The Quilts of Gee's Bend

Last updated
a 1979 quilt by Lucy Mingo of Gee's Bend, Alabama. It includes a nine-patch center block surrounded by pieced strips. Pieced Quilt, c. 1979 by Lucy Mingo, Gee's Bend, Alabama.JPG
a 1979 quilt by Lucy Mingo of Gee's Bend, Alabama. It includes a nine-patch center block surrounded by pieced strips.

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 considered to be unique, and one of 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 slaves from the Pettway Plantation. [1] 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. [2]

Alabama River river in the United States of America

The Alabama River, in the U.S. state of Alabama, is formed by the Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers, which unite about 6 miles (10 km) north of Montgomery, near the suburb of Wetumpka.

Arlonzia Pettway (1923–2008) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. She began quilting at age 13.

Annie Mae Young (1928–2013) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Contents

History

Women from Gee's Bend work on a quilt, 2005 Gee's Bend quilting bee.jpg
Women from Gee's Bend work on a quilt, 2005

Just southwest of Selma, in the Black Belt of Alabama, Gee's Bend (officially called Boykin) is an isolated, rural community of about seven hundred inhabitants. The area is named after Joseph Gee, a landowner who came from North Carolina and established a cotton plantation in 1816 with his seventeen slaves. In 1845 the plantation was sold to Mark H. Pettway. This name still remains predominant in the county as many members of the community still carry the name. After emancipation many freed slaves and family members stayed on the plantation as sharecroppers. In the 1930s, Gee's Bend saw a significant shift in their community, as a merchant who had given credit to the families of the Bend died, and the family of this merchant collected on debts owed to him in a brutal way. These indebted families watched as all their food, animals, tools and seed were taken away, and the community was saved by the distribution of Red Cross rations. Much of the land of this area was sold to the Federal Government and the Farm Security Administration, and those organizations set up Gee's Bend Farms, Inc.-a pilot project that was a cooperative based program intended to help sustain the inhabitants of the area. The government sold tracts of land to the families of the bend, thus giving the Native and African American population control over the land, which at the time was still rare. The community of Gee's Bend was also the subject of several Farm Security Administration photographers, like Dorothea Lange. During the latter half of The Great Depression the inhabitants of the area faced challenges as farming practices became increasingly mechanized, and consequently, a large portion of the community left. [3]

Selma, Alabama City in Alabama, United States

Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 20,756 as of the 2010 census. About 80% of the population is African-American.

Black Belt (region of Alabama)

The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. The term originally referred to the region's rich, black topsoil, much of it in the soil order Vertisols. The term took on an additional meaning in the 19th century, when the region was developed for cotton plantation agriculture, in which the workers were enslaved African Americans. After the American Civil War, many freedmen stayed in the area as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, continuing to comprise a majority of the population in many of these counties.

Boykin, Alabama 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 2010 census, its population was 275. The Boykin Post Office was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code.

However, many inhabitants of the community stayed. In 1949, a U.S Post Office was established. In 1962, ferry service, one of the only accesses into Gee’s Bend, was eliminated, contributing to the community’s isolation. This elimination hindered residents’ ability to register to vote. Ferry service was not restored until 2006. [4]

From the 1960s onward, the community of Gee's Bend, as well as the Freedom Quilting Bee in nearby Alberta, gained attention for the production of their quilts. Folk art collector, historian, curator William Arnett brought further attention to this artistic production with his Souls Grown Deep Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia, as he helped organize many exhibitions which featured their work.

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

Folk art art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople

This article is about tangible folk art objects. For performance folk arts, see Folk arts.

William S. Arnett is an Atlanta-based writer, editor, curator and art collector who has built internationally important collections of African, Asian, and African American art. Arnett is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation and documentation of African American art from the Deep South that works in coordination with leading museums and scholars to produce groundbreaking exhibitions and publications using its extensive holdings. His efforts have produced 13 books with nearly 100 essays by 73 authors. 38 museums have hosted major exhibitions, and comprehensive archives are maintained at UNC Chapel Hill. The White House has shown the collection. Arnett has exhibited works from these collections and delivered lectures at over 100 museums and educational institutions in the United States and abroad. He is perhaps best known for writing about and collecting the work of African American artists from the Deep South. Arnett was named one of the "100 Most Influential Georgians" by Georgia Trend Magazine in January 2015.

In 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. visited the area.

Quilts

The quilting tradition in Gee's Bend goes back beyond the 19th century perhaps influenced in part by patterned Native American textiles and African textiles. African-American women pieced together strips of cloth to make bedcovers. Throughout the post-bellum years and into the 20th century, Gee's Bend women made quilts to keep themselves and their children warm in unheated shacks that lacked running water, telephones and electricity. Along the way they developed a distinctive style, noted for its lively improvisations and geometric simplicity. [1] Many of the quilts are a departure from classical quilt making, bringing to mind a minimalist quality. This is could have also been influenced by the isolation of their location, which caused them to use whatever materials were on hand, often recycling from old clothing and textiles. [5]

African textiles textiles originating in and around continental Africa or through the African Diaspora

African textiles were often made of animal hair and woven. Some of the oldest surviving African textiles were discovered at the archaeological site of Kissi in northern Burkina Faso. They are made of wool or fine animal hair in a weft-faced plain weave pattern. Some fragments have also survived from the thirteenth century Benin City in Nigeria.

The quilts have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tacoma Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. The reception of the work has been mostly positive, as Alvia Wardlaw, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston wrote, "The compositions of these quilts contrast dramatically with the ordered regularity associated with many styles of Euro-American quiltmaking. There's a brilliant, improvisational range of approaches to composition that is more often associated with the inventiveness and power of the leading 20th-century abstract painters than it is with textile-making". [6] The Whitney venue, in particular, brought a great deal of art-world attention to the work, starting with Michael Kimmelman's review in The New York Times which called the quilts 'some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced' and went on to describe them as a version of Matisse and Klee arising in the rural South. [7] Comparable effect can be seen in the quilts of isolated individuals such as Rosie Lee Tompkins, but the Gee's Bend quilters had the advantage of numbers and backstory.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Art Museum, Institute, Library, Sculpture Park in Houston, TX United States

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), located in the Houston Museum District, Houston, is one of the largest museums in the United States. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 64,000 works from six continents.

Indianapolis Museum of Art Art Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana

The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a 152-acre (0.62 km2) campus at the corner of 4000 N. Michigan Road and W. 38th Street, near downtown Indianapolis, northwest of Crown Hill Cemetery. Newfields also houses the Lilly House, The Garden, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Beer Garden, and more. There are exhibitions, classes, tours, and events, many of which change seasonally. The campus was re-named in 2017 to better reflect the breadth of offerings and venues.

Philadelphia Museum of Art Art museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Eakins Oval. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin. The various classes of artwork include sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor, and decorative arts.

Quilting retreats

In 2003, more than 50 quilt makers founded the Gee's Bend Collective, which is owned and operated by the women of Gee’s Bend. Every quilt sold by the Gee’s Bend Quilt Collective is unique and individually produced. At the retreats, which began in 2015, China Pettway and Mary Ann Pettway share their unique quilting styles as participants explore the work of their hands and the spirituality of quilting. Singing and storytelling are also included in the activities. In recent years, members of the Collective have traveled nationwide to talk about Gee’s Bend’s history and their art. Many of the ladies have become well known for their wit, engaging personality and, in some cases, singing abilities.

Books and other media

See also

Related Research Articles

Louisiana Bendolph is an American visual artist and quilt maker. Bendolph is associated with The Quilts of Gee's Bend and her work has been considered more conceptual because of her use of vibrant color.

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. Mary Lee uses fabric from used clothing for quilting in appreciation of the "love and spirit" with old cloth. Mary 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.

Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo 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.

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.

Aolar Carson Mosely was an American artist. She was a founding member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, and is associated with the Gee's Bend quiltmakers, along with her daughter Mary Lee Bendolph and her granddaughter Essie Bendolph Pettway. Almost all of her quilts were destroyed when her house burned down in 1984.

Nettie Jane Kennedy (1916–2002) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Martha Jane Pettway (1898-2003) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Pettway was born in Gee's Bend, Alabama and lived her entire life there. Her work is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Jessie T. Pettway is an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Delia Bennet was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, and is said to be "the matriarch of perhaps the largest family of quilt producers in Gee's Bend." Her work is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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.

Nettie Pettway Young 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.

Arcola Pettway (1934-1994) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Lutisha Pettway (1925–2001) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Bettie Bendolph Seltzer was an American artist. She is 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.

References

  1. 1 2 Wallach, Amei. "Fabric of Their Lives". Smithsonian Magazine.
  2. ↑ Choosing craft : the artist's viewpoint. Halper, Vicki., Douglas, Diane, 1951-. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2009. ISBN   0807831190. OCLC   646811437.CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ↑ Stephens, Kyes. ""The History of Gee's Bend Alabama"" . Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Future of Gee's Bend - Deep South Magazine". Deep South Magazine. 2012-04-17. Retrieved 2017-12-05.
  5. ↑ "'The Quilts of Gee's Bend'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-12-05.
  6. ↑ "The Quilts of Gee's Bend"
  7. ↑ Kimmelman, Michael (29 November 2002). "ART REVIEW: Jazzy Geometry, Cool Quilters". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  8. ↑ The quilts of Gee's Bend. Beardsley, John., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. (1st ed.). Atlanta, GA: Tinwood Books in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 2002. ISBN   0965376648. OCLC   51172928.CS1 maint: others (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.