend in 1965 and many of them, including Mingo, were inspired to register to vote as a result. Mingo says she "marched in Montgomery and over the Pettus Bridge, but I wasn't in the one with John Lewis" [3] and she avoided getting arrested because she had children. Mingo was considered "one of Gee's Bend's leading spokespersons during the civil rights era". [7]

The Bee was founded in part to provide employment to women who lost work when they took a stand for civil rights and registered to vote, which happened to Mingo. [8] At one point, the Bee was the largest employer in the town of Rehoboth. [9]

The Freedom Quilting Bee's numbers declined in the 1990s due to an aging membership, plus weather damage to their community space. After the death of the last original board member, the Bee officially closed in 2012. [10]

Gee's Bend Collective

Mingo made this pieced quilt in 1979. It includes a nine-patch center block surrounded by pieced strips. Collection of Bill Volckening, Portland, Oregon. Pieced Quilt, c. 1979 by Lucy Mingo, Gee's Bend, Alabama.JPG
Mingo made this pieced quilt in 1979. It includes a nine-patch center block surrounded by pieced strips. Collection of Bill Volckening, Portland, Oregon.

Mingo quilted as a member of both the Freedom Quilting Bee and the Gee's Bend Collective, which had similar economic missions and some overlapping membership. The FQB, however, required the quilters to use standardized patterns to make the quilts more marketable, while the Collective members are allowed artistic freedom in the design and execution of their quilts. The work and artistry of the Collective gained national attention in 2002 when an exhibition of seventy of the women's quilts was assembled by folk art collector and art historian William Arnett and his Tinwood Alliance in conjunction with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition called "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" traveled to ten other museums around the country, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. An article about the Whitney exhibition in The New York Times brought even more national attention to the artistry of the Gee's Bend quilts, when the reviewer wrote that the quilts "turn out to be some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced". [11]

Mingo's contribution to the 2002 exhibition was in the area of "work clothes" turned into quilts. In her early years, Mingo frequently used old denim and cotton shirts worn during field work as material for her quilts. Mingo said about these quilts, "You know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields, we picked cotton, and sometimes we had it and sometimes we didn't. And so you look at your quilt and you say 'This is some of the old clothes I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they still doing good.' " [4]

The attention and praise the Gee's Bend Collective members received from the art world as the 2002 exhibit toured the country surprised them. Mingo said "When we see our quilts in museums, we're just amazed. We never thought quilts would get there." [8] Mingo also said about the effect of the exhibition: "Yes, they are about history because quilts have been here all the time. But in another way, these quilts just became history because before they were hidden in the closets and on the bed mattresses. When you take them out, they become history. Until quilts made history, people weren't paying attention. Now, everyone wants to see your quilts; they want to know what you're making." [4]

Following the success of the 2002 exhibition, Mingo was often hired as leading quiltmaking instructor at events across the United States. [6] In addition, the prices for her quilts increased dramatically. Before working at the Freedom Quilting Bee, Mingo's quilts would sell for about $5.00. A 2008 quilting identification and price book includes a Mingo quilt made in 2004 valued at "more than $5,000". [12]

In 2006, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tinwood Alliance mounted a second exhibition titled "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt" that included works by Mingo. That exhibition's itinerary included eight museums throughout the United States. [4]

Mingo was one of two Gee's Bend Collective quilt makers featured in a 2014 episode titled "Industry" of the PBS television series Craft in America . [13]

In 2014, it was reported that because she is over 80 years old, Mingo rarely makes new quilts anymore. [14] But her quilts are still included in exhibitions, including the 2017 Outsider Art Fair held in New York City. [15] In May 2018, Mingo traveled to New York City to attend the opening of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled "History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation" that included some of Mingo's quilts, as well as others from the Gee's Bend Collective. [16]

Exhibitions

Mingo's quilts have been included in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the United States, including: [4] [6] [7]

Awards and honors

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boykin, Alabama</span> Census-designated place in Alabama, United States

Boykin, also known as Gee's Bend, is an African American majority community and census-designated place in a large bend of the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama. As of the 2020 census, its population was 208. The Boykin Post Office was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quilts of Gee's Bend</span> Quilting tradition of Gees Bend, Alabama

The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River. The quilts of Gee's Bend are among the most important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the history of art within the United States. Arlonzia Pettway, Annie Mae Young and Mary Lee Bendolph are among some of the most notable quilters from Gee's Bend. Many of the residents in the community can trace their ancestry back to enslaved people from the Pettway Plantation. Arlonzia Pettway can recall her grandmother's stories of her ancestors, specifically of Dinah Miller, who was brought to the United States by slave ship in 1859.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lee Bendolph</span> American quilt maker

Mary Lee Bendolph is an American quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. Her work has been influential on subsequent quilters and artists and her quilts have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. Bendolph uses fabric from used clothing for quilting in appreciation of the "love and spirit" with old cloth. Bendolph has spent her life in Gee's Bend and has had work featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota.

The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Wilcox County, Alabama that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Pettway</span> African American quilt artist

Loretta Pettway is an American artist and quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Boykin, Alabama. Her quilts are known for their bold and improvisational style.

Estelle Abrams Witherspoon was an American artist, civil rights activist, and a founding member and longtime manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee. She is also associated with the Gee's Bend quilting group, alongside her mother, Willie "Ma Willie" Abrams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willie Abrams</span> American artist and quilter

Willie Abrams (1897–1987), also known as Ma Willie, was an American artist. She was a member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, along with her daughter Estelle Witherspoon, and is associated with the Gee's Bend quilters. Some of “Ma” Willie’s quilts are in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

Loretta Pettway Bennett is an American artist. She is associated with the Freedom Quilting Bee, where her mother, Qunnie Pettway, worked, and with the Gee's Bend quilt-makers. Her quilts Sew Low and Vegetation are part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.

Annie Mae Young (1928–2013) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Her daughter, Nellie Mae Abrams, was also a quilter.

Qunnie Pettway (1943–2010) was an American artist. She worked for the Freedom Quilting Bee and is associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Her mother, Candis Pettway, taught her to quilt, and she passed the skill on to her daughter Loretta Pettway Bennett. She specialized in making traditional quilt patterns out of scraps she brought home from the Bee.

Candis Mosely Pettway was an American artist. She is associated with the Freedom Quilting Bee and the Gee's Bend group of quilters, alongside her daughters Qunnie Pettway, Sally Mae Pettway, and Edwina Pettway.

Annie E. Pettway (1904–1972) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Andrea Pettway Williams is an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, along with her mother, Lorraine Pettway. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is a sixth-generation quilter.

Magalene Wilson (1898–2001), also known as Magdalene Wilson, was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Nettie Pettway Young (1916–2010) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective and was an assistant manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art.

Bettie Bendolph Seltzer (1939–2017) was an American artist. She was associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, along with her mother, Annie Bendolph, and her mother-in-law, Sue Willie Seltzer. She worked at the Freedom Quilting Bee.

Lucy T. Pettway (1921–2004) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rachel Carey George (1908–2011) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, alongside her aunt Delia Bennett. Her work is included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Annie Bell Pettway (1930–2003) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, along with her daughter Belinda Pettway.

Pearlie Kennedy Pettway (1920–1982) was an American quilter. She was among the quilters of Gee's Bend. Her works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

References

  1. 1 2 "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2015". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Freeman, Roland L. (1996). A Communion of the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories . Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press. pp.  335–336. ISBN   1-55853-425-3. OCLC   34943313.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Lucy Mingo". www.soulsgrowndeep.org. Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Arnett, Paul; Cubbs, Joanne; Metcalf, Eugene W. Jr., eds. (2006). Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt. Atlanta, Georgia: Tinwood Books. pp. 22, 75–76. ISBN   978-0-9719104-5-4. OCLC   70919911.
  5. 1 2 3 "Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo and Loretta Pettway". www.mastersoftraditionalarts.org. Documentary Arts. 2017. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 "Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo, and Loretta Pettway: Quilters of Gee's Bend". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. n.d. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Beardsley, John; Arnett, William; Arnett, Paul; Livingston, Jane (2002). Gee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Atlanta, Georgia: Tinwood Books, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. pp. 220, 280–281. ISBN   0-9719104-0-5. OCLC   51268249.
  8. 1 2 "Now They Call It Art". www.voicesofcivilrights.org. AARP. 2004. Archived from the original on November 3, 2004. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  9. ↑ Beardsley, John; Arnett, William; Arnett, Paul; Livingston, Jane (2002). The Quilts of Gee's Bend. Atlanta, Georgia: Tinwood Books, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. p.  12. ISBN   0-9653766-4-8. OCLC   51172928.
  10. ↑ Callahan, Nancy (August 8, 2008). "Freedom Quilting Bee". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  11. ↑ Kimmelman, Michael (November 29, 2002). "Art Review: Jazzy Geometry, Cool Quilters". The New York Times. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  12. ↑ Gordon, Maggi McCormick (2008). Warman's Vintage Quilts: Identification and Price Guide. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. p. 240. ISBN   978-089689-687-1.
  13. ↑ "Craft in America: Industry". pbs.org. 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Invest in quilts without leaving home or breaking the bank: Collector Bill Volckening". www.oregonlive.com. April 11, 2014. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  15. ↑ Frank, Priscilla (January 20, 2017). "The Outsider Art Fair Is The Right Art World Event For Inauguration Weekend". www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  16. 1 2 High, Rachel (July 16, 2018). "Art on Its Own Terms: Author Amelia Peck on Gee's Bend Quilts in My Soul Has Grown Deep". www.metmuseum.org. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  17. ↑ "Quilts by Rita Mae Pettway and Lucy Mingo". Harper's Magazine. New York. July 2, 2018. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
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