GEES BEND QUILT OUTSIDER ART HUGE LOT FANTASTIC COLORFUL AFRICAN AMERICAN SIGNED

Description: potholder set by gees bend artist Doris Pettway Mosely in black, yellow, and red includes: three large potholderstwo small potholdersfour coastersa dish bottle aprona hot-pot pada plastic bag holder This set was hand-sewn using cotton fabric.Potholder Details: - Hand-sewn using cotton fabric - Handmade by a Gee's Bend Quilter Doris Pettway Mosely in 2020. ALL BUT ONE SIGNED BUT ALL STAMPED BY DORIS. 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 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] Contents1History2Quilts3See also4References5Further reading6External linksHistoryJust 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. Many members of the community still carry the name. After emancipation, many freed slaves and family members stayed on the plantation as sharecroppers. Jennie Pettway and another girl with the quilter Jorena Pettway, Gee's Bend 1937In 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 brutal fashion. These indebted families watched as 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] However, many inhabitants of the community stayed. In 1949, a U.S Post Office was established in Gee's Bend. In 1962, the ferry service, one of the only accesses into Gee's Bend, was eliminated, contributing to the community's isolation. Among other effects, this 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, and curator William Arnett brought further attention to this artistic production with his Souls Grown Deep Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. Arnett organized an exhibition titled, "The Quilts of Gee's Bend", which first debuted in 2002 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and later travelled to a dozen other locations across the country. The exhibition featured sixty quilts created by forty-five artists. [5]This exhibition brought fame to the quilts. Arnett's management of Gee's Bend quilts was not always viewed positively. In 2007, two Gee's Bend quiltmakers: Annie Mae Young and Loretta Pettway filed lawsuits saying that Arnett cheated them out of thousands of dollars from the sales of their quilts.[6] The lawsuit was resolved and dismissed without comment from lawyers on either side in 2008. [7] Despite this former controversy, Arnett's foundation Souls Grown Deep Foundation continues to collect and organize exhibitions for Gees Bend Quilts. [8]The foundation manages multiple campaigns to support Gees Bend Quiltmakers. They aim to provide documentation, marketing, and fund-raising, as well as education and opportunity for quiltmakers. The foundation also involved in a multi-year campaign with the Artists Rights Society to gain intellectual property rights for the artists of Gee's Bend.[9] QuiltsThe quilting tradition in Gee's Bend goes back beyond the 19th century and may have been 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 could also have been influenced by the isolation of their location, which necessitated using whatever materials were on hand, often recycling from old clothing and textiles.[10] 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".[10] The Whitney venue, in particular, brought a great deal of art-world attention to the work, starting with Michael Kimmelman's 2002 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.[11] 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. Women from Gee's Bend work on a quilt, 2005In 2003, 50 quilt makers founded the Gee's Bend Collective, which is owned and operated by the women of Gee's Bend.[1] Every quilt sold by the Gee's Bend Quilt Collective is unique and individually produced. 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. Quilting, Gee's Bend, 2010In 2015, Gee's Bend quilters Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo, and Loretta Pettway were joint recipients of a National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[12] Philadelphia Museum of ArtHow curious a land is this,—how full of untold story, of tragedyand laughter, and the rich legacy of human life; shadowedwith a tragic past, and big with future promise!– W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black FolkGEE’S BEND:THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE QUILTAND AFRICAN AMERICANQUILTMAKING TRADITIONSA RESOURCE GUIDEFOR TEACHERSTABLE OF CONTENTSOVERVIEW ...................................................................................................................................... 1QUILT BASICS ................................................................................................................................. 2QUILTS IN THE GEE’S BEND: THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE QUILT EXHIBITION:ABOUT GEE’S BEND ........................................................................................................... 3QUILTMAKING IN GEE’S BEND .......................................................................................... 4QUILTMAKERS:WILLIE “MA WILLIE” ABRAMS ............................................................................. 5LOUISIANA P. BENDOLPH ...................................................................................... 7MARY LEE BENDOLPH ........................................................................................... 9LORETTA P. BENNETT .......................................................................................... 11LUCY MINGO ....................................................................................................... 13LORETTA PETTWAY ............................................................................................. 15AFRICAN AMERICAN QUILTS IN THEPHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART’S PERMANENT COLLECTION:INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 17QUILTMAKERS:UNKNOWN QUILTMAKER (GEE’S BEND, ALABAMA) ......................................... 19PEARLIE POSEY .................................................................................................... 21FAITH RINGGOLD ................................................................................................ 23SARAH MARY TAYLOR ........................................................................................ 25SELECTED CHRONOLOGY ............................................................................................................ 27ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR STUDY ......................................................................................... 30VOCABULARY .............................................................................................................................. 33BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF QUILTS .......................................................................................... 36DIAMANTE POEM FORMAT ......................................................................................................... 37Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt has been organized by the Museum of Fine Arts,Houston, and Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta. The exhibition is supported by a MetLifeFoundation Museum and Community Connections grant, by The Pew Charitable Trusts,and by The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Education andcommunity outreach programs are funded by The Delphi Project Foundation, RelianceStandard Life Insurance Company, the Connelly Foundation, Paul K. Kania, and Lynneand Harold Honickman. Promotional support is provided by NBC 10 WCAU and ThePhiladelphia Tribune.Pictured on the sticker:Blocks, Strips, Strings, and Half-Squares Quilt, 2005, by Mary Lee Bendolph (Collection ofthe Tinwood Alliance. Photo by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, Illinois)1OVERVIEWThis resource guide was developed by the Division of Education of the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art to complement the exhibition Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt(September 16–December 14, 2008) and to serve as an ongoing resource for teachers.The guide provides information about ten quilts created by African American womenwho worked throughout the twentieth century. Six of the quilts are on view in the Gee’sBend exhibition and the remaining four are in the permanent collection of thePhiladelphia Museum of Art.The ten quilts in this guide suggest the range of the many styles, influences, andmaterials found within African American quiltmaking traditions. The quilts have manystories to tell of artistic innovation, triumph over hardship, and pride in heritage. It isimportant to note that these quilts are a small sampling of a much larger production, formany quilts have been lost to history. Each quilt is a product of its own particular social,historical, and personal context. For this reason, the text prioritizes the quiltmakers’own words, biographical information, and descriptions of their working methods.Note: The quotes from the artists were taken from personal interviews and therefore reflect theinformality of that form of communication. As you read the quotes, listen for the richness of thespoken word and the rhythms that characterize the dialect of the American South.RESOURCESThe resources listed below can be used to introduce the material to K–12 students aspre- or post-visit lessons, or instead of a Museum visit. A full-color poster A CD-ROM containing a PowerPoint presentation that includes digital imagesof the quilts examined in this printed guide and “looking questions” to initiatediscussions Information about ten quilts and the artists who made them Language arts, social studies, math, and art curriculum connections A selected chronology A resource list for further study A vocabulary list, which includes all words that have been bolded in the text 2QUILT BASICS Most quilts are made of three layers: a top that is decorative, a middle of softbatting that adds thickness and provides warmth, and a back. These three layers are stitched, or quilted, together. The quilts included in this guide fall into two categories: pieced and appliqué.Pieced quilts have a top made of bits of fabric stitched, or pieced, together.Appliqué quilts have tops that consist of background blocks of fabric with cutoutshapes of fabric sewn on top. 3ABOUT GEE’S BENDGee’s Bend, Alabama, is a rural community of about 700 people, most of whom areAfrican American, located on a fifteen-mile stretch of land nestled in a hairpin turn ofthe Alabama River. The area is named for Joseph Gee, who established a cottonplantation there in 1816. In 1845, Mark Pettway bought the estate, which encompassedthousands of acres of land and 101 enslaved people. Pettway also forced slaves from hisNorth Carolina home to walk across four states to Alabama. Many residents of Gee’sBend are descendants of these people, a large number of whom still bear Pettway’s lastname.After the American Civil War (1861–65), the majority of the freed slaves in Gee’s Bendbecame tenant farmers and remained in the area. During the Great Depression(1929–39), the price of cotton plummeted, causing economic strife in Gee’s Bend. It wasidentified as one of the poorest towns in the nation, prompting the administration ofPresident Franklin Delano Roosevelt to establish a program to build new homes andoffer residents low-interest mortgages. While many African American families in theSouth moved North in the ensuing years, these homeowners stayed.Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., visited Gee’s Bend in 1965 and encouraged citizens toregister to vote and to join him in a march to Selma, Alabama. Many Gee’s Bend womenwere jailed for these actions. In additional retaliation, the ferry service that connectedGee’s Bend to the larger town of Camden was cancelled, cutting off access to servicesand supplies (this ferry service was restored in 2006). Still, the community endured, andwhen King was assassinated in 1968, two farmer mules from Gee’s Bend were chosen topull his casket. For over a century, the people of Gee’s Bend have come together toovercome the struggles of poverty, isolation, and prejudice. Although Gee’s Bendremains geographically remote, it is recognized worldwide as a center of artisticproduction and a symbol of community perseverance and pride.4QUILTMAKING IN GEE’S BENDThe quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend first garnered attention for their skills in the 1960s, whenthe Freedom Quilting Bee, a sewing cooperative that produced quilts and other sewnproducts for department stores, was established. The Bee provided women with anincome and a sense of independence during the tumultuous Civil Rights era. In themid-1990s, while researching African American folk art in the South, art collectorWilliam Arnett became interested in the history of quiltmaking. After seeing aphotograph of Gee’s Bend quiltmaker Annie Mae Young standing with one of herquilts, he visited her and the other accomplished quiltmakers in the community.Working together, they organized the acclaimed exhibition The Quilts of Gee’s Bend in2002. The overwhelming positive response to the show led to a renaissance ofquiltmaking in the area. Since the 2002 exhibition, younger artists have been inspired topick up needle and thread and older quiltmakers who had abandoned the practice tookit up again. The current exhibition, Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, showcasesmuch of this new work. 5LET’S LOOK!What shapes and patterns arein this quilt?This quilt is made ofcorduroy. How do you thinkit would feel to sleep underit?How are the blocks differentfrom each other? How arethey similar?WILLIE “MA WILLIE” ABRAMSAmerican, 1879–1987Roman Stripes Variation Quiltc. 1975Corduroy85 1/2 x 70 1/2 inches (217.2 x 179.1 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisI believe she was quiet not because she didn’t have anything to say, but because she camefrom a world where you did not speak until you were spoken to. I think this is also how shewas able to create many beautiful quilts . . . because in her moments of quietness she wouldthink of things to do and visualize it and just make it.– Louise Williams, speaking about her grandmother, Willie AbramsABOUT THIS ARTISTWillie “Ma Willie” Abrams lived in Rehoboth, Alabama, a settlement north of Gee’sBend. She helped operate the Freedom Quilting Bee with her daughter, EstelleWitherspoon, who served as its head manager for over two decades. Abrams isremembered as a quiet person and gifted quiltmaker who often shared pattern blocksand designs with others. Scholars have noted that the quiltmakers of Rehoboth have aunique style, characterized by daring color combinations and innovative compositions.This distinctive style might result in part from Rehoboth’s geographical distance fromthe heart of Gee’s Bend.ABOUT THIS QUILTIn 1972, the Freedom Quilting Bee received a contractwith Sears Roebuck and Company to make corduroypillow shams. The abundance of leftover fabric from thatproject inspired many local quiltmakers to incorporate itinto their designs. Although difficult to work with due toits rigidity, corduroy was well suited for minimal yetbold designs. This quilt, made from Sears corduroy, has awarm feeling due to the gold, red, and brown colors,accented by avocado green. The design is dominated by avariation of the Roman Stripes pattern, made of rows ofhorizontal strips. However, Abrams rotated the rowsthroughout the design and manipulated the size of eachblock. One row of blocks near the middle of the quiltfeatures a sampling of other quilt patterns includingBricklayer, Log Cabin, and Housetop. 6CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary and Middle School – Poetry of DesignAs a class, brainstorm words that can be used to describe the textures, colors, shapes,and patterns in Abrams’s quilt. You can view the quilt together as a class by projectingthe image in the PowerPoint presentation (on the CD-ROM included with this resourceguide). Using the long list of words, have students create poems that capture the feelingof the quilt.SOCIAL STUDIESMiddle and High School – The Freedom Quilting Bee and the Civil Rights MovementAbrams helped to manage the Freedom Quilting Bee, a sewing cooperative establishedin 1966, which employed women in the Gee’s Bend and Rehoboth areas. They producedquilts and other sewn pieces that were sold in department stores. Have studentsresearch the history of the Freedom Quilting Bee and its relationship to the Civil RightsMovement (see Nancy Callahan’s book on the subject, listed in “Additional Resourcesfor Study” on page 30).MATH/ARTElementary School – How Many Ways?Ask students to put three rows of three dots on a piece of paper. Have them connect thedots with straight lines in any way they like (just as long as the large square isenclosed). Compare and contrast the solutions, then ask students to work on severalmore designs. How many ways are there to divide up the square using the dots? Whathappens if you add more dots to each row?Elementary School – 100 DotsGive students sheets of paper with 10 rows of 10 dots (100 dots total). Have studentsconnect the dots with straight lines to make a symmetrical design (they don’t have touse every dot). Invite students to color in the entire design. Compare and contrast theresulting compositions.Elementary School – Variations on Quilt PatternsHave students look at some of the different quilt patterns (see “Basic Building Blocks ofQuilts” on page 36). Then ask students to choose one that they’d like to reinterpret andhave them design a quilt with nine blocks (three rows of three blocks), with each blockfeaturing a variation of the quilt pattern they chose. Discuss how students altered theoriginal pattern in their designs.7LET’S LOOK!If this quilt were a map or anaerial view, what kind ofplace could it be?What colors did the artistuse? What do these colorsremind you of?Bendolph says she basesmany of her designs on theHousetop pattern. How doesthis quilt remind you of thatpattern (see illustration onpage 36)?LOUISIANA P. BENDOLPHAmerican, born 1960Housetop Variation Quilt2003Cotton and cotton blends97 1/2 x 66 3/4 inches (247.7 x 169.5 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisWe came from cotton fields, we came through hard times, and we look back and see what all thesepeople before us have done. They brought us here, and to say thank you is not enough.– Louisiana P. BendolphABOUT THIS ARTISTUntil she was sixteen, Louisiana Bendolph worked in the fields from sunup to sundownevery day of the week except Sunday, when she went to church with her family. Sheand her husband Albert (whose mother is Mary Lee Bendolph) moved from Gee’s Bendto Mobile, Alabama, in 1980, though she considers Gee’s Bend her home. She madequilts intermittently throughout her life, at times using patterns from books. However,she had not quilted for many years when she went to the 2002 opening of The Quilts ofGee’s Bend exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition inspired herto return to quiltmaking. She said, “When I was coming back from Houston . . . I startedhaving visions of quilts . . . So I got a pencil and a pieceof paper and drew them out. Finally I decided that Iwould get some fabric and make a quilt . . . The imageswouldn’t go away . . . And I’ve kept on doing it becausethose images won’t leave me alone.”ABOUT THIS QUILTIn this quilt, solid blocks of color alternate with blocks ofintersecting lines that recall maps, mazes, or grids. Thequilt as a whole looks like an aerial view of land, roads,and fields. When Bendolph pieces her quilt tops together,she often reworks their design by cutting them apart andrearranging them in new ways. She describes most of herdesigns as based on the Housetop pattern but as sheworks on them they become “un-Housetop.” Theconnection to her ancestors through quiltmaking isimportant to her, and today her daughter andgranddaughter design quilt patterns on the computer.8CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHHigh School – Are Quilts Art?Can utilitarian quilts be considered art? Discuss arguments for and against the idea thatquilts should be exhibited in an art museum. Read art critics’ opinions as well, such asthe differing responses that critics Michael Kimmelman and Brooks Barnes had to TheQuilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition (listed in “Additional Resources for Study” on page 30).SOCIAL STUDIESMiddle and High School – The Gee’s Bend Quilters CollectiveThe successful exhibitions of quilts from Gee’s Bend have created a renaissance inquiltmaking and an increased demand for work done by these quiltmakers. Fifty localwomen created the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective in 2003 to sell their quilts. When aquilt is sold, part of the income goes directly to the quiltmaker and the rest isdistributed among the members of the collective. Learn about how the collective worksand how it might serve as an example for other communities on the websitequiltsofgeesbend.com.MATHElementary School – Patterns and Pattern BreaksUsing quilting tiles (available through the ETA/Cuisenaire website; see “AdditionalResources for Study” on page 30) or shapes cut out of construction paper (one-inchsquares and triangles cut from one-inch squares), have students create a clear patternwithin a nine-patch block (three rows of three squares). Then, have students exchangepatterns with a partner. The partner must change one or two pieces to break the overallpattern and create visual interest. What changed? How does the pattern break affect thedesign?ARTElementary and Middle School – Digital Quilt DesignsLouisiana Bendolph’s daughter and granddaughter create quilt designs on thecomputer. Using Adobe Photoshop or another graphics editing program, have studentsmake quilt designs digitally and use them as inspiration in a quilt project.Middle and High School – Aerial ViewsBendolph’s quilt recalls an aerial view of a landscape, including plots of land, roads,and other geographic elements. Have students create designs based on aerial views oftheir neighborhood, town, or city. 9LET’S LOOK!If this quilt could make noise,what would it be?Describe some of the patternsin this quilt.How are the patternsdifferent from each other?How are they similar?Where have you seen similarpatterns in the world aroundyou?MARY LEE BENDOLPHAmerican, born 1935Blocks, Strips, Strings, and Half-Squares Quilt2005Cotton84 x 81 inches (213.4 x 205.7 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisI can walk outside and look around in the yard and see ideasall around the front and back of my house.– Mary Lee BendolphABOUT THIS ARTISTThe seventh of sixteen children, Mary Lee Bendolph has spent her entire life in Gee’sBend. She learned how to quilt from her mother, Aolar. Bendolph gave birth to her firstchild at age fourteen, which prevented her from attending school beyond sixth grade.She married Rubin Bendolph in 1955 and their family grew to include eight children.Over the years, she has worked in a variety of textile-related jobs, mostly making armyuniforms. Since retiring in 1992, Bendolph has found more time to quilt. She gathersdesign ideas by looking at the world around her. Anything—from people’s clothes atchurch, to her barn, to quilts hanging on clotheslines in front yards, to how the landlooks when she’s high above it in an airplane—can inspire her. For her materials, sheprefers fabric cut from used clothing because it avoidswastefulness and because she appreciates the “love andspirit” in old cloth.ABOUT THIS QUILTRadiating energy and a lively rhythm, this quilt is madeof stacked blocks of pieced fabric, each presenting adifferent design variation. The pattern changes aresometimes referred to as syncopation, a term also usedto describe a rhythmic shift in music when a weak beat isstressed. This quilt includes strings, or wedge-shapedpieces, that are commonly used by quiltmakers in Gee’sBend, in addition to strips (long rectangles) andtriangles, which come together in various ways. Itsoverall asymmetry defies predictability, encouraging oureyes to jump to different areas of the quilt.10CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHHigh School – “Crossing Over”Read and discuss J. R. Moehringer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story about Mary LeeBendolph, Gee’s Bend, and the reopening of the ferry service on the websitepulitzer.org/year/2000/feature-writing/works.ARTElementary and Middle School – Yard Art ShowMary Lee Bendolph has talked about being inspired by neighbors’ and friends’ quiltsthat were displayed in their front yards. She says:We just walked out together, and the peoples have the quilts on the line. They have them hangingout . . . And all the quilts they made, they had them hanging out on the wire fence, just like anart show. They be looking so beautiful. I asked them about how they made them, you know, whatwas the name of the quilt. They’d tell us. They named their own quilts and they’ll tell you aboutit. And it would be so pretty.Stage a “yard art show” of your own in a hallway, school yard, or other common area,and have students respond to each others’ designs.Middle and High School – PhotographyAfter discussing the places where Bendolph finds inspiration for patterns, havestudents find and photograph patterns—both symmetrical and asymmetrical—in theirneighborhood. Encourage students to look everywhere, as patterns emerge ineverything from a stone wall, to the bark of a tree, to links on a fence. Print thephotographs (if possible) or create designs based on these patterns.MUSICElementary and Middle School – MusicMany quiltmakers, including Bendolph, speak about the connection between music andquiltmaking. Nettie Young explained:We do lots of singing when we making a quilt, and it could have music and a song to it, becausethat’s the way we make the quilt. Mostly singing . . . Sewing, singing, sewing and singing. It’sin that quilt because that’s what I do when I quilt.Ask students to discuss what kinds of music each quilt reminds them of. The quilts canbe viewed together as a class by projecting the image in the PowerPoint presentation(on the CD-ROM included with this resource guide). Then, play songs from differentAfrican American musical genres (such as ragtime, jazz, blues, or spirituals) and havestudents respond visually. For ideas, consult Toyomi Igus’s and Michele Wood’s bookI See the Rhythm, or listen to recordings of songs recorded in Gee’s Bend in 1948 on thewebsite arts.state.al.us/actc/music/index-music.html.11LET’S LOOK!What do you notice first?Where does your eye travelnext? What drew your eyethere?What do you think this quiltcould represent about theartist’s childhood?LORETTA P. BENNETTAmerican, born 1960Two-Sided Geometric Quilt2003Corduroy and velveteen69 1/2 x 59 inches (176.5 x 149.9 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisI came to realize that my mother, her mother, my aunts, and all the others fromGee’s Bend had sewn the foundation, and all I had to do now was thread myown needle and piece a quilt together.– Loretta P. BennettABOUT THIS ARTISTLoretta P. Bennett is the great-great-granddaughter of Dinah Miller, a woman who wasbrought to Alabama from Africa as a slave in 1859. As a child, Bennett picked cottonand other crops. She attended school in Gee’s Bend until seventh grade, when she wasbussed to high schools that were a two-hour drive away. Bennett was introduced tosewing around age five by her mother, Qunnie, who worked at the Freedom QuiltingBee, a sewing cooperative established in 1966 in the nearby neighborhood of Rehoboth.She married Lovett Bennett in 1979. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and for the nexttwenty years they lived in numerous places including Germany and Texas. However,she always returned to Gee’s Bend to reconnect with family and quilt with her mother.The 2002 exhibition of quilts from Gee’s Bend inspired her to reinvigorate her ownwork.ABOUT THIS QUILTBennett often sketches her ideas for quilts and colors thembefore beginning to piece fabric together. While manyquilts are made up of numerous blocks, Bennett is knownfor enlarging one block to the size of the quilt. She prefersto use fabric from thrift stores due to the range of colorsand quality of older materials. In speaking about this quiltshe said, “The triangle I put in there to make the quiltstand out, I wanted it to be like a window into mybackground and my childhood and where I came from.That quilt honors my mother, Qunnie, and Arlonzia.” Shedecided to use hot pink fabric because it was her mother’s favorite color and used theleftover pieces to make the back, which offers a simple, yet complementary, design.Front of the quilt Back of the quilt12CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary and Middle School – Family TraditionsQuiltmaking is a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation inLoretta Bennett’s family. Have a class discussion about traditions. What traditions dothe students have in their families? Do they do anything special on particular holidays,or did a relative teach them to do something like bake, paint, or play a sport or musicalinstrument? Have students write about a family tradition that has passed from onegeneration to the next. Ask them to include details such as when the tradition began,how it feels to be a part of that tradition, and what makes the tradition special.You may also want to listen to an interview with quiltmaker Lucy Mingo and herdaughter, Polly Raymond, to learn about their family tradition of quiltmaking. Theinterview can be found on the website arts.state.al.us/actc/1/radioseries.html.SOCIAL STUDIESElementary, Middle, and High School – Oral HistoryAfter discussing Loretta Bennett’s quilt and how she took inspiration from her ancestorsfor its design, begin a discussion about family and community history. What questionsdo the students have about their own family or community history? Have studentsconduct oral history interviews with a family or community member. Questions to askduring the interview could be brainstormed by the class or taken from those developedby NPR for their StoryCorps project, which can be found on the websitestorycorps.net/record-your-story/question-generator/list. You could also record thesestories for StoryCorps.MATHElementary and Middle School – Enlarging ImagesBennett is known for enlarging one quilt block to the size of the entire quilt. Havestudents find an image from a magazine, newspaper, or art reproduction and draw agrid of one-inch squares on it. Next, have them draw a larger square on a blank sheet ofpaper, perhaps a two-, three-, or four-inch square. They can then choose an interestingsquare from their gridded image to reproduce in this larger square. A discussion ofratio and proportion can follow.ARTElementary, Middle, and High School – Visualizing HistoryAfter conducting an interview with a family or community member, have studentsdraw, paint, or collage a visual interpretation of their family or community history.It can be abstract, like Bennett’s quilt, or include representational elements.13LET’S LOOK!What moods or feelings dothese colors remind you of?Where might you see colorslike the ones in this quilt?Why might someone make aquilt out of used clothes?LUCY MINGOAmerican, born 1931Blocks and Strips Work-Clothes Quilt1959Cotton and denim78 3/4 x 69 1/4 inches (200 x 175.9 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisYou know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields, we picked cotton, and sometimes we hadit and sometimes we didn’t. And so you look at your quilt and you say, “This is some of the oldclothes that I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they’re still doing good.”– Lucy MingoABOUT THIS ARTISTBorn in Rehoboth, a settlement just north of Gee’s Bend, Lucy Mingo grew up pickingcrops, cooking for her family, and walking four miles to and from school each day. Herfather worked as a longshoreman in Mobile. Mingo married her husband, David, in1949, and together they raised ten children. In 1965, she joined Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr., on a march to Selma and also bravely registered to vote in Camden, Alabama,with other residents of Gee’s Bend. In 2006, Mingo and her daughter, Polly Raymond,received a Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant, given by the Alabama State Council on theArts, which matches master artists with apprentices. The grant covered the costs ofMingo teaching her daughter how to quilt.ABOUT THIS QUILTThis is a work-clothes quilt, also known as a “britches quilt,”which is typically made from reused denim overalls, trousers(britches), and cotton and flannel shirts. Looking closely atthis quilt, we can identify seams, pockets, and various shadesof blue where knees have left their mark. The light blues andgrays testify to a life of physical labor. The soft hues alsorecall the environment in which the clothes were worn:clouded skies, dusty roads, and fields of crops. In this way,work-clothes quilts can be viewed as portraits of the peoplewho wore the clothes as well as of the time and place in whichthey lived. They not only provide warmth, but also hold thememory of long days in the fields. The transformation of worn-out work clothes intoobjects of comfort and protection speaks to the strength of the human spirit to overcomehardship. 14CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary School – Objects Telling StoriesHow do quilts tell stories? Lucy Mingo has said about quilts:It looks like they have songs to them. You could tell stories about this piece, you could tell storiesabout that piece . . . They have songs to them.Discuss what you think Mingo means by her statement. What kinds of stories and songsdoes this quilt convey? Ask students to think of an object at home that holds specialmemories for them or tells an interesting story. Have them bring their object in, write itsstory, and share with the class. The objects and stories could also be displayed together.SOCIAL STUDIESElementary, Middle, and High School – The Civil Rights MovementLucy Mingo joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on a march to Selma, Alabama, whereshe and other Civil Rights activists protested discrimination against AfricanAmericans. Ask students to research Dr. King, his speeches, and the marches anddemonstrations he organized. What were the strategies, objectives, and outcomes? Howdid the involvement of people like Lucy Mingo help to bring about social change?Middle and High School – The Great DepressionLucy Mingo was born in 1931, at the beginning of the Great Depression. This was atime of hardship in Gee’s Bend due to the plummeting value of cotton. Have studentslearn about this time period in history and its impact on rural areas such as Gee’s Bend.Incorporate primary documents by having students visit the Library of Congresswebsite to study photographs of Gee’s Bend taken by U.S. government photographersworking for the Farm Security Administration: memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html;enter “Gee’s Bend” in the search box. What can we learn from about life in Gee’s Bendfrom these photographs? Why would the government have wanted to photographGee’s Bend and other poor areas?ARTElementary and Middle School – Patchwork Quilts Using Recycled MaterialsHave students bring in scraps of cloth from home, such as old shirts, jeans, ties, or otherfabric. Cut squares out of the usable parts, and have students sew or collage togethersimple four-patch or nine-patch designs.15LET’S LOOK!How are the blocks similar?How are they different?What shapes and patterns arecreated in each block?Discuss Pettway’s quote onthis page. How are the shapesand patterns in this quiltsimilar to a brick house?LORETTA PETTWAYAmerican, born 1942Bricklayer–Sampler Variation Quilt1958Cotton and corduroy82 x 78 inches (208.3 x 198.1 cm)Collection of the Tinwood AlliancePhoto by Stephen Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IllinoisI always did like a “Bricklayer.” It made me think about what I always wanted.Always did want a brick house.– Loretta PettwayABOUT THIS ARTISTLoretta Pettway has overcome many obstacles in her life. As a child she sufferedemotional pain when her mother abandoned her family. Pettway also faced physicalhardship, walking for miles each day and working in the fields. She endured a thirtyyear marriage to an abusive husband, with whom she had seven children. Like LorettaP. Bennett, she is a descendent of Dinah Miller (Pettway is Dinah’s greatgranddaughter). She pieced her first quilt together when she was only eleven years old,learning skills from her grandmother, stepmother, and other female relatives. Many ofthem preferred the Bricklayer pattern. Pettway did not always enjoy sewing, as it was achore added to her heavy workload; now, her attitude has changed. Given all theadversity that she has faced, Pettway’s brilliantly designed quilts reflect her personalityand strength.ABOUT THIS QUILTOne of Pettway’s earliest quilts, this work is made oftwenty blocks, each one presenting a different variationof the Bricklayer pattern. Her later quilts often focus onthis pattern but usually feature one large Bricklayerblock instead of many. Her husband, Walter, worked atthe Henry Brick Company in Selma, and Pettwayremembers being inspired by two picture boards ofbricks that he brought home. Each block in this quilt canbe interpreted as representing stacks of bricks, orperhaps four sides of a house reaching a single peak. Ifthe blocks represent houses, perhaps the quilt as a wholedepicts a neighborhood. Pettway used a variety of solid colored and patterned fabricsso that different shapes and patterns appear to emerge and recede throughout the quilt. 16CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary School – ArchitectureHow are houses and quilts similar? Brainstorm some ideas together as a class. (Forexample, both houses and quilts protect people from the cold, contain memories, andinclude geometric shapes.) How else are they similar?SOCIAL STUDIESMiddle and High School – Slavery’s Legacy in Gee’s BendLoretta Pettway and Loretta P. Bennett are both descendants of Dinah Miller, who wasbrought to Alabama from Africa as a slave. Have students investigate slavery in Gee’sBend by listening to interviews from 1941 with former enslaved people on the Libraryof Congress website: memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/index.html; type“Gee’s Bend” in the search box. Discuss the interviews as primary source documents.What can we learn from them? What issues might have affected what the intervieweesdid or did not say?MATH/ARTElementary School – SymmetryThe Bricklayer pattern has reflective symmetry (also called bilateral or mirrorsymmetry), which means that the size, shape, and arrangement of parts of the left andright sides, or the top and bottom of a composition or object are the same in relation toan imaginary center dividing line. Discuss reflective symmetry and find other objectsthat have reflective symmetry (such as a butterfly).Middle and High School – ArchitectureMany quiltmakers get pattern ideas from the buildings that they see in their everydaylives. The names of some of the quilt patterns also refer to buildings, such as Log Cabin,Bricklayer, and Housetop. What are the different ways that we can represent buildingsin a 2-D format? Have each student draw the plan of the school building (the floor planor footprint), the elevation of the building (what it looks like from the front), and asection of the building (imagine you made a vertical slice into one side and expose theinside). How do the drawings differ? What information do you get from each?Have students choose a building in the community (their house, the school, or anotherneighborhood building) and create a geometric design based on its plan, elevation, orsection. Alternatively, make a visual map of the neighborhood or town. For moreinformation on introducing architecture to students, see the Architecture in Educationwebsite: aiaphila.org/aie. 17AFRICAN AMERICAN QUILTS IN THEPHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART’SPERMANENT COLLECTIONINTRODUCTIONThe Philadelphia Museum of Art’s textile collection includes examples by many leadingAfrican American quiltmakers. A number of these quilts are on view in the currentexhibition:QUILT STORIES: THE ELLA KING TORREY COLLECTION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN QUILTS ANDOTHER RECENT QUILT ACQUISITIONSThis exhibition is on view at the Museum’s Perelman Building from now throughFebruary 2009.Quilt Stories includes thirteen African American quilts collected by Ella King Torrey(1957–2003), an innovative and dynamic arts leader in Philadelphia and San Francisco,who had a long-standing interest in popular culture and folk art. While a graduatestudent at the University of Mississippi she became especially interested in AfricanAmerican quiltmaking. Her research and fieldwork included extensive interviews oftwo of the quiltmakers included in the exhibition: Sarah Mary Taylor and Pearlie Posey.Quilt Stories also features other recent Museum quilt acquisitions, such as an earlytwentieth-century Amish quilt made in Arthur, Illinois, with a distinctive alternatingfan pattern, and an 1846 album quilt made by the Ladies of the Third PresbyterianChurch in Philadelphia. The album quilt was given to Mrs. Mary Brainerd, the wife ofthe church’s pastor, as a measure of solace because their daughter had succumbed toscarlet fever.Three of the quilts in this guide are on view in the Quilt Stories exhibition—those bySarah Mary Taylor, Pearlie Posey, and the unknown quiltmaker from Gee’s Bend.1819LET’S LOOK!How do you think thispattern relates to the patternname, “Birds in Flight?”What shapes and patterns areformed by the triangles?How are the blocks similar?How are they different?Do you think that the artistwants us to look at the quiltas a whole, or just one part?How do you know?How is this quilt’s designdifferent than the other quiltsyou’ve seen that were madein Gee’s Bend?UNKNOWN QUILTMAKER“Triangles in Squares” QuiltGee’s Bend, Alabama1970sCotton and polyester; running stitch76 3/8 x 76 1/2 inches (194 x 194.3 cm)Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Ella King Torrey Collection ofAfrican American Quilts, 2006-163-4ABOUT THIS QUILTIt is not known who made this quilt, but we do know it was made in Gee’s Bend. Itsback is made of red and blue corduroy remnants from pillow shams made by women atthe Freedom Quilting Bee for Sears Roebuck and Company, the same fabric that WillieAbrams used in her quilt (see page 5). Some of the oldest surviving quilts in Gee’s Bend,from the 1920s and 1930s, feature triangle patterns. Similar patterns are also found inlate eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Euro-American patchwork quilts, as wellas in textiles and other surface adornments from West andCentral African groups. Although the exact origin oftriangle-based patterns in Gee’s Bend is unknown,quiltmakers today agree that similar patterns have beenpassed down for generations.This quilt is made up of three rows of three blocks, eachfeaturing fifty triangles. The design is a variation of a quiltpattern known as Birds in Flight or Birds in the Air. Theintricate pattern, consisting of many small pieces, wouldhave required a skilled and patient hand. Following thedirection of the triangles, our eyes bounce around fromone corner of the quilt to another, never finding a place torest. Similarly, migrating birds fly tirelessly to their newhome, pausing briefly before moving on again. Couldeach triangle symbolize a single bird, and each block agroup traveling together? Or perhaps each small trianglecould represent a flock of birds, as the shape itself mimicsthe arrangement of birds in flight. What do you think?20CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary, Middle, and High School – Diamante PoemsTaking inspiration from the shapes and patterns in this quilt, have students creatediamond-shaped poems using the diamante poem format (see worksheet on page 37).Discuss how patterns in language can respond to patterns in quilts.High School – Gee’s Bend Performed at the Arden TheaterThe play Gee’s Bend, written by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, will be performed at theArden Theater in Philadelphia from October 9–December 7, 2008. The play follows twoGee’s Bend women who face segregation, family struggles, and the turmoil of the CivilRights Movement. Quilting provides comfort and context to their lives. Gee’s Bend is adeeply personal story of family, self-discovery, and artistic expression.MATHElementary School – Exploring Four-Patch PatternsUsing either quilting tiles (one-inch squares and triangles that have two one-inch sides;available through ETA/Cuisenaire; their website is listed on page 32) or paper shapeswith the same dimensions, have students explore the variations of four-patch designs.Each pair of students starts with twenty squares and twenty triangles (ten each of twodifferent colors). Have them experiment with ways to arrange the pieces in a two-bytwo square, making at least three different patterns. Groups then choose one design toshare with the class. Which designs are the same configuration of squares and triangles?Remove duplicates and see how many different arrangements were found. Comparethe designs and the shapes created. You can also try three-by-three squares, allowingfor more design possibilities. Similar explorations can be pursued with sets of patternblocks, which include additional shapes such as hexagons and diamonds.ARTElementary, Middle, or High School – Capturing Flight in ArtHow have other artists represented flight or movement? For example, compare andcontrast this quilt and Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space. What is each artist capturingabout birds and flight? Find Bird in Space and other examples on ARTStor (artstor.org)and discuss similarities and differences. Have students create a work of art thatcaptures their idea of flying.21LET’S LOOK!What are some of the animalsin this quilt? What are theydoing?How would you describe themood of this quilt? What doyou see that makes you saythat?What are some strategies thatthe artist used to make thedifferent animals stand out?PEARLIE POSEYAmerican, 1894–1984“Animals” Quilt1980–83Cotton; running stitch76 1/4 x 62 1/2 inches (193.7 x 158.8 cm)Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Ella King Torrey Collection of AfricanAmerican Quilts, 2006-163-7In my time, would be a family there and a family there and a family there and we would gettogether and tear up old clothes, overall and linings and everything and piece quilt tops andlinings . . . If I was ready to quilt one, well, four or five women Sunday morning come to myhouse and put one in. That’s the way we quilted, just quilt and laugh and enjoy ourselves.– Pearlie PoseyABOUT THIS ARTISTPearlie Posey lived a life of physical labor, spending her days working on plantations inMississippi and her evenings taking care of her family. She suffered the loss of hermother at age five and was raised by her grandparents. Nonetheless, her mother spenttime at the end of her life sewing quilt tops so that she could provide warmth and lovefor her daughter even after she was gone. Later in life, Posey’s grandmother taught herhow to make pieced quilts such as nine-patch, four-patch, and strip quilts. Materialand thread were scarce, so they used what they had, obtaining thread by unravelingflour and meal sacks.ABOUT THIS QUILTAlthough Posey made pieced quilts for many years,she was inspired by her daughter, Sarah Mary Taylor(see page 25), to make appliqué quilts toward the endof her life. Due to her failing eyesight, she would haveTaylor cut out the forms, then she’d group the figurestogether on blocks of fabric, often varying theirarrangement in each section. Posey created livelyquilts and became known for her use of bright colors.In this quilt, animals run, play, and gather together.Each block seems like an excerpt from a larger story.Posey’s use of contrasting colors and values adds tothe animated feeling of the quilt.22CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary School – Valerie Flournoy’s The Patchwork QuiltRead this story and discuss what the quilt means to Tanya, her grandmother, and theother members of their family.Elementary School – StoriesAs a class, imagine Posey’s quilt is a storybook, with each square showing a differentscene in the narrative. You can view the quilt together as a class by projecting the imagein the PowerPoint presentation (on the CD-ROM included with this resource guide).Brainstorm how all of the scenes in the quilt fit together, or have individual studentsdetermine what is happening in each quilt block, then tie them together into one longstory as a class.Middle and High School – Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday UseHave students read Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use. Discuss the characters’sense of their heritage and their relationships to the quilts. What are the arguments forgiving the quilts to Dee or to Maggie? Why do you think Mama makes the decision thatshe does at the end of the story?ARTElementary School – Appliqué QuiltHave students draw animals or people in interesting poses, either from images inmagazines and newspapers, or from life. Make templates of the images, trace them ontocloth, and cut them out. Ask students to create a scene with the figures by applyingthem to a background square of cloth with stitches, glue, or a double stick fusible webproduct such as Steam-A-Seam 2 Double Stick (available at craft stores), which attachespieces of fabric together with the heat of an iron. Taking inspiration from Posey’s quilt,assemble the students’ blocks together in a class quilt. 23LET’S LOOK!Can you find Cassie in a reddress? How many times doyou see her? Where?Where is this story takingplace? How do you know?How is this different fromother quilts you’ve seen?How is it similar?FAITH RINGGOLDAmerican, born 1930“Tar Beach 2” Quilt1990Silk66 x 67 inches (167.6 x 170.2 cm)Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with funds contributed byW. B. Dixon Stroud, 1992-100-1I think most people understand quilts and not a lot of people understand paintings. But yetthey're looking at one. When they're looking at my work, they're looking at a painting andthey're able to accept it better because it is also a quilt.– Faith RinggoldABOUT THIS ARTISTBorn in Harlem (a neighborhood in New York City) in 1930, Faith Ringgold grew up inthe wake of the Harlem Renaissance. As a girl, she was often bedridden with asthmaand spent time drawing while she rested. She taught art in city public schools from1955–73, pursuing a career as a painter simultaneously. She had her first solo show in1967, which featured paintings that dealt with Civil Rights and other political issues. Inthe 1970s, she began to create sculptures made of cloth in collaboration with her mother,Willi Posey Jones, who was a successful fashion designer. Soon Ringgold developed theidea for “story quilts,” pieced quilts with narratives written and illustrated on theirsurfaces. She has also written and illustrated eleven children’sbooks, which have received numerous awards.ABOUT THIS QUILTWhen she was growing up, Ringgold and her family oftenspent summer evenings on the roof of their apartmentbuilding. This childhood memory served as the impetus for aseries of story quilts, the first made in 1988, and her book TarBeach, which was published in 1991. Tar Beach 2 featuresimages of Cassie, the protagonist in the story, on herbuilding’s roof with her family and neighbors. In the story,she dreams of flying, a symbol of freedom and power. Here,she soars over the George Washington Bridge. Ringgold useda quilting pattern of eight triangles within a square, derivedfrom a traditional design of the Kuba peoples of Africa. She made this quilt using thescreenprinting process at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. It is oneof an edition of twenty-four.24CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary School – FlyingHave the students imagine that they can fly above their neighborhood, town, or city.Ask them where they would go, what they would see, and what it would feel like. Havethem write a story about their adventures as they soared above it all.Elementary School – Tar BeachRead and discuss Tar Beach. How does this quilt relate to the story? Compare andcontrast the images in the book to those in this quilt. How does this quilt add to thestory? View the quilt together as a class by projecting the image in the PowerPointpresentation (on the CD-ROM included with this resource guide).Middle School – Childhood Memories as InspirationRinggold used her memory of going to the roof of her building as inspiration for herstory. What special memories do the students have from childhood of a special place orfamily tradition? Have them write a short story about this memory.SOCIAL STUDIESMiddle and High School – American Labor UnionsIn the story, Cassie’s father is prevented from joining the union because he is AfricanAmerican. Research the history of African Americans and labor unions. When were theunions in your area integrated? What were the reasons given why African Americanscould not join? Who were some of the leaders who helped change the situation? Whatproblems still exist?ARTElementary School – Illustrating a Story with One ImageAfter reading a story, have each student make one illustration to summarize the story.Ask them what they will include and what they will leave out. Have them decide howto convey the plot of the story through one image.Middle and High School – Fabric ArtRinggold transformed her art by using fabric to make sculptures and creating piecedcloth borders around her painted canvases and quilting the entire work. Have thestudents experiment with using fabric to make works of art such as sculptures, collages,and paintings.25LET’S LOOK!Describe some of the colorcombinations in this quilt.Are any two blocks the same?Why might the artist havepaired certain colorstogether?Why might she have chosenthe image of hands to repeat?What kind of mood do thehands create?What could the handsrepresent?SARAH MARY TAYLORAmerican, 1916–2000“Hands” Quilt1980Pieces and appliquéd cotton and synthetic solid and printed plain weave,twill flannel, knit, dotted swiss, and damask83 1/4 x 78 inches (211.5 x 198.1 cm)Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Ella King Torrey Collection of AfricanAmerican Quilts, 2006-163-11Every time I piece one I tries to make something different from what I made.I don’t want what I been piecing; let me find something different.– Sarah Mary TaylorABOUT THIS ARTISTKnown for her use of vibrant colors and bold designs, Sarah Mary Taylor inherited alove of quilting from both her mother, Pearlie Posey (see page 21), and her aunt, PecoliaWarner. Her mother taught her how to quilt at a young age, but Taylor didn’t make aquilt of her own until she was married and left her mother’s house. She was marriedfive times, but never had children. She lived on plantations throughout the MississippiDelta, working as a cook, a field hand, and a housekeeper. For many years, Taylor madepieced quilts out of the skirts of long dresses, but began making appliqué quilts in1980 after her aunt Pecolia received attention for her workfrom a professor at the University of Mississippi. Taylorsoon gained recognition for her appliqué quilts as well.ABOUT THIS QUILTTo create her quilts, Taylor drew shapes on paper and cutout templates for the appliqué pieces. She gathered designideas from images she saw in magazines, newspapers,catalogues, and from objects she encountered in hereveryday life. She added the appliqué shapes onto squaresof fabric and combined them together with vertical strips.She arranged the blocks in a way that was visually strikingto her, often resulting in energetic compositions. Taylor’sappliqué quilts were typically not used and instead weresold, given away to friends, or stored. A version of this“Hands” quilt was commissioned for the film adaptationof Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple. 26CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSLANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISHElementary School – Expression in HandsHow do hands express emotion? Discuss what emotions are expressed in theoutstretched hands in this quilt. What other emotions can we express with our hands?Have a brainstorming session and write about what each hand gesture cancommunicate. As an extension, have students design quilt blocks with their own handgestures and combine them together in a class quilt.High School – The Color PurpleA version of this quilt was commissioned for the film adaptation of Alice Walker’snovel The Color Purple. Have the class read the novel and discuss what sewing andquilts symbolize in the story.MATHElementary School – VariationsAfter discussing the different color combinations of hands and background colors,explore similar permutations using colored paper squares and circles. Give each studenttwo squares of different colors and two circles of different colors. How many differentdesign variations can you make (four)? Then try with additional squares and circles.How can you prove that you’ve found all of the possible variations?ARTElementary School – Color CombinationsWhile looking at the quilt, discuss which hands stand out. What color combinationsmake the hands pop out the most? Why could this be? Discuss ideas such ascomplementary colors, value, and contrast. Using a wide range of colored paper, havethe students create collages in which they produce vibrant color combinations thatmake different shapes stand out.27SELECTED CHRONOLOGYGee’s Bend United States History1808The direct importation of slaves from Africa to theUnited States is banned, although it continues illegallyfor decades.1816Joseph Gee purchases land and establishes a cottonplantation in Gee’s Bend.1819Alabama becomes a state.1824Joseph Gee dies and his heirs contest the inheritanceof his plantation.18311845 Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Virginia.Mark Pettway buys the plantation from the Geefamily and brings 100 of his slaves from NorthCarolina to Gee’s Bend.1859Dinah Miller, Gee’s Bend’s earliest identifiedquiltmaker, was brought to Alabama on an outlawslave ship from Africa.1861–65The Civil War1861Mark Pettway dies.1863President Abraham Lincoln signs the EmancipationProclamation, declaring all slaves in rebellious areas tobe free.1880Gee’s Bend becomes the property of Mark Pettway’sson, John Henry.1870The Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing all citizens theright to vote, is ratified.1875Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875, whichbans discrimination in places of public accommodation.1895John Henry sells approximately 4,000 acres of theold Pettway plantation to the Dew family.1896The Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that“separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites isconstitutional.1900Adrian Van de Graff buys the entire property fromthe Dews. After his death, his son inherits the land.He later sells it to the Roosevelt Administration.1909The National Association for the Advancement ofColored People (NAACP) is formed.28Gee’s Bend United States History1914–18World War ILate 1920sThe price of cotton plummets. Merchants inCamden advance credit to Gee’s Bend farmers,many of whom fall into debt.1929The stock market crashes and the Great Depressionbegins.1920–30sThe Harlem Renaissance1932Collectors foreclose on Gee’s Bend debtors, seizingeverything they own. Many residents of Gee’s Bendface near-starvation.1933President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issues New Dealreforms in order to relieve the economic strife caused bythe Great Depression.1934–35The Federal Emergency Relief Administrationprovides some relief to Gee’s Bend residents bygiving them seeds, fertilizer, farming tools,livestock, and loans.1939–45World War II1937 and 1939U.S. photographers Arthur Rothstein and MarionPost are sent by the Farm Security Administrationto Gee’s Bend to photograph the community.1937–40Approximately 100 Roosevelt Project Houses arebuilt in Gee’s Bend. Other buildings constructedinclude a school, store, cotton gin, mill, and a clinic.1941Robert Sonkin documents traditional spirituals,sermons, and singing groups in Gee’s Bend for theLibrary of Congress.1945The federal government offers Gee’s Bend residentsloans to buy farmland.1955Activist Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery,Alabama, when she refuses to give her seat on the bus toa white man.1962A dam and lock are constructed on the AlabamaRiver, just south of Gee’s Bend, flooding much ofGee’s Bend’s best farming land.1963Martin Luther King, Jr., gives his “I Have a Dream”speech in Washington, D.C. to 200,000 activists whoparticipated in the historic March on Washington.29Gee’s Bend United States History1965Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., visits Gee’s Bend andpreaches at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. Manyresidents march with him to Selma and register tovote in nearby Camden. Many of these people losetheir jobs after marching or registering to vote.Ferry service from Gee’s Bend to Camden isterminated.1964President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of1964, which outlaws discrimination in housing,employment, and education.The U.S. begins to bomb Vietnam.1966The Freedom Quilting Bee is established inRehoboth (just north of Gee’s Bend).1968Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated. Mules fromGee’s Bend pull his casket through Atlanta.Mid-1970sWater and telephone service is establishedthroughout Gee’s Bend.1973The United States withdraws troops from Vietnam.2002The Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition opens at theMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston, and then travels tothe Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.Eleven more museums sign on to host the show.2003Fifty local women found the Gee’s Bend QuiltersCollective.2006Ferry service from Gee’s Bend to Camden reopens.The U.S. Postal Service issues ten postage stampscommemorating Gee’s Bend quilts.Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt is organized.30ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR STUDYBOOKS AND ARTICLESArnett, Paul, Joanne Cubbs, and Eugene W. Metcalf, Jr., eds. Gee’s Bend: The Architectureof the Quilt. Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2006.Barnes, Brooks. “Museums Cozy Up to Quilts.” Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2002, sec.W. 12.Beardsley, John and William Arnett, Paul Arnett, Jane Livingston. Gee’s Bend: TheWomen and Their Quilts. Atlanta: Tinwood Books in association with TheMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2002.Beardsley, John and William Arnett, Paul Arnett, Jane Livingston, Alvia Wardlaw. TheQuilts of Gee’s Bend. Atlanta: Tinwood Books in association with The Museum ofFine Arts, Houston, 2002.Benberry, Cuesta. Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts.Louisville, Kentucky: The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., 1992.Brackman, Barbara. Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. Paducah, Kentucky: AmericanQuilter’s Society, 1993.Callahan, Nancy. The Freedom Quilting Bee: Folk Art and the Civil Rights Movement inAlabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1987.Kimmelman, Michael. “Jazzy Geometry, Cool Quilters,” New York Times, November 29,2002, sec. B, 31.LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTSFlournoy, Valerie. The Patchwork Quilt. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1985.Igus, Toyomi and Michele Wood. I See the Rhythm. San Francisco, California: Children’sBook Press, 1998.Mckissack, Patricia. Stitchin’ and Pulllin’: A Gee’s Bend Quilt. New York: Random House,2008. (to be released October 28, 2008)Ringgold, Faith. Tar Beach. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1991.Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. In In Love & Trouble. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc., 1967. 31WEBGee’s Bend The Library of Congress’ American Memory website has photographs of Gee’s Bendfrom the 1930s (search for “Gee’s Bend”):memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html A lesson plan based on the photographs of Gee’s Bend from the 1930s:memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/98/grand/geesbend.html “Voices from the Days of Slavery” has recordings and transcripts of interviews withformer slaves from 1941 (do a search for “Gee’s Bend”):memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/index.html Quilters Collective History:quiltsofgeesbend.com Four 1948 recordings of gospel music from Gee’s Bend:arts.state.al.us/actc/music/index-music.html Interview with Lucy Mingo and her daughter Polly Raymond (scroll to find):arts.state.al.us/actc/1/radioseries.html J. R. Moehringer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story “Crossing Over:”pulitzer.org/works/2000,Feature+Writing Michael Kimmelman’s review of the 2002 exhibition The Quilts of Gee’s Bend:query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E6DF1238F93AA15752C1A9649C8B63 Gee’s Bend play at the Arden Theater (October 9–December 7, 2008):ardentheatre.org/2009/geesbend.htmlStories StoryCorps (National Public Radio) project; resource for conducting interviews:storycorps.net Share the story of your quilt on the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s website:philamuseum.org/exhibitions/311.html?page=5Quilts Leigh Fellner refutes claims about the quilt codes that some believe to have beenused on the Underground Railroad:ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com32 A website dedicated to the PBS film The Art of Quilting has teacher resources, lessonplans, and interviews. PBS also produced two other films, A Century of Quilts andAmerica Quilts, and there are links to those programs on the website:pbs.org/americaquilts ETA/Cuisenaire sells Quilting Tiles:etacuisenaire.com The Illinois State Museum’s “Keeping Us in Stitches: Quilts & Quilters” is a list ofquilt-based activities, lesson plans, and interactive online exercises for students:museum.state.il.us/muslink/art/htmls/ks_actres.html Faith Ringgold’s website:faithringgold.comImages ARTstor is a database of high quality art images. You can search without amembership and can download images with a membership, which can be obtainedfor free by registering at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Wachovia EducationResource Center, located in the Perelman Building (philamuseum.org/education/33-530-416.html).artstor.orgVIDEOCarey, Celia. The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend. Alabama Public Television in associationwith Hunter Films, 2004. DVD.33VOCABULARYAppliqué quilt — A quilt with a top made of cut-out pieces of fabric that have beensewn on top of background fabrics. “Appliqué” is the French word for “applied.”Asymmetry — A lack of exact repetition between the opposite sides of a form.Back — The underside of a quilt.Batting — The soft middle layer of a quilt that is between the top and the back. It isusually made of cotton and provides warmth.Birds in Flight pattern — See “Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.Block — A rectangular or square section of a quilt.Bricklayer pattern — See “Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.Civil Rights Movement — A movement that aimed to abolish racial discriminationagainst African Americans. It occurred from 1955–68.Complementary colors — Pairs of contrasting colors: red and green, yellow and violet,blue and orange.Contrast — A design principle that involves the use of opposite effects or shapes neareach other to add tension or drama to a work of art.Elevation — A drawing of the outside walls of a building (the front, back, and each ofthe sides).Farm Security Administration (FSA), Office of War Information — A program createdas part of the New Deal whose goal was to combat rural poverty. The FSA was firstcreated as the Resettlement Administration. Its photography program (1935–44)documented the challenges of rural poverty.Four-patch pattern — A square quilt block made of two rows of two squares; see “BasicBuilding Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.Freedom Quilting Bee — A sewing cooperative established in Rehoboth (just north ofGee’s Bend) in 1966 that employed women from the local area who produced quilts andother sewn products for department stores in the North.34Great Depression — An era in U.S. history defined by an economic downturn, which isoften associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929.Harlem Renaissance — A movement, centered in the Harlem neighborhood of NewYork City, in which artists, philosophers, and other intellectuals found new ways toexplore the experiences of African Americans. The movement, which lasted from the1920–30s, produced a wealth of literature, drama, music, visual art, dance, as well asnew ideas in sociology, historiography, and philosophy.Housetop pattern — See “Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.Log Cabin pattern — See “Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.New Deal — The name that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave to the programshe initiated from 1933–38. These programs aimed to relieve poverty, help the economyrecover, and reform the financial system during the Great Depression in the UnitedStates.Nine-patch pattern — A square quilt block made of three rows of three squares; see“Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.Pieced quilt; Patchwork quilt — A quilt whose top is made from bits of fabric stitchedtogether to form patterns and borders often with a geometric motif.Piecing — The process of stitching together separate pieces of fabric to create a largercloth, such as a quilt top.Plan — A view of a room or building that is seen as if the roof has been removed andsomeone is above the building looking straight down onto the rooms (also called a floorplan).Quilting — The sewing that holds the top layer, the middle filling layer (batting), andthe bottom layer (back). It makes the quilt more durable and also traps air between thelayers of cloth, which provides insulation and warmth.Reflective symmetry (also called bilateral or mirror symmetry) — When the size, shape,and arrangement of parts of the left and right sides or the top and bottom of acomposition or object are the same in relation to an imaginary center dividing line.Roman Stripes pattern — See “Basic Building Blocks of Quilts” on page 36.35Screenprinting — A process that uses a fine cloth mesh stretched over a frame, withparts of the mesh sealed, to create an image (often using stencils). Ink is pushed throughthe unsealed areas onto paper or fabric underneath, creating a screenprinted image.Section — A view of the interior of a room or building that is seen as if the building hasbeen cut in half and someone is looking straight into the interior.Strings —A term used among Gee’s Bend quiltmakers to describe wedge-shaped piecesof fabric.Strip quilt — A type of pieced quilt made by sewing long rectangular pieces of clothtogether to make a quilt top.Syncopation — A temporary displacement of the regular metrical accent in musiccaused typically by stressing the weak beat; in quiltmaking, a break in pattern.Top — The side of the quilt that is presented outward.Work-clothes quilt — A quilt made of reused work clothes such as denim pants andoveralls, and cotton or flannel shirts.Value — Degree of lightness on a scale of grays from black to white.36BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF QUILTSFour-PatchLog CabinHousetop — also calledPig in a Pen, Hog Pen, orChicken CoopBirds in Flight(many variations)Bricklayer — also knownas Courthouse StepsRoman StripesNine-Patch37(This activity is related to the quilt made by an unknown quiltmaker from Gee’s Bend; seeLanguage Arts/English Connection, page 20)Diamante poem format:_______________________________Line 1: one word (subject/noun) that is contrasting to line 7___________________________________________________________Line 2: two words (adjectives) that describe line 1______________________________________________________________________Line 3: three words (action verbs) that relate to line 1______________________________________________________________________________Line 4: four words (nouns), first 2 words relate to line 1, last 2 words relate to line 7______________________________________________________________________Line 5: three words (action verbs) that relate to line 7___________________________________________________________Line 6: two words (adjectives) that describe line 7_______________________________Line 7: one word (subject/noun) that is contrasting to line 1 Gloria lIoppilltl: medalflOIl dellign, roo 1975,rorr/llrQlI, 9/ 111188 illthn .AfI880,trl Pell.roll: Hlotu and ,trip, work·dothe, quilt, f9U', rottOIl,rordUrrJII, rolloll llad;/lIg material, 90 b:., .:. ",---;...104 Oclob6r2003Gee'sBendModernThe isolated Alabama community ofGee's Bend has long nurtured a quiltingtradition that resonates deeply with aspectsof modernist abstmction. Now the quiltsare the subject of an exhibition that istouring u.s. musemns.BY RICHARD KALINAIt is a given that most museum shows of recent an serve to ratify accepted tastes and standards. A Johns or Flavin retrospective, or a survey of Fluxus art, while certainly deepening ourknowledge of the subject, is not about to change perceptions significantly. f)'en a large·scale re\icw of a first-rate but underappreciated artist-the still traveling Joan Mitchell retrospecth'e,for example--essentially rearranges lhe pieces on the board. Itis rare to find an exhibition that throws something totally unexpected our way, that forces us to can'e out. a meaningl'ul chunkof historical space to make room for a new body of work. "TheQUillS of Gee's Bend," organized by the Museum of Pine Arts,Houston, and shown last winter at the Whitney Museum, doesjust that.The 60 quilts in the exhibition were made by a group of womenin a small, isolated fa rming community in central Alabama,southwest of Selma. Gee's Bend was and is an almost exclusivelyMrica n-American hamlet. Surrounded on three sides by theAlabama River, is virtually an island; after the residents beganto assert their civil rights in the 1960s, its feny sen'ice was terminated (Ilrobably not coincidentally), and its one access road,some 15 miles from the nearest highway, remained unpaveduntil 1967. Today the area is starting to become more connectedwith the outside world, and is at the same time losing its quiltingtradition. The town's isolation during the '50s, '60s and '70s-theperiod when most of the quilts in the exhibition were donemade it nearly imllOssible for the quilters to have been eXllOsedin any conlextualized or coherent way to modern art, althoughimages of abstract art or design may ha\'c crossed their paths viamagazines and neWSllapers,' And yet these works seem io resonate harmonically wit h many strands ofand materially innovative postwar American abstraction, as wellas with that abstraction's European antecedents. Although the Gee's Bend quilters were not part of the mai nstreamart world, it is important to understand that they formed an art worldof their own, that is, a coherent social groulling dedicated to the con·strucUon of a visual language. They shared a sense of esthetic lincage(patterns and ways of worki ng were handed down through extendedfam il ies and known to the rest. of the community), a recognizedmeans of display (the quilts were hung out on clotheslines not just Lodry, bUl to be seen), a concern wilh the interplay of individual andcollahorative work and, importantly, a set of common limi ts. Thewomen knew each other and were onen related-of the 41 artists inthe show, 18 belong to the Pellway family, which Look its name fromwtUha I't ttlCQlI' quill, en. 1950, dtlliM, cottOIl,8(J b,lBf illcllt •. All plioltn tAU arlicle Piti/" Studio, Rodiford, l/I.the area's principal sla\'e·owner, Religion also played a vit..'ll, unifyi ngrole in the Jives of Gee's Benders. The Baptist. church was the placewhere people not only Ilfayed but organized their community andexchanged information, including ideas about sewing and qUilting.2 ltis clear that Gee's Bend quilters were neither insular Yisionaries pursuing idiosyncratic personal paths, nor were they simply the skilledpassers-on of traditional forms, Instead, they were like other artists oftheir time, adept, committed practitioners engaged ill a measured andongoi ng esthetic give-and-take.Arlill Amen'Go, The quillS of Gee's Bend are quite unlike the quilts .... 'e are 1.JSCd to seeing--eilhcr the traditional or contempomry high-end ones, or thehomey items readily a\'ailabJe in stores or yant sales. Bold and decIar.uh.'C indesign, material and ronnat, they looked perfectly at ease on the Whitney'sInU, .... 'hite \mlls. While it is possible 10 wlderst:tnd the Gee's Bend quillS inthe context of vernacular an., outsider IU1 or craft, they are more than that.n "IC ir UUlO\'atr.-e power, combined .... iUl the restraints imposed by n4'l1crial,time and a compressed Iocal lradilion, argue for their examination as cullUrally infonnt'(l ruld emolionally tl\'OCIttivuJOI"mal objects.To do so mighl seem like treading on dangerous ground. The histOlY of2Oth-cenlury art. is rife with attempts to rev "ll the contempordl'}' andcosmopolit .. m with the raw power of the art of Africa, Oceania or theAmenclls, to infuse sophisticated studio products .... ith the artlessness ofchildren or the skewed sensibilities of the insane. In this way, "high art"can be bolstered by the art of the Other I and the transacUon renderedmorally frictionless by decontexlualization In the ostensibly neutralspace of a museum or gallery. TIle classic example of this was the 1984exhibition '''PrimitMsm' in1\\'enlieth·CentUlY Art: Affinity of the Tribaland the Modern" at New York's Museum of Modem Art. The l)(llemics106 (klober 2003Rathtl Cartll G«Jrgt': On, 6id, 010 two-Md«1lWrk.cli:lthtt quill, NI. 1935,dtnim, ItOOl tnlUJIUfl, matlnu tickilli, tOIIOII, 'l2 111182 /J,,:ht •.occasioned by that show, most notably Thomas McEvilley's articleLawyer, Indian Chief" (Arifonml, November 1084), made theart. .... -o rld considerably more aware of iLs ethnocentrism. It seems, as if tocompensate for past errors, that we mo\'ed in the Olher directionlowards an o\'er-contcxtualization (marked by the proliferation of W'.ultext and SUJllllcmenlmy material) that serves to cocoon Ihe Objl.'Cts in(Iucstion and can, in its own W8,)', be erery bi!. as condescending. I amscarcely ad\'OCating cultural but mther noting that toomuch stage-setting and explanation can reinforce the dichotomy of cen· trality and marginality.Things, however, may have changed again, and this exhibition can beseen as one clement of an expanded frame of reference for both the mak·ing and viewing of art. The art. we look at now comes from far moreplaces physically, conceptually and emotionally than it did before. Thisdecentralization, evident in the diversity of image-based art, 81>]llies toabstraction as well; ror abstraction, by virtue of its looser mimeticanchoring to the world around it, is particularly able to cliSL itselr in a Used clothing is scarcely a neutralart material. Not only does it embracea range of social signs, but it can alsocarry the physical imprint of the wearer.variety of Comls, to entertain mulUple readings. The Gee's Bend quillSare exemplars of that broadened approach to abstraction. Their allusivecomplexlty-their scale, their reference to the body, to physical work, tosocial structures and to the land-greaUy enriches our perception ofthem. But there is something else. The quillS are remarkably powerfuland compelling visual statements.. They declare themsehoes viscerally,directly. I beJie\'e that they are entitled, e\'ery bit as much as a FrankStella or a Kenneth Noland painting of that period, to lay claim to anunfettered optical reading as well, in other words. to participate fully inthe esthetics of modernism.One of the things that makes ordinruy quilts so likable is the waythat they (:yJlicaJly frame a wealth of detail in smallish, repealingpatterns. You can look at a part of U1CIll and easily deduce the whole.There may be some framing devices. but essentially the pattern couldrepeat endlessly. The Gee's Bend Quilts don't do thaL They are bounded,unique and rareJy symmetrical. Even when symmetry is there, it is givena sawy, destabHi7.ing push. In Gloria lIoppins's "Housetop" pattern quill(ca. 1975), for example, she inserts one thin \llrtical red stripe on thelelt-hand side or the orange center portion or a set or off-kilter nestledAllnffJ MOfJ Young: emln' "'Mollion IIlrl/Ullrlfh bordUff, rn. /965,rollOIl, r.orrturoll, IIl1fJeling, II!OOI, 91 bll 81LorttlD PtttlU/r. "Log "",WIock mriadoll, rn.. 1970, de"u.., Sfsquares. I That stripe Sl1.111S the quilt into place, as does the dark \-ertlcaldenim band by three smaller, similarly colored edge piCCi!S inLorraine Pettway's light gray medallion pallerned quilt or 1974.Identified by three alternate pattern names, Lorella Pettway's "LogCabin-Courthouse (ca. 1970) juxtaposes a steppedseries or vertical dark blue pieces edged in white .... ith similarly sizedlight blue pieces on the horizontal. The pieces get smaller as theyapproach the center, creating the look or one-point perspective. Thehowever, warp, and their thickness is ne'l'e.r unifonn. So instead ofbeing locked-in and static, the composition opens up and mO\'e:S. It disthe wit and whimsical \'3.riation or a Paul Klee architectural rantasy, with logic used, paradoxically, to subvert order. It is almost as if symmetry in the Gee's Bend quHts is a condition established precisely so thatit may be creatively violated.If symmetry is import.nnl in traditional quilts, a more or less evenlyweighted display or detail seems equally asential. Detail in {he Goo's Bendquilts functions differently. Rather than being the substance or the quilt, itmore often than noL, an accent, a fillip or a fonnal destabilizer. Slmllie\ocrtical and horiwnlal forms tend to predominate, and since quilting Is anaddith'e process, a reasonably srrd.ightfrnward design can be gi\'en piquan·cy and personality by sewing in something small and unexpected. InArlorula Pettway's Gal (Bars)t" ca 1975, a motif or bold green andwhile \'ertical stripes is bomered at the top and bottom by just a hint of adelicate floral pnUern. The change in ronnal and emotional scale is finelycalibrnted and tremendously satisfying. Irene Williams's "Bars" (ca lOGS)Art in America I Site Jfil/le&lIzer: "/lousefop" nine-block, "fla{fLog I.Mation,co. /955, roUt"., ' IIII/helle blend. , 8() bll 76 inrhe •.features a composition of four thick vertical hars in solid cream and black,topped with a similarly sized horizontal in deep blue-green This archil.ectonic structure is of'fsct by a flower-IJ.1ttemed border on both sides and thebottom. It however, the narrow top border that gP.'eS the quilt its kick.The right-hand half of the border is the same blue·greenas the horizontal bar directly below it, while the left-handhalf is divided into three sections-gray and cream, asmall light-blue grid and a slice of vibrant red completely outof chromatic character witillhe rest of lhe quilt. That foot orso of crimson makes the quilL It's a formal mO\'(l that incorpcrrates a sure sense of scale with a usc of olJ-complementariesworthy of Josef Albers.Simple, forceful design, unencumbered by is ahallmark of the Gee's Bend qu ilts. The quilts speakof a work ethic, not a "make-..... one. Quilting was often asocial activity, particularly during lhe labor-intensive stageof sewing (he designed front onto the backing and fuLLS sandwiching in the cotton filler. But it was not a hobby, a way ofwhiling away Lhe hours. The women quiltel'S were vital partsof a barely self-sustaining agricultural society, and theirlabor was needed in the fields during the day. The field worktiring, and there were household duties on lOp of thatchores not assisted by the time- and labor-saving devices socommon in the rest of American society. One reason for lhequills' relative simplicity is purely Ilractical: the quitters108 Oclober 200SAnnie Mae }'oung: Strip', 00_ 19'15,rordufOlI, 95 bll l 05 (nc,,""Ordinary quilts tend to frame details inregularly repeating patterns. Gee's Bendquilts don't do that. They are bounded,unique and rarely symmetrical.\\-'allted to fmish them reasona.bly quickly so that they could be used fortheir intended purpose-to keep warm_ Gee's Bend \\"3.5 a vel)' poor community that could ill alford luxuries like swre-bought blankets and bedcoverings. Even if, like Loretta Pettway, one or the most talented of theGee's Bend quilters, you didn't like to sew, there wasn't much choice inlhe matter. As she said, WI had a lot of work to do. Feed work in thefi eld, take care of my handicaPIKld brother. Had to go 1.0 the fi eld. Had towalk about fifty miles in the field evel)' day. Get home too tired to do nosewing. My grandmama, Prissy Pen-way, told me, 'You better make quillS.You goil18 to need them.' I said, 'I ain't going to need no quilts.' but whenI got me a house, a raggiy old house, then I needed them to keepwarm_"·The Gee's Bend quilts embody a moral as well as a formal eronolllY. IncontrdSl to lhe larger culture of obsolescence, waste and disposability, inGee's Bend nothing usable was thrown away (although not evel)'thingwas won1i some polyester leisure suits sent dO\\71 from the north were soout of style that they could only be recycled into bedding). Scraps ofcloth were saved up ror quilting-any sort. of cotton, corduroy, knit orsynthetic fabric was fine. Clothing was wom until it was worn out, andthen ripped up into quilt material rather than being discarded.Used clothing is scarcely a neutral art material. Not only does itembrace a range of social signs, but it can also carry the physical imprintof the wearer, the trace of his or her hody. We CtUl see the pressure ofelbows and knees, feel the stretch of fabric under the neatly appliedpatches_ Denim clothing shows this Lo particular advantage, and some oflhe most emotionally affecting quilts were made from sun- and washfaded work clothes. Missouri Pettway's daughter, Arlonzia, spoke of herlate mother's quilt, a blue, white, reddish-brown and gray block-and-stripdesign made in 1942. Wit was when Daddy died. I was about se\'Cnteen,eighteen. He stayed sick about eight momhs and passed on. Mama say, 'I going to take his work clothes, shallC them into a quilt to remember him,and OO\'er up under it for love.""In these .... ,ork-clothes quilts the quietness of the colors--blues, g:rays,creams, browns-allows fo:r an extremely subtle interplay or hue andvalue, and also ro:r the counterpoint of darker passages: se .... 'Hln patches,the unfaded area unde:r removed pants pockets, o:r seams that had, priorto ripping, been unexposed. The c\omes, by virtue of their hard use, weresometimes stained with earth, rust and sweat That discoloration, ratherthan diminishing Ole power of the quilts, gh'es them a and emt>-tional 1)''1lina. This can be clearly seen In R.'1chel Carey George's quiltfrom around \035, made of denim, wool trousers, mattress ticking andcolton. III It, a large horizontal rectangle of stained blue-and-white tickHiflUuru: rnri6tJQf'J nJ. 1965, rrool bit, Until,IIDullk kIIlt, t:OIloII drGptrf ",uttriDl, St Of i9 illo" ....ing is contrasted with wide strips of oval-patched pants legs and anotherlarge :rectangle of white-stitched gray wool. The staining of the mattressticking is echoed by similar brown areas in other parts of the quilt, particularly In the pants The sense of lime's passage, of difficultiesendured and O\-ercome, is palpable.Something similar can be felt in Lorella Pettwats Gal (Bars),"ca. 1005. One of the seemingly simplest ..... urks on \1ew, it consists solelycoldim/Cd on page 148Art jll America t( Gee's Bendcontinued/rom page 109of vertical bars. There is a bortler on the left and right of dark navy(edged with a hint of pattem), a field of quiet blue-violet, and left of cen·ter, two equal·si1.ed white bands. Measuring a bit under 7 by 6 feet, thisquilt cannot help recalling, for today's viewer, Bamet!, Newman's paint,ings. As wilh Newman, it carries with it the air of the spiritual. Indeed,the current of faith runs deep in Gee's Bend, while the quilts are notpart of a specific spiritual practice in their making or their iconography,it is not unreruiOnable to assume that, the clJe<:ts of such a religiouslyinnected life are to be seen in the community's art.Probably the most viscerally powerful .... ork-clOlhes quilt in the showis Lutisha Petv.va.v's "BarsM (ca. 1050). Composed entirely of fadedand patched denim pants legs, laid out in vertical bands, the heavy quiltsat$, bends and buckles. Edging it on the right are a pair of pants legs,wide at the waist and narrow at the ankles. They are sewn together atthe small ends, and their symmetrical mirroring gi\"CS the right edge asharp bow inwards, in clear contrast to the retatively straight bottom,top, and left sides. While other quilts use CUleUp clothing in small enoughpieces so thnt we are Oftell forced 1.0 infer its originlll use, this quilL usespants legs in virtually their entirety, and as such, the sense of the bodyundemealh the clothing remains parlicularly strong. Color, too, makes amf\jor contribution- Its monochrome quality adding purposefulness,consistent'Y and intensity.Denim, while hem)' ruld hard to work with, brings with it a coloristicbonus. lis fading creates a wide variety tlf blues, from dt'C]l indigo to theI)''llest pinked IiZtlre, a color mngc IUltumlly suggestive of sky and atmosphere, That property is used to mar'l'elous effcct in a 1076 work by AnnieMac Young, an artist whose originality and conwositionaJ bmvum standout in remarkably talented group. The quill floats a centml verticallystriped portion against a field of variously faded denim bars. TIle sl.rijM!-the striJles are of different widths and are drawn (there is noother word for it) with a loose, expressive line. The center stril>ed secLionhas an emblematic, flaglike qulllity th31 seems both w embed the stripesin the atmosJlheric blue field and suspend them above it.One the sense of a fL'Ig or a heraldic banner in YOlUlg'S 1975 cor·duroy quilL as .... 'ell. This large hori7.ontalty dispia,}' ld piece, a bit under 8 byo feet, is one of the high points of the exhibition. A series orthin horizontalstripes-allcrnating red and brown on the wp half, reds, browns, greens,blues and oranges on the bottom half- marks otrtlle right·h:Uld quarter ofthe quill On the left edge is a tlIin column of vcrtical multicolored stripesdivided roughly into thirds horizontally. The remainder, approximatelytv."{)-thirds of the area of the entire quill, is an astonishingly rich ccrule:UI.Composed of horizontal strips of closely \'alued fabric, this section allowsfor a complex visual interplay between its subtlety and Ule boldness of thestripes flanking it, and also for an interchnnge between the horizontalilylUld vcrticality of the two striped secLions. Words can hardly do justice totile sophisticated and satisfying play ofvisu.'lI elements--the way the sameblue as the center sneaks into the stripes 011 the sides, or how the heft orthe horizontally striped area perfectly balances the narrower orwhy lhe Illtematin.g of red lUld brown stripes on the upper portion of therighl hand section putsjust the right. anlountofweighl alld pressure on theslightly thinner multicolored stripes below them.The LL'IC of corduroy by Young and a number of other Gee's Benders is astudy in fortuity. In 1972, Sears, Roebuck and Company contracted withthe local (Iuilting cooperati\·c to produce low·priced corduroy pillowshams. They sent down bolts of the material, lUld while the shams \\'etemechanical Jliecework, the corduroy wa..'! soon incoll)Qntted inlo the148 October2fJ03Sally /H"M.t/ Jonf!t: em/n- mmafUolI u/th nlllltipk bomf!nI,1966, RltlOll, 86 by 77 1nthl!l/.area's quiltmaking style. Corduroy has real limitations-it works best.when cut al. right lUlgles; it tends to pull, distort and fmy when cut on thediagonal. These constraints are offset by the cloth's rich color, sensuallight-reflecting qualities and softness. In practical temls, the materia)was virtually free, and it was very Wllnll. The fabric posed challenges, butart often lhrives when Ule \'atiables are reduced.In any case, boldness of design and reclilinearity are chamcteris·tics of the Gee's Bend quilts; and for some qu ilters, corduroy calledforth their best efforts. China Pettway's block quilt, (ca. 1!)75), forexample, is Bauhausian in ils Simplicity and elegance.There are only six color areas, each in a rich but muted earth tone.Small and large, \'ertical and horizontal, dark and light are blended ina composition, classical in its form and balance. Arcola Pettway'sGal (Bars)" variation from 1976, the year of the Bicentennial,has the rough composition of an American nag, with 13 more or lessequal horizontal stripes and a small square area in the UPllcr leftwhere the stars go----excepl in this case the Qstars" are three addi·tional vertical stripes, and the colors, inslead of red, white and blue,are apple green, tan, corn yellow, rusty brown, slate blue, crimsonand orange· red. Color and form work togelher to artfully undermineexpectat.ions, and the quilt is bolh delightful and moving.The Gee's Bend quilts are so evocatk-e, so emotionally and esthelical·Iy fulfilling, as .... 'ell as so individulll, ,h:lt it feels unfair not 10 men·tion more artists and describe more quilts. Fortunately, many more pe0-ple around the country will now get the chance to see them. Theexhibition was to have sWPI>ed with the Whitney, but it has generatedsuch a grounds ..... ell of inlerest thlll eight other museums hm'e signed onto take the show, and it wiU travel for three year.!. This seems like theperfect, moment fo r this exhibition, even though Gee's Bend has been known to the wider art world (or decades. Int.erest In the quilts over theyears has been sporadic--there was a spike in New York in the late '60s,and in 1967 an appreciative Lee Krasner visited Gee's Bend with herdealer and bought a number of them. This was the time,lOO, when artistswere entranced by Navajo blankets. These enthusiasms faded, quite p0ssibly because quilts and blankets, although resembling the art beingmade then, shared few of its stated premises.Now, however, the Gee's Bend quilts have a deeper a mnectlon to CUfrent concerns. They speak to the widening base of art production, as wellas to an int.erest in ethnicity and identity. This interest seems to thri\'e inthe exploration of the territory which lies between cultural sign and indioviduality, that is, between the more easily chartable products of a bounded group Identity and the open-ended activities of the indMduaJ. Thequilts are \'ery much of a time, place, gender and ethnic grouPi but theyare also intensely personal and lm'entn'e. Patterns are often not used atall, or when they are, they are freely adapted to the artist's own interestsand history.There is also an interest, these days, in the use of nontraditional materials in abstraction. This often leads LO an Investigation of the Inherentthree-dimensionality of "Oath work. A Gee's Bend quilt is not, as is astretched rectangular canvas, a historically given depictn'e arena thatalso happens to be made of cloth and whose materiaJily might be tacitlyacknowledged by, for example, staining the canvas. A quilt is both animage and a constructed, pliable physical object The shape of thequilt-the irregularity of its edge and the waviness of its surface-is a natural product of its makin& and its use creates aninherent ambiguity of orientation. Its two-dimensionality is alsoconditional since it canjust as easily be nat or draped.Another artistic concern today is layering. Multiplicity of purposeand rorm is a given in these quilts. Not only are they, at heart,assemblages (with all the complexity of facture and reference thatimplies), but the rhythmic, patterned stilChing or the g:ridded yamties that hold the front to the back are aspects of the quill that function semi-independently. Frequently done by more than one person,the stitching sets up a quiet but complex counterpoint to the largerdesign. Finally, the growing interest in craftlike methodologiesamong artist.s also speaks to the lessened aulhority of the brush. Nolonger valorized as an extension of the artist's persona, a guarantorof painterly, gest.ural (and often male) authenticity, it has becomeanother tool, an option in a wide menu of artmaking procedures.Piecing and stilChing has pf'(l\'en to be as sensitive, energetic anddirect a means of expression as the most adept brushwork.Painting in general, and abstract painting in partic:uJar, seems tohave kl;t its centrality. That does not mean that the two-dimensionaI abstract object has surrendered ilS power or allure. Imbued withart-historical reference, inherently metaphorical and capable ofgreat it sti1l exerts a strong pull on our imaginations. U greatart can be found in this arena today, the question becomes, whyshouldn't it be in the fonn of a quilt and, more specifically, why notthese quilts? I round myself unexpectedly mO't-OO and excited by thisexhibition, and that feeling has been shared by many others. "TheQuilts of Gee's Bend" has turned out., rather surprisingly, to be oneof the most talked·about shows in recent years.. I expect and hopethat its influence will be deep and long-lasting. 0l. In terms of Influences, It has boon noted lhal th;!re are certaln simiiaritiesbetween the Bend quilts and West alld Centnll Mrkan textiles, bul given thelack or IIIsWrica1 this COfU'II.'dJon tan only be2. A double CD 01", music rtcOnIed h1 Gee's Hend h1 I!HI arwI2002,HottJ HiGoI tMr: 17M 50crfd &nI!P Gftiol lkrtd, is available in oonJuncUon with theallow. A number of the quilten In the exhibition &ing on these CDs.3. It should be IIOI.6d that IndlcaUoos oh 'ertlcal or horbontal refer W the orienl.l·lion or the quillS as dl5played. Since they were IS bed nolIwlglnp, d!stlnctIons between left. and ri&hl arwI up and btl are aomewIW. ubi·""Y.If great abstract art can be found today,the question becomes, why shouldn'tit be in the form of a quilt and, morespecifically, why not these quilts?4. f'rom the 6IUbltlon cataIop, 7lt ikrtd, Allan" and Houston, 1lIMlOdBoob: in .saoclation the MU5eUm of nne Alta. Houson, 2002, p. 72.0. ibid., p. 67.Quilts O/(M', &N/- 1tW Of1NJ"ind/or 1M 0/ HOII.IlotI., b¥MUM'" AmtU, .loll" &onWey, JaN Ur:i!lf$l(Jlt alfd AltoWl UoilnUolI\ IL'iIA a.sN4I!fQIllI1M 1Hu1"'l1 MIIMIIIN AII\triQJII Art frcnn DtOro SirIfP. E:rItibitioM dDJ# M!Ut!Um r.IFiN..tru, JIoustJJrt fStpl. 8Noo 10, t«JtJ; MIIl/eWIN rI 1411, NaD tOrtINoon, m-MQT. IIJ03J; Mobik ,41_", "Art /.Inf I+-Alig. 31/; A,.,MUMII'IIt fSept.17../Q1t. of, ItXJtJ; ComwaJt GoJkrJJ r.I 1411, Itlullillg(oll. D.C /ftO. J+-Mo,17, I1mJ; CIMItmd rt A'" /.hIM It&pt. I., I1mJ,. OtfJlSkr MIlMtlIIt rt Arl,Notjoa IOct IS, MQt.JaIL !OO5J; Mmp/li6 BrooItJ MUIftI'IIt A,., /ffA. a.NXJ5/,. MIIIftI'" rt f'iM ArtI, Bo4Unt /JwIlNtll¥, to05J,. HigA MIIIftIM 0{ Art, AUtrJtta1\ro 6mt publiWd IJg Ti"ll'OOd Alhmla, o'lld 1M MIIItIIIII tiMAn.s, 11ou.U0II, {" wilJIlM QIIibitio..: The QuillS of Gee', Bend and Gee'sBend: The Women and Their QuU\$LomllJ hlt.Gf: StlUttpI«:«J fUIU. "60, cotl(uf t¥Ul,.".1IIdk IfUJkrWdotAlq), It .. 11 lMJtn..Art in Amm'ca 149 ARTE POVERASynopsisArte Povera - "poor art" or "impoverished art" - was the most significant and influential avantgarde movement to emerge in Europe in the 1960s. It grouped the work of around a dozen Italianartists whose most distinctly recognizable trait was their use of commonplace materials that mightevoke a pre-industrial age, such as earth, rocks, clothing, paper and rope. Their work marked areaction against the modernist abstract painting that had dominated European art in the 1950s, hencemuch of the group's work is sculptural. But the group also rejected American Minimalism, inparticular what they perceived as its enthusiasm for technology. In this respect Arte Poveraechoes Post-Minimalist tendencies in American art of the 1960s. But in its oppositionto modernism and technology, and its evocations of the past, locality and memory, the movement isdistinctly Italian.Key IdeasAlthough Arte Povera is most notable for its use of simple, artisanal materials, it did not usethese to the exclusion of all else. Some of the group's most memorable work comes from the contrastof unprocessed materials with references to the most recent consumer culture. Believing thatmodernity threatened to erase our sense of memory along with all signs of the past, the Arte Poveragroup sought to contrast the new and the old in order to complicate our sense of the effects of passingtime.In addition to opposing the technological design of American Minimalism, artists associatedwith Arte Povera also rejected what they perceived as its scientific rationalism. By contrast, theyconjured a world of myth whose mysteries couldn't be easily explained. Or they presented absurd,jarring and comical juxtapositions, often of the new and the old, or the highly processed and the preindustrial. By doing so, the Italian artists evoked some of the effects of modernization, how it tendedto destroy experiences of locality and memory as it pushed ever forwards into the future.Arte Povera's interest in "poor" materials can be seen as related to Assemblage, an internationaltrend of the 1950s and 1960s that used similar materials. Both movements marked a reaction againstmuch of the abstract painting that dominated art in the period. They viewed it as too narrowlyconcerned with emotion and individual expression, and too confined by the traditions of painting.Instead, they proposed an art that was much more interested in materiality and physicality, andborrowed forms and materials from everyday life. Arte Povera might be distinguished fromAssemblage by its interest in modes such as performance and installation, approaches that had morein common with pre-war avant-gardes such as Surrealism, Dada and Constructivism.BeginningsArte Povera emerged out of the decline of abstract painting in Italy, and the rise of interest inolder avant-garde approaches to making art. In particular, its spirit can be traced to threeartists: Alberto Burri, whose painting made from burlap sacks, provided an example of the use ofpoor materials; Piero Manzoni, whose work prefigured qualities of Conceptual art, and which reactedagainst abstract, Art Informel painting; and Lucio Fontana, whose monochrome painting provided anexample of the power of art that is reduced to only a few elements and concentrated in its impact.The term Arte Povera was first used by art critic Germano Celant in 1967 to describe the workof a group of Italian artists. In the same year he organized the first survey of the trend, "Arte Povera eIM Spazio," which was staged at Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, and which included the workof Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali and Emilio Prini.All of the work made use of everyday or "poor" materials. For example, Boetti's Pile (1966-67)consisted of a stack of asbestos blocks; Fabro raised an everyday task to the level of art in FloorTautology (1967), in which a tiled floor was kept polished and covered with newspapers to maintainits cleanliness; and in his Cubic Meters of Earth (1967), Pascali formed mounds of soil into solidshapes, using a natural but "dirty" material and forcing it into clean, unnatural lines in a critique ofMinimalism. Overall, the organizer of the show chose to focus on the intrusion of the banal into therealm of art, forcing us to look at previously inconsequential things in a new light.Only two months after the inaugural show, Celant wrote Arte Povera: Notes for a Guerilla War,a manifesto that added several more artists to his initial roster: Giovanni Anselmo, PieroGilardi, Mario Merz, Gianni Piacentino, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Gilberto Zorio. With thisdeclaration, Celant firmly associated himself and the Italians with a new movement in art, but alsoput forth a definition of Arte Povera that was more ambiguous than his previous iteration. This wasmost obvious with the inclusion of Pistoletto, since his mirror works incorporated elements ofphotography, a medium notably avoided by other members of the group. Notes for a GuerillaWar linked the artists conceptually (rather than on any formal or stylistic basis) through what Celantsaw as their common desire to destroy "the dichotomy between art and life."Concepts and StylesArte Povera is most notable for its use of everyday materials, materials which contrasted withthe apparently industrial sensibility of American Minimalism. At the same time the movementemployed subversive avant-garde tactics, such as performance, and unconventional approaches tosculpture, such as installation. In their mission to reconnect life with art, the Italian Arte Povera artistsstrove to evoke an individual, personal response in each of their pieces, stressing an interactionbetween viewer and object that was unrepeatable and purely original.Crucial in the formation and success of Arte Povera was Germano Celant, and in this respectArte Povera is typical of avant-garde groups that have been given momentum and cohesion by asingle voice. Out of what is often a vague similarity of ideas and approaches, an apparent coherenceis presented, and so the interests of a particular group of artists can be more effectively promoted.Hence, Celant's interpretations of the artists associated with Arte Povera have remained prominentand important, and Celant often stressed the Italians'interest in individual subjectivity. For example,Michelangelo Pistoletto is known above all for works in which photographic images of figures aredisplayed on mirrors; Celant once described a different but related work, the simple metalconstruction Structure for Standing While Talking (1965-66), as a medium to create a personal dialogbetween art and viewer, free from any preconceived notions. Giovani Anselmo's early work alsorelied on human interaction to fully experience the art, which was loosely constructed in order toreact to the slightest touch. Pino Pascali and Jannis Kounellis he described as experiencing lifethrough sensuality, engaging the senses to create a feeling of wonder, as in Pascali's colorful andspiky Bristleworms, or the installation of live animals in Kounellis' Untitled (Twelve Horses). Celant'smost dramatic pronouncement was saved for the igloos of Mario Merz, and perhaps reflected hishopes for the implications of Arte Povera: "He performs a constant sacrifice of the banal, everydayobject, as though it were a newfound Christ. Having found his nail, Merz becomes the system'sphilistine and crucifies the world."Later DevelopmentsCelant succeeded in carving out a place for Arte Povera within the avant-garde. By illustratinga relationship to Futurism and Italian classicism, as well as to more contemporary styles such as Landart, he lent the movement a place in what could be seen as a living tradition. Hisexhibition Conceptual Art, Arte Povera, Land Art, held at the Galleria Civica dell'Arte in 1970,showcased this contextualization. By this time, though, the artists had an international presence andwere trying to break free of the name that had associated them with poor materials. For example, theyopposed the use of the name "Arte Povera" in the title of an important group show at theKunstmuseum in Lucerne; to replace it, curator Jean-Christophe Ammann proposed "Visualized ArtProcesses."Despite growing popularity, the movement dissolved in the mid 1970s as the individual stylesof the Italian artists continued to grow in different directions. Their brief unity, however, had alreadymade its mark on the history of art, although its importance was not fully recognized until decadeslater. Following a reassessment of the 1960s, with critics now paying greater attention to movementsoutside the United States in the period, Arte Povera has experienced a revival, and has been cited as aprecursor for some recent approaches to sculpture. Significant reassessments have included "Gravityand Grace: Arte Povera / Post-Minimalism," at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1993, and "Zero toInfinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972" at the Tate Gallery, London, in 2002.QUOTES"The difficulty of knowledge, or of taking possession of things, is enormous: conditioning prevents usfrom seeing a pavement, a corner, or a daily space, and Fabro re-proposes the rediscovery of apavement, a corner, or the axis that unites the floor and ceiling of a room. He's not worried aboutsatisfying the system, and intends instead to disembowel it."- Germano Celant in Arte Povera: Notes on a Guerilla War"What is happening? Banality is entering the arena of art. The insignificant is coming into being or,rather, it is beginning to impose itself. Physical presence and behavior have themselves become art...We are living in a period of deculturation. Iconographic conventions are collapsing, symbolic andconventional languages crumbling."- Germano Celant, from the exhibition catalogue for Arte Povera e IM Spazioan ordeal of measurement tenuously alludes to a monumentally stretched-outversion of Truth or Consequences. I ... ]In choosing representational strategies I aim for the distancing ( ostraneniethe Verfremdungseffekt), the distantiation occasioned by a refusal of realism, b 'foi led expectations, by palpably flouted conventions. Tactically I tend to use~wretched pacing and a bent space; the immovable shot or, conversely, theunexpected edit, pointing to the mediating agencies of photography and speech;long shots rather than close ups, to deny psychological intent; contradictoryutterances; and, in acting, flattened affect, histrionics or staginess. Althoughvideo is simply one medium among several that are effective in confronting realissues of culture. video based on TV has this special virtue; it has little difficultyin lending itself to the kind of 'crude thinking', as Brecht used this phrase, thatseems necessary to penetrate the waking daydreams that hold us in thrall. Theclarification of vision is a first step towards reasonably and humanely changingthe world.!The TV cookery programme presenter.IMartha Rosier, extracts from 'to argue for a video of representation. to argue for a video against themythology of everyday life', pamphlet for 'New American Film Makers: Martha Rosier' (New York:Whitney Museum of American Art, 1977); reprinted in Rosier, Decoys and Disruptions: SelectedWritings. 1975-2001 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004) 366- 9.Allen RuppersbergFifty Helpful Hints on the Art of the Everyday//1985GeneralThe individual search for the secret of life and death. That is the inspiration andthe key.The reality of impressions and the impression of reality.The ordinary event leads to the beauty and understanding of the world.Start out and go in.Each work is singular, unique and resists any stylistic or linear analysis. Eachwork is one of a kind.Personal, eccentric, peculiar, quirky, idiosyncratic, queer.The presentation of a real thing.54/ / ART AND THE EVERYDAY Allen Ruppersberg, Fifty Helpful Hints on the Art of the Everyday, 1985 The ordinary and the rare, their interconnectedness and interchangeability.There is a quotidian sense of loss and tragedy.Collect accumulate, gather, preserve, examine, catalogue read look· . · · , study research change, organize, file, cross-reference, number, assemble cat . · ' · egonze classify, and conserve the ephemeral. ·Art should make use of common methods and materials so there is littledifference between the talk and the talked about. [ ... ]A sort of journalist reporting on the common, observable world.Suicide is often the subject because it is a representative example of the ultimatemoment of mystery. The last private thought.Look for narrative of any kind. Anti-narrative, non-narrative, para-narrative' semi-narrative, quasi-narrative, post-narrative, bad narrative.Use everything.The artist is a mysterious entertainer.Specific[ ... ] l want to reveal the quality of a moment in passing. Where something isrecognized and acknowledged but remains mysterious and undefined. Youcontinue on your way, but have been subtly changed from that point on.I try to set up a network of ideas and emotions with only the tip showing. Themajor portion of the piece continues to whirl and ferment underneath, just asthings do in the world at large.It is constructed to work on you after you have seen it.The act of copying something allows the use of things as they are, withoutaltering their original nature. They can then be used with ideas about art on afifty-fifty basis, and create something entirely new.It operates on a basis of missing parts. The formal structure, a minimaliststrategy of viewer completion and involvement, is one of fragment, space,fragment, space, fragment, fragment, space, space, space.The form of each piece is determined by the nature of its subject.[ ... ]I'm interested in the translation of life to art because it seems to me that theworld is fine just as it is. [ ... ]Allen Ruppersberg, extracts from 'Fifty He lpful Hints on the Art of the Everyday,' The Secret of Lifeand Death (Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art/Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press.1985) 111 - 14.56// ART AND THE EVERYDAY trategies to it. The result is formalism intensified to the qualitative crisis point.~he work makes its intervention in the context of a formalized emptiness ofexisting genres. but does not create an antithetical emptiness, a purely abstract oremblematic intervention. In fusing the journalistic attitude which accepts theprimacy of subject-matter together with the Situationist-conceptualist strategy ofinterventionism and detournement, the work establishes a discourse in which itssubject-matter, a critique of Minimalism and Pop via a discussion of thearchitectural disaster upon which they both depend, can be enlarged to the pointof a historical critique of reigning American cultural development.This approach became identified explicitly with architectural theory anddiscourse by 1973-74 via a series of video-performance works. These and theenvironmental 'functional behavioural models' use window, mirror and videocontrol systems to construct dramas of spectatorship and surveillance in theabstracted containers of gallery architecture. Following his ideas about therelation of the work of art to the implicit semiotics of its built environment, itsinstitutionally-designed container, the emphasis shifts through the decade of theseventies from an experimental concentration on enactment or behaviour('performance'), to work upon the actual institutional settings of these 'dramas'.Graham's work shows new influences, particularly from Daniel Buren, MichaelAsher and Gordon Matta-Clark, with the effect that architecture emerges as thedetermining or decisive art form, because it most wholly reflects institutionalstructure, and influences behaviour through its definition of positionality. [ ... ]Jeff Wall, extract from 'Dan Graham's Kammerspiel', in Real Life Magazine, no. 15 (Winter 1985/86):reprinted in Jeff Wall, Selected Essays and lnteIViews (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007)23-33.Jonathan WatkinsEvery Day//1998There is a growing interest amongst contemporary artists, worldwide, inquotidian phenomena and the power of relatively simple gestures. It constitutes arejoinder to played-out operatic tendencies and an overloaded academic ( oftenpseudo-academic) discourse in visual arts, engendered by early postmodernism.The imminence of the year 2000 makes this artistic sea change at onceparadoxical and timely, a foil for the portentousness of millennial cultural events.Watkins//Every Day//61 E Phasis here is placed on the significance of every day, and any daym . f , not on th distance between now and arbitrary past and uture dates in Western h' e . . f h' h'b' . . IStory The fundamental propos1t1on o t 1s ex 1 1t1on arises out of curr : . ent an1sticractice. Selected works are characterized by efficacy and unpreciousnep . 'd II i- ss. They e unforced artistic statements, mc1 enta y pro1ound observationar . . . . . s on theture of our Jives as lived every day, m contrad1stmct1on to supposed! r,na . . . . . Y m-de1.ecle appropriatiomst, neo-surreahst or mannerist strategies _ all-too-' .. s . . 1arn1har·n living memory - and likewise new-age transcendentalist gestur . I . • • . . . es. Theirimpetus, derived f1~om what 1_s ord1~ary, 1s not unlike tha_t which led nineteenthcentury French artists to their realist and subsequently impressionist positiIt is more human than spiritual, more empiricist than idealistic ons. . . , morephilosophical than 1deological.Though this project springs from a current Western context the . . . , re 1ssignificant correspondence with a wide range of cultural traditions increasin 1h h . . 1· gy being acknowledged t roug a new 111ternat1ona ism. As every day occurseverywhere in the world, participating artists hail from each of the fivecontinents. The curatorial challenge arises from the relativism of what iseveryday, the differences between what is familiar, common or ordinary withinthe diversity of cultures represented. The aim is to communicate the nature ofevery day and to be culturally specific, declaring differences without resorting toexoticism, particularly in the presentation of non-Western art. Whereas asublime and prescriptive world-view of contemporary art is out of the question,a more balanced and ultimately more constructive global dialogue is certainlyfeasible. The Biennale presents an opportunity for the telling juxtaposition ofwork by artists whose distance from one another is normally vast. Here, forexample, On Kawara Uapan/USA) meets Georges Adeagbo (Benin), Frederic BrulyBouabre (Ivory Coast) and Jean Frederic Schnyder (Switzerland) in works that allresemble personal journals. The single-image colour photographs by Roy Arden(Canada), Noa Zait (Israel) and Pekka Turunen (Finland), so evocativeparticularly of the places they depict, can be readily compared. The minimalismof paintings by Katherina Grosse (Germany), Rover Thomas (Australia) and DingYi (China) seen in proximity suggest an affinity in spite of the virtuallyincommensurable thought systems which inform them.The broad area covered by this exhibition is articulated by various concernsand stances. Pronouncements with respect to style or medium (the dominanceof one, the redundancy of another) are deliberately avoided, deemed pointlessnow, but the artists clearly do share various attitudes. Above all perhaps is anaspiration to directness, as opposed to gratuitous mediation or obscurantism. Abreak is made with art about art (interrogation of its own artistic identity) andcontinuity is affirmed between phenomena within and beyond the art world.62//IJff AND TID EVERYDAY Much of the work exhibited ~mbodies or marks the passage of time throughtraces of the process of production, thereby stressing its place in our materialworld. Time is _measured out !n gestures analogous to the coming and going ofevery day, reminders that all 1s temporary and mutable. Concomitant with thisis the acknowledgement that the everyday is manifest as much in naturalphenomena as it is in co~mOI~ man-ma~e or urban subjects.Carl Andre's work ep1tom1ses the d1rectness at the heart of this project,diametrically opposed to theatricality. Its concrete nature, its 'this-is-this-ness',at once conveys the artist's feeling for basic materials and a tough logic whichdoes not distract from the fact that they are simply there. Denise Kum andErnesto Neto similarly encourage an apprehension of material fact. The latter,who is working in a Brazilian tradition notably developed by Helio Oiticica andLygia Clark. seems to encourage a revelry in stuff - ranging from lead shot topowdered spices - and recently his exhibitions have included Iycra tent-likestructures which can be entered and experienced from the inside. Kum takesraw chemical substances and combines them with extraordinary results, anabstract insistence on the possibility of invention. [ ... )The unhindered flow of information from everyday life into the art worldwas made conscious and deliberate with Marcel Duchamp's introduction of theReadymade, and not surprisingly, readymade objects are found throughout thisexhibition. Jose Resende is a choreographer of cranes and shipping containers,Virginia Ward resurrects discarded machinery, Desmond Kum Chi-Keung workswith bamboo bird cages, while Marijke van Warmerdam invites us to gamble onone-armed bandits.It is a truism that art can be made from anything. Rasheed Araeen's recentworks are made from scaffolding, Tadashi Kawamata's from garden sheds. PeterRobinson (3.125% Maori) treads a tightrope stretched between politicalcorrectness and heresy as he picks up awful nationalist cliches and racist taunts,as readymades, and then throws them back.Vladimir Arkhipov's Post-Folk Archive puts a further twist to the tale of theReadymade, consisting as it does of home-made gadgets, all ready made,collected from people living around Moscow. The ingenuity of these gadgets, inthe face of shortages of the most ordinary manufactured goods, inspired him tostop being a sculptor and start collecting. Now Arkhipov's art practice bridgesthe gap between the useful lives of these gadgets and their acquired identity ascomponents of an artwork. The twist lies in the fact that these are notmanufactured objects, as readymades usually are, but instead unique creationswhich might be mistaken for folk art, implying a curatorial effort to somehow'elevate' them. This could not be further from the truth, Arkhipov suggests,because the art world clearly does not occupy elevated ground.Watkins/ / Every Day//63 kok has an ,ut1 st1 c community, la rgely orbiting around the About Cai Bang . d' . . e.h I _ 111 extraordinJry emphasis on au 1ence part1c1patiun, asserting \\'hie p ates~ notd O ran, of objects through the use of readymades but also only a em .. , . . . · and den ·e between artists .rnd non-artists. In the sptnt of Jorge L . inter epen t u1sho argued for the recognition of the crucial role of the reader m Borge , w . . . . , anyThai arti t are literally making work with their audience. R1rkrit Tiravanija hasat different times provided take-away fo?d· a recording studio for passers-by,rnd art work hops for children. Suras1 Kusolwong recently organized anexchange of everyday objects with gallery visitors. Chumpon Apisuk, in a longteni, project concerned with the plight of local sex-workers, especially withre pect to HIV and AIDS, exhibits a continuing correspondence by fax andrecorded messages.Navin Rawanchaikul's work for this exhibition developed out of his NavinGallery, Bangkok, an ordinary working taxi in Bangkok which is also the venuefor an exhibition programme. It is based on recorded conversations with Sydneytaxi drivers. These are transformed into a small comic story book, Another Dayin Sydney, freely available in taxis around town, and a sound installationinvolving a taxi parked inside the exhibition.Guy Bar-Amotz, an Israeli artist now based in London and Amsterdam, alsoderives his work from an identifiable professional group, buskers, and karaoke isthe chosen form of audience participation. The gruesome cathartic sing-a-longof the overworked middle classes with underprivileged accompaniment, anincreasing phenomenon around the world, is a characteristically edgy mix.Perhaps as an antidote, the home has come to signify, more than ever, arefuge, as Nikos Papastergiadis observes in his essay here: 'Not only are moreand more people living in places which are remote and unfamiliar to them, buteven those who have not moved increasingly feel estranged from their ownsense of place.' Whether or not this is directly experienced by artists, apreponderance of current art works refer to the nature of the home, oftenproblematically, and reflect a basic need for shelter.Desmond Kum Chi-Keung's birdcages allude to the overcrowded housingconditions in Hong Kong. Gavin Hipkins' photostrips make up an obsessiveunedited analysis of the various rooms he inhabits. Howard Arkley's choice ofthe suburban Australian home as a subject for his spray paintings could not bemore apt. Maria Hedlund's white photographs suggest the corruptible nature ofthe domestic spaces we create for ourselves.Absalon's actual-size white prototypes for houses epitomise a very particulardaily life and at the same time anticipate his tragic early death. Ostensibly. theCellules, to be built in various cities around the world, were to be small buildingsin which the artist lived alone. with room enough for only one visitor at a time.64// ART AND THE EVERYDAY Shimabuku, The Story of the Travelling Cafe, 19% With interconnected spaces for eating, sleeping, working and toilet a 1 . . . . C IVJty, thedesigns betray the formative 111tluences not only of classic modernism b . ut also theartist's native m idd le-eastern culture. Ideas from Arab architecture a d Be . . d . n douin life are combined for the accommo at1on of an endlessly travelling ind· .d . . . 1v1 ual.The appeal of the Cellules hes largely m the viewer's identificat· . IOn WithAbsalon's need to make a place for himself. Henrietta Lehtonen's work N· f I b ·1 h eSf, (1995), subtitled 'Reconstruction o . a nest. ut. t w en five years old. At the ageof eighteen I started to study architecture, strikes the same chord Sof.as· . rugsblanket, pillows and a coffee table are rearranged in order to create a child-sizedrefuge, one to keep the adult world at bay.Other works by Lehtonen have referred directly to childhood and in this too,she is not alone amongst contemporary artists. There is a distinct revival ofinterest in the world of children. This is not sentimental and more than a simpleacknowledgement that children are equaIJy part of everyday life - it springsfrom an appreciation that children's perception is relatively unhabituated andtheir expression of thoughts and feelings is refreshingly candid. Furthermore,children are indicative of an imagined future and thus their significant figuringas subjects in contemporary art tends to contradict notions of a washed-up,decadent culture. [ ... ]On Kawara's work is canonical, direct and economical, marking time as itpasses - in the case of his Date Paintings, against an unseen backdrop ofnewspaper pages which reiterate his continuing existence. His famousstatement 'I am still alive' (at once too much and not enough, wonderfully funnyand deadly serious) is implicit in everything he does. Parts of his / Met and IWent projects (from 1968), recording everywhere he went and everyone he meton the same days thirty years ago, are also in this exhibition.The measured continuum of time embodied in On Kawara's work features inmany works in this exhibition. Frederic Bruly Bouabre's postcard-sized picturesare drawn from daily life in his village of Zepregtihe on the Ivory Coast. Hung inlong rows they suggest both a spelt-out pictorial language and, as each is dated,the regular diurnal cycle. The dates assert the fact that he was actually there, then.Jean Frederic Schnyder exhibits a row of forty paintings, each depicting asunset over the Zugersee, the lake near his home. Riding his bicycle to the sameplace every evening during several months last year, he set about painting thesame scene en plein air, one painting per day, thereby recording the incrementalmovement of the sun in relation to the horizon and a spectrum of impressionsand meteorological effects. Intersecting in Schnyder's work are a number ofconcerns which exemplify the thesis of this exhibition. They include a response,as direct as possible, to his subject, a subject that is at once familiar and taken asit is, and a concern with the effects of temporality.66// ART AND THE :EVERYDAY In addition, Schnyder is declaring his unabashed interest in landscape andnatural phenomena. Many other artists here, such as Roni Horn. Patrick Killoran,Olafur Eliasson, Gereon Lepper, Kim You ng-Jin, Dieter Kiessling. Joyce Campbell.Jimmy Wululu and Rover Thomas, are doing the same. This does not signify asentimenta l or reactionary tendency, somehow in opposition to an avant-garde:it is rather the artistic expression of what happens every day, as innovative as itis uncontrived.The serial nature of Schnyder's work. and that of On Kawara and Bouabre,suggests another pattern which can be extended to include those artists in thisexhibition whose practice involves small repetitive gestures, a certainorientation towards craft activity. There is reference to the marking of time, anda light touch on the subject of mortality, for example, in the work of FernandaGomes and Germaine Koh. The latter's ongoing project, Knitwork. is anaccumulation of her knitting with wool unravelled from second-hand garments.Its present sixty-metre length has Sisyphean implications and becomesincreasingly a heavier burden. Ani O'Neill's crocheted circles have affinities withthe project of Katherina Grosse and, at the same time, bear witness to herancestry in the Cook Islands.The woven works of Aboriginal artists Margaret Robyn Djunjiny andElizabeth Djutarra also derive from traditional culture. Ding Yi uses paintstick ontartan fabric, playing off the pattern or mimicking the weave with a techniquewhich clearly betrays the influence of Buddhist philosophy, through calligraphy.Kim Soo-Ja conflates fabric bundles, potent symbols of the role of women inKorean society, with video images of their movement.The reference to craft is taken to an extreme by those artists who simulatethe everyday, not in games of double-take or due to a latter day PreRaphaelitism, but because the subject suggests itself as absolutely sufficient. Themeticulousness of the process signifies a fascination with the smallest detail.and simulation is the logical conclusion. Fischli and Weiss produce paintedpolyurethane sculptures of the most humble objects, such as orange peel andcigarette ends, and Yoshihiro Suda makes painted wooden flowers and weeds.Clay Ketter and Joe Scanlan use the actual materials of their chosen subjects -respectively, plasterboard, nails and plaster for sculptures of sections ofprepared walls, and timber for a coffin sculpture - and their aspiration todirectness could not be clearer.Ketter and Scanlan operate within the realm of the everyday, and every day,as do Fischli and Weiss, Carl Andre, Lisa Milroy, On Kawara, Virginia Ward, JoyceCampbell, Georges Adeagbo, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and the many other artistsincluded in this exhibition.Such diversity with respect to media, style and subject matter, such interestWatkins//Every Day//67 . all areas of ltfe and unp1etent1ousness, however, does not mean th . tn . . 1s 1s an anworld where anything goes. Never does anything go. Then again. nev b· er efore has an art world been so open, and so accessible.J athan Watkins, lnrroductton, Every Day. 11th 81ennale of Sydney (Sydney: Birnnal fon e o Sydney,1998) 15- 19.Nikos Papastergiadis'Everything That Surrounds': Art, Politics and Theoriesof the Everyday//1998[ ... ] Bringing art and life as close together as possible can be a healthy antidoteto some of the academicist approaches emerging in the late 1980s. However, itcan also lead to the idiocies and banalities of life being reproduced under thename of art. The relationship between art and life is never straightforward ortransparent. What cannot be denied, however, is the need for the artist to startfrom the materiality of both art practice and experience. This appreciation ofmateriality does not preclude language, nor does it imply that the limitations ofour specific starting points, by their mere display, should be elevated tomarvellous achievements. [ ... ]In the new art there is both sensuous absorption with the present, ashameless fascination with the abject, and a candid representation of thebanalities of everyday life. Neither the pleasures nor the vices expressive of thisvoluptuous self-presence are embedded within a social history of politicalsolidarity or aesthetic investigation. This practice of acknowledgement isdisavowed as being part of the boring politics of correctness. Yet paradoxically,in the assertion of newness there is both rejection of lineage and claim ofassimilation. It is assumed that the new British art has already embraced thekernel of the old without hanging onto the academicist crust of history. Thisdynamic of internalization is supposedly already there in the pulse of popularculture. Can we assume that the history of resistance is already incorporated inpopular consciousness, and that, by virtue of its own sensual and materialpractice, the production of art traces the contours of this silent knowledge andbears witness to all that is knowable and real? To attempt to forget the past is tobe condemned to repeat it by other means. [ ... ]Despite repeated efforts to break the divide between popular culture andhigh art, the concept of the everyday has remained relatively untheorized within68// ART AND THE EVERYDAY d 1 Ctt dialogue with the predominant movements of critical art of their . conscious an exp 1 . . • • J>enOd.W rd ·Toe Hc1unced Museum: lnstttullonal Cnttque and Publicity' Onobf!20 1361 Frazer J • ' r, 73(Summer 1995) 83. . . . , .C ,11,.d this in the descnpttve list of Rosier s works found 111 Mdrthd R 1 21 1381 The tape 1s u '" os er:. the Life world ed. Catherine de Zegher (Birmingham. England· lk Po wons m · · onGallery/Vienna: Generali Foundation. 1998).I . Martha Rosier Positions in the Life World, 31. 22 1401 Ros er in ·23 1441 Fredric Jameson, 'Periodizing the 1960s', in The Sixties without Apology (Minneapolis:. ·ry of Mi·nnesota Press 1984) 79. Additionally, Martha Rosier has said of her own w k un1vers1 · or :'Everything 1 have ever done I've thought of "as if': Every single thing I have offered to the publichas been offered as a suggestion of a work ... which is that my work is a sketch, a line of thinking,a possibility.' ('a conversation with Martha Rosier', in Martha Rosier: Positions in the Ufe World, 31 ).24 1451 For more on the importance of privacy, see Drucilla Cornell, At the Heart of Freedom:Feminism, Sex and Equality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). I ... ]25 147I Drucilla Cornell, At the Heart of Freedom, op. cit., 24.Helen Molesworth, extracts from 'House Work and Art Work', October, no. 92 (Winter 2000) 75_88;90-6.Joseph KosuthThe Artist as Anthropologist//1975Part II. Theory as Praxis: A Role for an 'Anthropologized Art''The highest wisdom would be to understand that every fact is already a theory.'- Goethe1. The artist perpetuates his culture by maintaining certain features of it by'using' them. The artist is a model of the anthropologist engaged. It is theimplosion Mel Ramsden speaks of, an implosion of a reconstituted socioculturally mediated overview.1 In the sense that it is a theory, it is an overview;yet because it is not a detached overview but rather a socially mediating activity,it is engaged, and it is praxis. lt is in this sense that one speaks of the artist-asanthropologist's theory as praxis. There obviously are structural similaritiesbetween an 'anthropologized art' and philosophy in their relationship withsociety ( they both depict it - making the social reality conceivable) yet art ismanifested in praxis; it 'depicts' while it alters society.2 And its growth as a182// DOCUMENTARY STYLE AND ETHNOGRAPHY cultural reality is necessitated by a dialectical relationship with the activity'shistoricity (cultural memory) and the social fabric of present-day reality. I ... I7_ 8e(ause the anthropologist 1s outside of the culture which he studies he is nota part of the community. This means whatever effect he has on the people he isstudying is similar to the effect of an act of nature. He is not part of lhe socialmatrix. Whereas the artist, as anthropologist, is operating within the samesocio-cultural context from which he evolved. He is totally immersed, and has asocial impact. His activities embody the culture. Now one might ask, why nothave the anthropologist. as a professional, 'anthropologize' his own society?Precisely because he is an anthropologist. Anthropology, as it is popularlyconceived, is a science. The scientist, as a professional, is dis-engaged.1 Thus it isthe nature of anthropology that makes anthropologizing one's own societydifficult and probably impossible in terms of the task I am suggesting here. Therole Jam suggesting for art in this context is based on the difference between thevery basis of the two activities - what they mean as human activities. It is thepervasiveness of 'artistic-like' activity in human society - past or present,primitive or modern, which forces us to consider closely the nature of art. [ ... ]9. Artistic activity consists of cultural fluency. When one talks of the artist as ananthropologist one is talking of acquiring the kinds of tools that theanthropologist has acquired - in so fa r as the anthropologist is concerned withtrying to obtain fluency in another culture. But the artist attempts to obtainfluency in his own culture. For the artist, obtaining cultural fluency is a dialecticalprocess which, simply put, consists of attempting to affect the culture while he issimultaneously learning from (and seeking the acceptance of) that same culturewhich is affecting him. The artist's success is understood in terms of his praxis. Artmeans praxis, so any art activity, including 'theoretical art' activity, ispraxiological. The reason why one has traditionally not considered the arthistorian or critic as artist is that because of Modernism (Scientism) the critic andart historian have always maintained a position outside of praxis (the attempt tofind objectivity has necessitated that) but in so doing they made culture nature.This is one reason why artists have always felt alienated from art historians andcritics. Anthropologists have always attempted to discuss other cultures (that is,become fluent in other cultures) and translate that understanding into sensicalforms which are understandable to the culture in which they are located (the'ethnic' problem). As we said, the anthropologist has always had the problem ofbeing outside of the culture which he is studying. Now what may be interestingabout the artist-as-anthropologist is that the artist's activity is not outside, but amapping of an internalizing cultural activity in his own society. The artist-asKosuth//The Artist as Anthropologist// 183 anthropologist may be able to accomplish what the anthropologist has alwaysfailed at. A non-static 'depiction' of art's (and thereby culture's) operationalinfrastructure is the aim of an anthropolog ized art. The hope for thisunderstanding of the human condition is not in the search for a religio-scientitic'truth'. but rather to utilize the state of our constituted interaction. I ... JToe term 'implosion· was originally introduced into our conversation by Michael Baldwin. 1 referhere to its use by Mel Ramsden in 'On Practice', this issue.2 This nolion of ,m ·anthropologized art' is one I began working on over three years ago_ a point atwhich I had been studying anthropology for only a year. and my model of an anthropologist wasa fairly academic one.That model has continually changed. but not as much as it has in the past year through my studieswith Bob Scholte and Stanley Diamond (at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for SocialResearch}. While their influence is strongly felt, I obviously take full responsibility for the use (ormisuse) of their material within my discussion here.3 l footnote 5 in source] I must point out here that the Marxist anthropology of Diamond and Scholteis not included in this generalization. Indeed, due to the alternative anthropological tradition inwhich they see themselves, their role as anthropologists necessitates that they be 'engaged'. It isa consideration of their work. and what it has to say about the limits of anthropology (and thestudy of culture) which has allowed me a further elucidation of my notion of the 'artist-asanthropologist'.Joseph Kosuth, extract from 'The Artist as Anthropologist', The Fox. no. 1 (New York. 1975); reprintedin Kosuth, Art after Philosophy and After: Selected Writings 1966- 1990(Cambridge, Massachusetts:The MIT Press. 1991 } 117-24.Stephen WilletsThe Lurky Place//1978Not far from the busy shopping centre of Hayes in West London, there exists alarge, seemingly abandoned, area of land known to the residents of surroundinghousing estates as the 'Lurky Place'. Completely hemmed in by variousmanifestations of institutional society, the Lurky Place is a waste land, isolatedand contained. It is this symbolic separation from an institutionalized societythat gives the Lurky Place its value for local inhabitants. While the Lurky Placeis, of course, actually dependent on society for its existence, the local inhabitants184//DOCUMENTARY STYLE AND ETHNOGRAPHY GEE’S BEND QUILTS GRADESTEXTILE ARTLEARNINGOBJECTIVESIn this guide, students will:• Discuss thehistorical and socialcircumstances thatcontributed to theconditions in whichunique quiltingtraditions developed inGee’s Bend• Identify the quiltsdesigns often used tocreate quilts in Gee’sBend• Express theirobservations,knowledge, andresponses throughcreative writing andpoetry6–12UI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 1This resource is designed as a post-visit guide for K-12 educators after a class viewing of theUniversity of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art’s Gee’s Bend quilts collection. It is intended to spurfurther contemplation and discussion. Gee’s Bend quilts are among the greatest examples ofAmerican artforms and are perfect representations of the nexus of art, history, and society. As such,they are wonderful additions to several curriculums, including history, social studies, and English.This resource captures the quilts’ versatility for teaching, guiding teachers at all grade levels inusing the objects for innovative learning.This resource includes:• Historical context: The history of Gee’s Bend, Alabama• Artistic context: A summary of the start of the quilting tradition in Gee’s Bend and its currentstatus• A vocabulary list of quilt designs• Images and descriptions of five Gee’s Bend quilts in the Stanley’s collection• Discussion questions• Connections to Iowa State Standards• Additional resources• Object-based writing activities: Creative writing – poetry• Observation & Analysis: Haiku• Social, Political, & Historical Moment: Narrative Poem• Poetry: Reflection & Connection: Rhythmic PoemThe Stanley’s collection of Gee’s Bend quilts comprises a sizable number of these previouslyoverlooked artworks and offers visitors an opportunity for detailed examination. The quilts,consisting of a combination of traditional forms and improvisation, are handcrafted by amultigenerational group of African American women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Due to Gee’s Bend’salmost complete isolation on the banks of the Alabama River for the better part of the twentiethcentury, the hand-sewn quilts have a unique historic, geographical, and stylistic development.In this guide, students will:1. ABOUT THIS RESOURCE2. ABOUT THIS COLLECTION3. LEARNING OBJECTIVESExpress their observations,knowledge, and responsesthrough creative writing andpoetryIdentify the quilts designs oftenused to create quilts in Gee’s BendDiscuss the historicaland social circumstancesthat contributed to theconditions in which uniquequilting traditions developedin Gee’s BendGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 2Inhabitants of Alabama commonlyformed communities along the state’smany rivers. Gee’s Bend, one suchcommunity, came into being whenJoseph Gee, a landowner from HalifaxCounty in North Carolina, arrived in1816 with the intention to fertilizeland and grow cotton. He broughteighteen enslaved people with him.By the point of the EmancipationProclamation in 1863, the originaleighteen had grown into a largeBlack population. Now free, theyremained on the cotton plantationstarted by Joseph Gee, working assharecroppers and tenant farmers.The 1930s marked an era of majorchanges in Gee’s Bend. To repaydebts to a merchant in the area, thefamilies of Gee’s Bend were forced togive up their food, animals, tools, andseed, which thrust them into a periodof great economic difficulty. After theVan de Graaf family, who purchasedthe land from the Gee family, soldthe land to the Federal Government,the Farm Security Administrationintervened with initiatives suchas the Gee’s Bend Farms, Inc., afarming cooperative program thatsustained the community. Thegovernment also built “Roosevelt”houses and eventually sold theland to the families, ultimatelyrelinquishing ownership of Gee’s Bendto its inhabitants. The period of thesecond half of the Great Depressionresulted in several people fleeing thetown. Those who remained in town,unwilling to give up the land thatfinally belonged to them, remainedresilient and dedicated to keeping thetown alive.4. HISTORICAL CONTEXT: GEE’S BEND, ALABAMA3 GEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxUArthur Rothstein, John Miller and familywho live in the old Pettway Mansion, Gee’sBend, Alabama, April 1937. Source: Library ofCongressMarion Post Wolcott, Bringing home meal fromcooperative grist mill, Gee’s Bend, Alabama,May 1939. Source: Library of Congress.Arthur Rothstein, Going to school, Gee’sBend, Alabama, April 1937. Source: Library ofCongressMarion Post Wolcott, First grade, showingextremes in ages of pupils, Gee’s Bend,Alabama, May 1939. Source: Library ofCongressSource: JohnBeardsley, Gee’sBend: The Women andTheir Quilts (Atlanta:Tinwood Books, 2002)pp. 24–25.Gee’s Bend, officially known as the town of Boykin, is inWilcox County in Alabama. As of 2018, it had a populationof approximately 750 people, mostly descendantsof enslaved African Americans. Despite the manychallenges the community faces—including poverty andunderdevelopment—Gee’s Bend enjoys a reputation as anational hallmark through its quilts.Gee’s Bend quilts were first created out of necessityand used for warmth. Utilizing whatever material wasavailable to them, the women worked together; quiltingserved both as an act of creation and of socializing. “Atthe start all they was making them out of was old clothes,pants, fertilizer sacks, dress tails, and mean and floursacks, too,” said Bettie Bendolph Seltzer, a Gee’s Bendquiltmaker. The women taught their daughters, whotaught their daughters. What started off as a practicalnecessity has today grown into a thriving tradition. Thequilting community of Gee’s Bend has become somethingof an informal art class, with the elders passing downunique forms of composition to new generations ofquiltmakers. Behind each quilt form is a group effort;the mutually-agreed upon composition is traditional, yetimprovisational, and any imperfections are incorporatedinto the work.The Gee’s Bend quilts are an example of a common debateregarding the distinction between art and craft. Afterseeing a photograph by Roland Freeman of a quilt drapedover a woodpile, Atlanta-based folk art dealer WilliamArnett visited Gee’s Bend in the late ‘90s and purchasedhundreds of quilts. The art world soon took notice. Todaythe pieces are celebrated as modern art—whether usedevery day or on exhibition—and the women of Gee’sBend have established production associations such asthe Gee’s Bend Quilt Collective. The Stanley’s collectionof quilts represents the celebration of these exquisiteexamples of American art—art that is celebrated inmany more museums, including the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art and the American Craft Museum.4. ARTISTIC CONTEXT: FROM A UTILITARIAN START TO ART4 GEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxUArthur Rothstein,Jennie Pettway andanother girl withthe quilter JorenaPettway, Gee’s Bend,Alabama, April 1937.Source: Library ofCongressArthur Rothstein,Inhabitants of Gee’sBend, Alabama, April1937. Source: Libraryof CongressCarol M. Highsmith,Gee’s Bend, Alabama,April 5, 2010. Source:Library of CongressCarol M. Highsmith,Gee’s Bend, Alabama,April 5, 2010. Source:Library of CongressBricklayer“Bricklayer” is the local name for a design pattern in which two rectangles are added to oppositesides of a central square before increasingly longer strips are sewn to each of the four sides. Thisresults in a pattern of four pyramid-like structures around the center.Courthouse StepsNationwide, the bricklayer design is known as “Courthouse Steps.”Lazy Girl“Lazy Girl” is one of the quilts that women first learn how to create in Gee’s Bend. These patternsare long strips of cloth sewn side-to-side and quilted. The name “lazy girl” refers to the fact thatthese quilts are easier to put together.Housetop“Housetop” is the local name for a design type in which strips are sewn around a central square toform a pattern of squares within squares. There are several variations of this design; most Gee’sBend quilts are variations of housetop.Log CabinIn the rest of the United States, housetop designs are known as “Log Cabin.” In traditional log cabindesigns, though, strips are sewn around a central square to form a square within rectangles pattern.The design resembles the stacked logs of a log cabin home. Designs usually have a bright red orwarm color in the center, mimicking the hearth at the center of a home.My Way“My Way” is a Gee’s Bend term used to denote patterns originally intended to be a more traditionalone like the housetop, but through inspiration, or available materials, or a variation of both, a uniquedesign flourishes.6. VOCABULARY: DESIGN TYPESGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 5This quilt is a four-block housetop pattern bordered with bar variations. Thecentral bar is a dominant focal point that works with the solid prints in thehousetop blocks to make for a more coherent composition. The quilt maker, ChinaPettway, was taught to quilt by her mother at a young age and is one of Gee’sBend’s leading gospel singers—“we got a lot of singers around here,” she says.She is one of the few Gee’s Bend quilters who attended college and returned tolive in the community.China Pettway (American, 1952 – )Quilt (rooftop variation)Cotton fabric, thread, 84 x 74 in. (213.36 x 187.96 cm)Stanley Education Partners, 2020.51This quilt’s name, May Day, refers to the Gee’s Bend family reunion. On the firstday of May, the extended families of current Gee’s Bend residents return for acelebration. The composition of this work is a combination of the strip and stitchvarieties, with bar variations throughout the pattern. This improvised design fitsin the “my way” category. The scale of the quilt is smaller and intended for use ascovering for an infant or small child. The quilt maker, Mary Ann Pettway, was themanager of the Gee’s Bend Quilt Collective when she made it.Mary Ann Pettway (American, 1956 – )May Day, 2012Cotton fabric, thread, 51 x 27 in. (129.54 x 68.58 cm)Stanley Education Partners, 2020.55My Way, another Mary Ann Pettway quilt, may be described as a true “my way”quilt. Pettway was initially inspired to create a housetop pattern. But, througha combination of the demands of available material and inspiration, sheimprovised, creating this striking quilt. The central housetop pattern may beconsidered a medallion because of the unified but asymmetrical composition.The solid primary colors are offset by the flower-patterned fabric.Mary Ann Pettway (American, 1956 – )My Way, 2012Cotton fabric, thread, 86 x 69 in. (218.44 x 175.26 cm)Stanley Education Partners, 2020.527. OBJECT DESCRIPTIONSGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 6This composition, Coming Together, is a lazy girl pattern with a twist. On theright side of the quilt, colorful bars of differing lengths and widths are verticallyarranged. On the quilt’s left half, though, the traditional vertical arrangement ofthe lazy girl pattern is flipped for a pattern of horizontal bars. This switch keepswith the tradition of inspired improvisation among Gee’s Bend’s quiltmakers. MaryLeatha Pettway, the quiltmaker, learned to make quilts by watching her motherand grandmother, who made quilts in the winter months to keep them warm.Mary Leatha Pettway (American, 1961– )Coming TogetherCotton fabric, thread, 44 1/2 x 41 in. (113.03 x 104.14 cm)Stanley Education Partners, 2020.53When Nancy Pettway was assembling this bricklayer pattern, she carefullycoordinated the color strips and arranged the symmetrical design. She thenpieced all of the strips together and completed the work by hand-quilting thepiece. Pettway has created and sold countless quilts since she started in 2002.“I have made way over one-hundred quilts,” she says. “When I got one-hundred, Ijust stopped counting.” According to her, “a quilt is like a house—when you designa house, you make in your mind how your house design to be. When you start onyour sewing machine or using your hands, you bring in your mind just how youwant your quilt to look, just like how you want your house to look. And when youget through, it come out in a design, whether it has squares in it or triangles oroblongs, or whatever design you have that you want it to be like. Like you want toput your rooms together in your house, you want to know just how many rooms,from your living room to your kitchen or your bathroom, and you put all yourpieces together on your quilt. “Nancy Pettway (American, 1935 – )Bricklayer, 2005Cotton fabric, thread, 74 x 72 in. (187.96 x 182.88 cm)Stanley Education Partners, 2020.547. OBJECT DESCRIPTIONSGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 7Teachers can adapt the lesson to apply to a number of state standards.We included a few standards that the lesson meets below.10. STATE STANDARDSVISUAL ARTS — CONNECTINGAnchor Standard 11Relate artistic ideas and works with societal,cultural, and historical context to deepenunderstanding.Enduring UnderstandingPeople develop ideas and understandingsof society, culture, and history through theirinteractions with and analysis of art.Essential Question(s)How does art help us understand the livesof people of different times, places, andcultures? How is art used to impact the viewsof a society? How does art preserve aspectsof life?8TH GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES —INQUIRY ANCHOR STANDARD:TAKING INFORMED ACTIONAnalyze how a specific problem can manifestitself at the local, regional, and global levelsover time, identifying its characteristics andcauses, and challenges and opportunitiesfaced by those trying to address the problem(SS.8.11).Apply a range of deliberative and democraticprocedures to make decisions and take actionin classroom, schools, and communities(SS.8.12).GEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 8OBSERVATION & ANALYSIS: What colors, lines, shapes, and patterns do you see? What kind of clothdo you see? What do you think the cloth used in the quilt was used for before it became part of thequilt? What clues lead you to these conclusions?SOCIAL, POLITICAL, & HISTORICAL MOMENT: The history of Gee’s Bend is unique. How do youthink this history has shaped the development of the quilts, including the process of making,materials, and appearance?REFLECTION & CONNECTION: Gee’s Bend quilters often work together to make quilts. Whatare some advantages and disadvantages to working together to make a quilt? What are someadvantages and disadvantages to working alone on a quilt? What are some projects that youworked on with other people to complete? What did you learn from those experiences?8. DISCUSSION QUESTIONSBeardsley, John. Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2002.Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, Souls Ground Deep, https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/gees-bend-quiltmakers.Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend. Alabama Public Television Documentaries, 2004. https://www.pbs.org/video/alabama-publictelevision-documentaries-quiltmakers-of-gees-bend/Wallach, Amel. “Fabric of their Lives.” Smithsonian Magazine (October 2006), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/artsculture/fabric-of-their-lives-132757004/.9. ADDITIONAL RESOURCESGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 9Line 1: 5 syllablesLine 2: 7 syllablesLine 3: 5 syllablesObservation & Analysis: HaikuA haiku is a type of Japanese poetry traditionally inspiredby nature but can be about several topics. Haikus havethree lines and are noted for their 5-7-5 syllabic style,where the first line has five syllables, the second hasseven, and the last, like the first, has five.Poets have used haiku to express their observations aboutartwork. Haiku might focus on works’ shape and form,color, or texture. For inspiration, see The Getty’s resource,11 Haiku to Teach Kids about Art.You have already observed and analyzed quilt colors, lines,shapes, patterns, and other features that lend each quilt itsuniqueness. Choose a quilt that appeals to you and decidewhich element—shape and form, color, texture, etc.—you’dlike to focus on in your haiku. Remember to follow thehaiku structure outlined to the right:CREATIVE WRITING POETRYI, TooBy Langston HughesI, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.Tomorrow,I’ll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody’ll dareSay to me,“Eat in the kitchen,”Then.Besides,They’ll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed—I, too, am America.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47558/i-tooSocial, Political, & Historical Moment: Narrative PoemA narrative poem is a poem whichtells a story. Like traditional stories,narrative poems feature elementssuch as characters, plot, conflict,setting, and resolution.Consider the example to the right:In “I, Too” by Langston Hughes, anAfrican American man who appearsto be a domestic servant assertsthat though he’s been ostracized andmade to feel inferior in America, he isas American as anyone. In this poem,the speaker has a “message” for theworld. This message alludes to racialsegregation during the early twentiethcentury, when African Americansfaced widespread discrimination,including being forced to live, work,eat, and travel separately from whiteAmericans as well as having tocontend with economic hardships.Gee’s Bend’s social, political, andhistorical identity—marked bylongstanding isolation from thecountry as a whole—reflects thisstory of marginalization. You havealready considered how these factorsshaped the development of the quilts,including the process of making,materials, and appearance.Choose a quilt you think best capturesGee’s Bend’s history. Borrowing fromthe structure of “I, Too”—the firstperson voice, especially—write amessage poem from the point of viewof one of Gee’s Bend’s quiltmakers,making sure to touch on at least oneaspect of Gee’s Bend’s history.CREATIVE WRITING POETRYGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 10We Real CoolTHE POOL PLAYERS.SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.By Gwendolyn BrooksWe real cool. WeLeft school. WeLurk late. WeStrike straight. WeSing sin. WeThin gin. WeJazz June. WeDie soon.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28112/wereal-coolReflection & Connection: Rhythmic PoemA rhythmic poem is identified throughthe stressed and unstressed patternsof words. Often, each line of the poemhas one stressed syllable and one ortwo unstressed syllables. There mayalso be a rhyme scheme.Consider the example to the right:In “We Real Cool,” Brooks employsthe communal voice of a group ofrebellious teenagers she once spottedplaying pool during school hours.Through stressed repetition of theword we and rhyming couplets—cooland school; late and straight, forexample—Brooks creates somethinglike a chant or song that might berecited by her subjects.You have already consideredthe possible advantages anddisadvantages of Gee’s Bend quilters’communal work environment. SeveralGee’s Bend quilters are also singers;often, they sing together whileworking on quilts.Following the structure of “We RealCool”—the repetition of “we” andrhyming couplets—write a rhythmicpoem that explores the advantages/disadvantages of working together tomake quilts; something that might besung by a group of quilters.CREATIVE WRITING POETRYGEES BEND QUILTSUI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS • xxxU 11 t is a given that most museum shows of recent an serve to ratify accepted tastes and standards. A Johns or Flavin retrospective, or a survey of Fluxus art, while certainly deepening ourknowledge of the subject, is not about to change perceptions significantly. f)'en a large·scale re\icw of a first-rate but underappreciated artist-the still traveling Joan Mitchell retrospecth'e,for example--essentially rearranges lhe pieces on the board. Itis rare to find an exhibition that throws something totally unexpected our way, that forces us to can'e out. a meaningl'ul chunkof historical space to make room for a new body of work. "TheQUillS of Gee's Bend," organized by the Museum of Pine Arts,Houston, and shown last winter at the Whitney Museum, doesjust that.The 60 quilts in the exhibition were made by a group of womenin a small, isolated fa rming community in central Alabama,southwest of Selma. Gee's Bend was and is an almost exclusivelyMrica n-American hamlet. Surrounded on three sides by theAlabama River, i~ is virtually an island; after the residents beganto assert their civil rights in the 1960s, its feny sen'ice was terminated (Ilrobably not coincidentally), and its one access road,some 15 miles from the nearest highway, remained unpaveduntil 1967. Today the area is starting to become more connectedwith the outside world, and is at the same time losing its quiltingtradition. The town's isolation during the '50s, '60s and '70s-theperiod when most of the quilts in the exhibition were donemade it nearly imllOssible for the quilters to have been eXllOsedin any conlextualized or coherent way to modern art, althoughimages of abstract art or design may ha\'c crossed their paths viamagazines and neWSllapers,' And yet these works seem io resonate harmonically wit h many strands of geomet ri all~ asedand materially innovative postwar American abstraction, as wellas with that abstraction's European antecedents.Although the Gee's Bend quilters were not part of the mai nstreamart world, it is important to understand that they formed an art worldof their own, that is, a coherent social groulling dedicated to the con·strucUon of a visual language. They shared a sense of esthetic lincage(patterns and ways of worki ng were handed down through extendedfam il ies and known to the rest. of the community), a recognizedmeans of display (the quilts were hung out on clotheslines not just Lodry, bUl to be seen), a concern wilh the interplay of individual andcollahorative work and, importantly, a set of common limi ts. Thewomen knew each other and were onen related-of the 41 artists inthe show, 18 belong to the Pellway family, which Look its name fromwtUha I't ttlCQlI' J1" Il!6 rl.: tlitl quill, en. 1950, dtlliM, cottOIl,8(J b,lBf illcllt •. All plioltn tAU arlicle Piti/" Studio, Rodiford, l/I.the area's principal sla\'e·owner, Religion also played a vit..'ll, unifyi ngrole in the Jives of Gee's Benders. The Baptist. church was the placewhere people not only Ilfayed but organized their community andexchanged information, including ideas about sewing and qUilting.2 ltis clear that Gee's Bend quilters were neither insular Yisionaries pursuing idiosyncratic personal paths, nor were they simply the skilledpassers-on of traditional forms, Instead, they were like other artists oftheir time, adept, committed practitioners engaged ill a measured andongoi ng esthetic give-and-take.Arlill Amen'Go,The quillS of Gee's Bend are quite unlike the quilts .... 'e are 1.JSCd to seeing--eilhcr the traditional or contempomry high-end ones, or thehomey items readily a\'ailabJe in stores or yant sales. Bold and decIar.uh.'C indesign, material and ronnat, they looked perfectly at ease on the Whitney'sInU, .... 'hite \mlls. While it is possible 10 wlderst:tnd the Gee's Bend quillS inthe context of vernacular an., outsider IU1 or craft, they are more than that.n "IC ir UUlO\'atr.-e power, combined .... iUl the restraints imposed by n4'l1crial,time and a compressed Iocal lradilion, argue for their examination as cullUrally infonnt'(l ruld emolionally tl\'OCIttivuJOI"mal objects.To do so mighl seem like treading on dangerous ground. The histOlY of2Oth-cenlury art. is rife with attempts to rev "ll the contempordl'}' andcosmopolit .. m with the raw power of the art of Africa, Oceania or theAmenclls, to infuse sophisticated studio products .... ith the artlessness ofchildren or the skewed sensibilities of the insane. In this way, "high art"can be bolstered by the art of the Other I and the transacUon renderedmorally frictionless by decontexlualization In the ostensibly neutralspace of a museum or gallery. TIle classic example of this was the 1984exhibition '''PrimitMsm' in1\\'enlieth·CentUlY Art: Affinity of the Tribaland the Modern" at New York's Museum of Modem Art. The l)(llemics106 (klober 2003Rathtl Cartll G«Jrgt': On, 6id, 010 two-Md«1lWrk.cli:lthtt quill, NI. 1935,dtnim, ItOOl tnlUJIUfl, matlnu tickilli, tOIIOII, 'l2 111182 /J,,:ht •.occasioned by that show, most notably Thomas McEvilley's articleDocto , Lawyer, Indian Chief" (Arifonml, November 1084), made theart. .... -o rld considerably more aware of iLs ethnocentrism. It seems, as if tocompensate for past errors, that we mo\'ed in the Olher directionlowards an o\'er-contcxtualization (marked by the proliferation of W'.ultext and SUJllllcmenlmy material) that serves to cocoon Ihe Objl.'Cts in(Iucstion and can, in its own W8,)', be erery bi!. as condescending. I amscarcely ad\'OCating cultural inse ilh , but mther noting that toomuch stage-setting and explanation can reinforce the dichotomy of cen· trality and marginality.Things, however, may have changed again, and this exhibition can beseen as one clement of an expanded frame of reference for both the mak·ing and viewing of art. The art. we look at now comes from far moreplaces physically, conceptually and emotionally than it did before. Thisdecentralization, evident in the diversity of image-based art, 81>]llies toabstraction as well; ror abstraction, by virtue of its looser mimeticanchoring to the world around it, is particularly able to cliSL itselr in aUsed clothing is scarcely a neutralart material. Not only does it embracea range of social signs, but it can alsocarry the physical imprint of the wearer.variety of Comls, to entertain mulUple readings. The Gee's Bend quillSare exemplars of that broadened approach to abstraction. Their allusivecomplexlty-their scale, their reference to the body, to physical work, tosocial structures and to the land-greaUy enriches our perception ofthem. But there is something else. The quillS are remarkably powerfuland compelling visual statements.. They declare themsehoes viscerally,directly. I beJie\'e that they are entitled, e\'ery bit as much as a FrankStella or a Kenneth Noland painting of that period, to lay claim to anunfettered optical reading as well, in other words. to participate fully inthe esthetics of modernism.One of the things that makes ordinruy quilts so likable is the waythat they (:yJlicaJly frame a wealth of detail in smallish, repealingpatterns. You can look at a part of U1CIll and easily deduce the whole.There may be some framing devices. but essentially the pattern couldrepeat endlessly. The Gee's Bend Quilts don't do thaL They are bounded,unique and rareJy symmetrical. Even when symmetry is there, it is givena sawy, destabHi7.ing push. In Gloria lIoppins's "Housetop" pattern quill(ca. 1975), for example, she inserts one thin \llrtical red stripe on thelelt-hand side or the orange center portion or a set or off-kilter nestledAllnffJ MOfJ Young: emln' "'Mollion IIlrl/Ullrlfh mullJp~ bordUff, rn. /965,rollOIl, r.orrturoll, IIl1fJeling, pol~.,u, II!OOI, 91 bll 81 fn .LorttlD PtttlU/r. "Log lAbitf~SU~/JrldIoJln',· "",WIock mriadoll, rn.. 1970, de"u.., Sf bIl66Int~.squares. I That stripe Sl1.111S the quilt into place, as does the dark \-ertlcaldenim band balan~ by three smaller, similarly colored edge piCCi!S inLorraine Pettway's light gray medallion pallerned quilt or 1974.Identified by three alternate pattern names, Lorella Pettway's "LogCabin-Courthouse tcps-8ri kl~'e " (ca. 1970) juxtaposes a steppedseries or vertical dark blue pieces edged in white .... ith similarly sizedlight blue pieces on the horizontal. The pieces get smaller as theyapproach the center, creating the look or one-point perspective. The~ however, warp, and their thickness is ne'l'e.r unifonn. So instead ofbeing locked-in and static, the composition opens up and mO\'e:S. It displ~ the wit and whimsical \'3.riation or a Paul Klee architectural rantasy, with logic used, paradoxically, to subvert order. It is almost as if symmetry in the Gee's Bend quHts is a condition established precisely so thatit may be creatively violated.If symmetry is import.nnl in traditional quilts, a more or less evenlyweighted display or detail seems equally asential. Detail in {he Goo's Bendquilts functions differently. Rather than being the substance or the quilt, it~ more often than noL, an accent, a fillip or a fonnal destabilizer. Slmllie\ocrtical and horiwnlal forms tend to predominate, and since quilting Is anaddith'e process, a reasonably srrd.ightfrnward design can be gi\'en piquan·cy and personality by sewing in something small and unexpected. InArlorula Pettway's ~ Gal (Bars)t" ca 1975, a motif or bold green andwhile \'ertical stripes is bomered at the top and bottom by just a hint of adelicate floral pnUern. The change in ronnal and emotional scale is finelycalibrnted and tremendously satisfying. Irene Williams's "Bars" (ca lOGS)Art in America ISite Jfil/le&lIzer: "/lousefop" nine-block, "fla{fLog Cabln ~ I.Mation,co. /955, roUt"., ' IIII/helle blend. , 8() bll 76 inrhe •.features a composition of four thick vertical hars in solid cream and black,topped with a similarly sized horizontal in deep blue-green This archil.ectonic structure is of'fsct by a flower-IJ.1ttemed border on both sides and thebottom. It ~ however, the narrow top border that gP.'eS the quilt its kick.The right-hand half of the border is the same blue·greenas the horizontal bar directly below it, while the left-handhalf is divided into three sections-gray and cream, asmall light-blue grid and a slice of vibrant red completely outof chromatic character witillhe rest of lhe quilt. That foot orso of crimson makes the quilL It's a formal mO\'(l that incorpcrrates a sure sense of scale with a usc of olJ-complementariesworthy of Josef Albers.Simple, forceful design, unencumbered by uss ~ is ahallmark of the Gee's Bend qu ilts. The quilts speakof a work ethic, not a "make-..... rk~ one. Quilting was often asocial activity, particularly during lhe labor-intensive stageof sewing (he designed front onto the backing and fuLLS sandwiching in the cotton filler. But it was not a hobby, a way ofwhiling away Lhe hours. The women quiltel'S were vital partsof a barely self-sustaining agricultural society, and theirlabor was needed in the fields during the day. The field work\\ J.S tiring, and there were household duties on lOp of thatchores not assisted by the time- and labor-saving devices socommon in the rest of American society. One reason for lhequills' relative simplicity is purely Ilractical: the quitters108 Oclober 200SAnnie Mae }'oung: Strip', 00_ 19'15,rordufOlI, 95 bll l 05 (nc,,""Ordinary quilts tend to frame details inregularly repeating patterns. Gee's Bendquilts don't do that. They are bounded,unique and rarely symmetrical.\\-'allted to fmish them reasona.bly quickly so that they could be used fortheir intended purpose-to keep warm_ Gee's Bend \\"3.5 a vel)' poor community that could ill alford luxuries like swre-bought blankets and bedcoverings. Even if, like Loretta Pettway, one or the most talented of theGee's Bend quilters, you didn't like to sew, there wasn't much choice inlhe matter. As she said, WI had a lot of work to do. Feed ~ work in thefi eld, take care of my handicaPIKld brother. Had to go 1.0 the fi eld. Had towalk about fifty miles in the field evel)' day. Get home too tired to do nosewing. My grandmama, Prissy Pen-way, told me, 'You better make quillS.You goil18 to need them.' I said, 'I ain't going to need no quilts.' but whenI got me a house, a raggiy old house, then I needed them to keepwarm_"·The Gee's Bend quilts embody a moral as well as a formal eronolllY. IncontrdSl to lhe larger culture of obsolescence, waste and disposability, inGee's Bend nothing usable was thrown away (although not evel)'thingwas won1i some polyester leisure suits sent dO\\71 from the north were soout of style that they could only be recycled into bedding). Scraps ofcloth were saved up ror quilting-any sort. of cotton, corduroy, knit orsynthetic fabric was fine. Clothing was wom until it was worn out, andthen ripped up into quilt material rather than being discarded.Used clothing is scarcely a neutral art material. Not only does itembrace a range of social signs, but it can also carry the physical imprintof the wearer, the trace of his or her hody. We CtUl see the pressure ofelbows and knees, feel the stretch of fabric under the neatly appliedpatches_ Denim clothing shows this Lo particular advantage, and some oflhe most emotionally affecting quilts were made from sun- and washfaded work clothes. Missouri Pettway's daughter, Arlonzia, spoke of herlate mother's quilt, a blue, white, reddish-brown and gray block-and-stripdesign made in 1942. Wit was when Daddy died. I was about se\'Cnteen,eighteen. He stayed sick about eight momhs and passed on. Mama say, 'Igoing to take his work clothes, shallC them into a quilt to remember him,and OO\'er up under it for love.""In these .... ,ork-clothes quilts the quietness of the colors--blues, g:rays,creams, browns-allows fo:r an extremely subtle interplay or hue andvalue, and also ro:r the counterpoint of darker passages: se .... 'Hln patches,the unfaded area unde:r removed pants pockets, o:r seams that had, priorto ripping, been unexposed. The c\omes, by virtue of their hard use, weresometimes stained with earth, rust and sweat That discoloration, ratherthan diminishing Ole power of the quilts, gh'es them a p~'SicaJ and emt>-tional 1)''1lina. This can be clearly seen In R.'1chel Carey George's quiltfrom around \035, made of denim, wool trousers, mattress ticking andcolton. III It, a large horizontal rectangle of stained blue-and-white tickI~M HiflUuru: Btll"· rnri6tJQf'J nJ. 1965, rrool bit, Until, pof~t6IIDullk kIIlt, t:OIloII drGptrf ",uttriDl, St Of i9 illo" ....ing is contrasted with wide strips of oval-patched pants legs and anotherlarge :rectangle of white-stitched gray wool. The staining of the mattressticking is echoed by similar brown areas in other parts of the quilt, particularly In the pants le~ The sense of lime's passage, of difficultiesendured and O\-ercome, is palpable.Something similar can be felt in Lorella Pettwats ~Lazy Gal (Bars),"ca. 1005. One of the seemingly simplest ..... urks on \1ew, it consists solelycoldim/Cd on page 148Art jll America t(Gee's Bendcontinued/rom page 109of vertical bars. There is a bortler on the left and right of dark navy(edged with a hint of pattem), a field of quiet blue-violet, and left of cen·ter, two equal·si1.ed white bands. Measuring a bit under 7 by 6 feet, thisquilt cannot help recalling, for today's viewer, Bamet!, Newman's paint,ings. As wilh Newman, it carries with it the air of the spiritual. Indeed,the current of faith runs deep in Gee's Bend, ~md while the quilts are notpart of a specific spiritual practice in their making or their iconography,it is not unreruiOnable to assume that, the clJe<:ts of such a religiouslyinnected life are to be seen in the community's art.Probably the most viscerally powerful .... ork-clOlhes quilt in the showis Lutisha Petv.va.v's "BarsM (ca. 1050). Composed entirely of fadedand patched denim pants legs, laid out in vertical bands, the heavy quiltsat$, bends and buckles. Edging it on the right are a pair of pants legs,wide at the waist and narrow at the ankles. They are sewn together atthe small ends, and their symmetrical mirroring gi\"CS the right edge asharp bow inwards, in clear contrast to the retatively straight bottom,top, and left sides. While other quilts use CUleUp clothing in small enoughpieces so thnt we are Oftell forced 1.0 infer its originlll use, this quilL usespants legs in virtually their entirety, and as such, the sense of the bodyundemealh the clothing remains parlicularly strong. Color, too, makes amf\jor contribution- Its monochrome quality adding purposefulness,consistent'Y and intensity.Denim, while hem)' ruld hard to work with, brings with it a coloristicbonus. lis fading creates a wide variety tlf blues, from dt'C]l indigo to theI)''llest pinked IiZtlre, a color mngc IUltumlly suggestive of sky and atmosphere, That property is used to mar'l'elous effcct in a 1076 work by AnnieMac Young, an artist whose originality and conwositionaJ bmvum standout in thi~ remarkably talented group. The quill floats a centml verticallystriped portion against a field of variously faded denim bars. TIle sl.rijM!-the striJles are of different widths and are drawn (there is noother word for it) with a loose, expressive line. The center stril>ed secLionhas an emblematic, flaglike qulllity th31 seems both w embed the stripesin the atmosJlheric blue field and suspend them above it.One gcL~ the sense of a fL'Ig or a heraldic banner in YOlUlg'S 1975 cor·duroy quilL as .... 'ell. This large hori7.ontalty dispia,}' ld piece, a bit under 8 byo feet, is one of the high points of the exhibition. A series orthin horizontalstripes-allcrnating red and brown on the wp half, reds, browns, greens,blues and oranges on the bottom half- marks otrtlle right·h:Uld quarter ofthe quill On the left edge is a tlIin column of vcrtical multicolored stripesdivided roughly into thirds horizontally. The remainder, approximatelytv."{)-thirds of the area of the entire quill, is an astonishingly rich ccrule:UI.Composed of horizontal strips of closely \'alued fabric, this section allowsfor a complex visual interplay between its subtlety and Ule boldness of thestripes flanking it, and also for an interchnnge between the horizontalilylUld vcrticality of the two striped secLions. Words can hardly do justice totile sophisticated and satisfying play ofvisu.'lI elements--the way the sameblue as the center sneaks into the stripes 011 the sides, or how the heft orthe horizontally striped area perfectly balances the narrower 'e rt ~ orwhy lhe Illtematin.g of red lUld brown stripes on the upper portion of therighl hand section putsjust the right. anlountofweighl alld pressure on theslightly thinner multicolored stripes below them.The LL'IC of corduroy by Young and a number of other Gee's Benders is astudy in fortuity. In 1972, Sears, Roebuck and Company contracted withthe local (Iuilting cooperati\·c to produce low·priced corduroy pillowshams. They sent down bolts of the material, lUld while the shams \\'etemechanical Jliecework, the corduroy wa..'! soon incoll)Qntted inlo the148 October2fJ03Sally /H"M.t/ Jonf!t: em/n- mmafUolI rlfVIgl~. u/th nlllltipk bomf!nI,1966, RltlOll, 86 by 77 1nthl!l/.area's quiltmaking style. Corduroy has real limitations-it works best.when cut al. right lUlgles; it tends to pull, distort and fmy when cut on thediagonal. These constraints are offset by the cloth's rich color, sensuallight-reflecting qualities and softness. In practical temls, the materia)was virtually free, and it was very Wllnll. The fabric posed challenges, butart often lhrives when Ule \'atiables are reduced.In any case, boldness of design and reclilinearity are chamcteris·tics of the Gee's Bend quilts; and for some qu ilters, corduroy calledforth their best efforts. China Pettway's block quilt, (ca. 1!)75), forexample, is Bauhausian in ils a..~ymm ri l Simplicity and elegance.There are only six color areas, each in a rich but muted earth tone.Small and large, \'ertical and horizontal, dark and light are blended ina composition, classical in its form and balance. Arcola Pettway'sLazy Gal (Bars)" variation from 1976, the year of the Bicentennial,has the rough composition of an American nag, with 13 more or lessequal horizontal stripes and a small square area in the UPllcr leftwhere the stars go----excepl in this case the Qstars" are three addi·tional vertical stripes, and the colors, inslead of red, white and blue,are apple green, tan, corn yellow, rusty brown, slate blue, crimsonand orange· red. Color and form work togelher to artfully undermineexpectat.ions, and the quilt is bolh delightful and moving.The Gee's Bend quilts are so evocatk-e, so emotionally and esthelical·Iy fulfilling, as .... 'ell as so individulll, ,h:lt it feels unfair not 10 men·tion more artists and describe more quilts. Fortunately, many more pe0-ple around the country will now get the chance to see them. Theexhibition was to have sWPI>ed with the Whitney, but it has generatedsuch a grounds ..... ell of inlerest thlll eight other museums hm'e signed onto take the show, and it wiU travel for three year.!. This seems like theperfect, moment fo r this exhibition, even though Gee's Bend has beenknown to the wider art world (or decades. Int.erest In the quilts over theyears has been sporadic--there was a spike in New York in the late '60s,and in 1967 an appreciative Lee Krasner visited Gee's Bend with herdealer and bought a number of them. This was the time,lOO, when artistswere entranced by Navajo blankets. These enthusiasms faded, quite p0ssibly because quilts and blankets, although resembling the art beingmade then, shared few of its stated premises.Now, however, the Gee's Bend quilts have a deeper a mnectlon to CUfrent concerns. They speak to the widening base of art production, as wellas to an int.erest in ethnicity and identity. This interest seems to thri\'e inthe exploration of the territory which lies between cultural sign and indioviduality, that is, between the more easily chartable products of a bounded group Identity and the open-ended activities of the indMduaJ. Thequilts are \'ery much of a time, place, gender and ethnic grouPi but theyare also intensely personal and lm'entn'e. Patterns are often not used atall, or when they are, they are freely adapted to the artist's own interestsand history.There is also an interest, these days, in the use of nontraditional materials in abstraction. This often leads LO an Investigation of the Inherentthree-dimensionality of "Oath work. A Gee's Bend quilt is not, as is astretched rectangular canvas, a historically given depictn'e arena thatalso happens to be made of cloth and whose materiaJily might be tacitlyacknowledged by, for example, staining the canvas. A quilt is both animage and a constructed, pliable physical object The shape of thequilt-the irregularity of its edge and the waviness of its surface-is a natural product of its makin& and its use creates aninherent ambiguity of orientation. Its two-dimensionality is alsoconditional since it canjust as easily be nat or draped.Another artistic concern today is layering. Multiplicity of purposeand rorm is a given in these quilts. Not only are they, at heart,assemblages (with all the complexity of facture and reference thatimplies), but the rhythmic, patterned stilChing or the g:ridded yamties that hold the front to the back are aspects of the quill that function semi-independently. Frequently done by more than one person,the stitching sets up a quiet but complex counterpoint to the largerdesign. Finally, the growing interest in craftlike methodologiesamong artist.s also speaks to the lessened aulhority of the brush. Nolonger valorized as an extension of the artist's persona, a guarantorof painterly, gest.ural (and often male) authenticity, it has becomeanother tool, an option in a wide menu of artmaking procedures.Piecing and stilChing has pf'(l\'en to be as sensitive, energetic anddirect a means of expression as the most adept brushwork.Painting in general, and abstract painting in partic:uJar, seems tohave kl;t its centrality. That does not mean that the two-dimensionaI abstract object has surrendered ilS power or allure. Imbued withart-historical reference, inherently metaphorical and capable ofgreat ~ it sti1l exerts a strong pull on our imaginations. U greatart can be found in this arena today, the question becomes, whyshouldn't it be in the fonn of a quilt and, more specifically, why notthese quilts? I round myself unexpectedly mO't-OO and excited by thisexhibition, and that feeling has been shared by many others. "TheQuilts of Gee's Bend" has turned out., rather surprisingly, to be oneof the most talked·about shows in recent years.. I expect and hopethat its influence will be deep and long-lasting. 0l. In terms of Influences, It has boon noted lhal th;!re are certaln simiiaritiesbetween the Gee'~ Bend quilts and West alld Centnll Mrkan textiles, bul given thelack or IIIsWrica1 ~idenoo, this COfU'II.'dJon tan only be speculath~.2. A double CD 01", music rtcOnIed h1 Gee's Hend h1 I!HI arwI2002,HottJ HiGoI tMr: 17M 50crfd &nI!P ~ Gftiol lkrtd, is available in oonJuncUon with theallow. A number of the quilten In the exhibition &ing on these CDs.3. It should be IIOI.6d that IndlcaUoos oh 'ertlcal or horbontal refer W the orienl.l·lion or the quillS as dl5played. Since they were ln~nOed IS bed ~rlnp, nol ~'lI1Iwlglnp, d!stlnctIons between left. and ri&hl arwI up and btl are aomewIW. ubi·""Y.If great abstract art can be found today,the question becomes, why shouldn'tit be in the form of a quilt and, morespecifically, why not these quilts?4. f'rom the 6IUbltlon cataIop, 7lt Quills~~i ikrtd, Allan" and Houston, 1lIMlOdBoob: in .saoclation th the MU5eUm of nne Alta. Houson, 2002, p. 72.0. ibid., p. 67.~ Quilts O/(M', &N/- 1tW Of1NJ"ind/or 1M M~", 0/ fi ArU, HOII.IlotI., b¥MUM'" AmtU, .loll" &onWey, JaN Ur:i!lf$l(Jlt alfd AltoWl UoilnUolI\ IL'iIA a.sN4I!fQIllI1M 1Hu1"'l1 MIIMIIIN ~ AII\triQJII Art frcnn DtOro SirIfP. E:rItibitioM dDJ# M!Ut!Um r.IFiN..tru, JIoustJJrt fStpl. 8Noo 10, t«JtJ; I"I!~ MIIl/eWIN rI A~ 1411, NaD tOrtINoon, m-MQT. ~ IIJ03J; Mobik ,41_", "Art /.Inf I+-Alig. 31/; M~ A,.,MUMII'IIt fSept.17../Q1t. of, ItXJtJ; ComwaJt GoJkrJJ r.I 1411, Itlullillg(oll. D.C /ftO. J+-Mo,17, I1mJ; CIMItmd ~nI rt A'" /.hIM It&pt. I., I1mJ,. OtfJlSkr MIlMtlIIt rt Arl,Notjoa IOct IS, MQt.JaIL ~ !OO5J; Mmp/li6 BrooItJ MUIftI'IIt ~ A,., /ffA. 3-M~ a.NXJ5/,. MIIIftI'" rt f'iM ArtI, Bo4Un DepthTHE QUILTERS OF GEE'S BENDArthur Rothstein, photographer. Sewing aquilt. Gees Bend, Alabama 1939, Library ofCongressThere have been hundreds of quilts created in Gee’sBend, Alabama since the early 20th century, andthese masterpieces have become some of the mosticonic textiles of the American South. To create them,the quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend draw upon creativevision, patterns from the world around them, andAfrican American quilting traditions, which have beenpassed down by generations of Gee’s Bend women.These traditions emerged from the necessity ofkeeping families warm in unheated quarters andhomes, so the quilts were seen as functional objectsrather than works of art. However, functional thoughthey are, they are also imbued with meaning and fullof bold compositions and skillful improvisations.These quilting traditions also showcaseresourcefulness in materials with the use of recycledfabric remnants, feed sacks, and well-worn clothes.The visible stains, discoloration, and fading of thesereclaimed materials all serve as reminders of the lifethe fabrics lived before they became quilts.Art historians, curators, and collectors now recognizethe work of Gee’s Bend quilters as essential to thehistory of American art. The permanent collection ofthe Virginia Museum of Fine Arts houses the work ofthirteen Gee’s Bend quilters: Jennie Pettway, NettieYoung, Louella Pettway, Lucy T. Pettway, RuthKennedy, Creola Bennett Pettway, Linda Pettway, NellHall Williams, Mary Lee Bendolph, Rita Mae Pettway,Loretta Pettway, Linda Diane Bennett, and LouisianaBendolph.GEE'S BEND, ALABAMAGee’s Bend, later named Boykin, is located aboutforty-four miles southwest of Selma. Bounded onthree sides by the Alabama River, it is both isolatedand rural with a population of roughly 700 people.This geographical isolation has provided the areawith a rare degree of cultural continuity. This isvisually evident in the community’s extraordinaryquilts which are renowned for their artistry andquality.In the early 1800s, Gee’s Bend was the site of a cottonplantation owned by Joseph Gee from whom the areagot its name. In 1845, Gee’s plantation was acquiredby Mark Pettway who expanded the enslaved laborforce in Gee’s Bend to over 100 people.With the conclusion of the American Civil War(1861-1865) and the end of slavery, many of theemancipated people remained in the Gee’s Bendarea and became tenant farmers. Today, theresidents of Gee’s Bend are primarily descendants ofenslaved workers and many still bear the Pettwayname.A TIMELINE OF GEE’S BENDIMPROVISATIONGee’s Bend quilting artists are renowned for their use of improvisation, a way of working in which thecreator is open to artistic ideas as they come rather than depending fully on a set pattern or plan. Gee’sBend quilters play upon color and form to create a sense of movement and visual rhythm in their quilts.VMFA curator Valerie Cassel Oliver has noted “Like jazz, blues, and gospel music, and the spirituals fromwhich they were born, the dizzying use of improvisation in the quilts spoke to the deep aesthetic visualtradition of the African American South.”HOUSETOP AND LOG CABIN VARIATIONSVisually, a “Housetop” quilt resembles what a roof looks like from an aerial perspective and is a type of quiltoften seen in the Gee’s Bend tradition. It is a concept that the women of Gee’s Bend mastered and havemade their own by experimenting with compositional structure. A “Housetop” quilt is constructed typicallyby joining rectangular strips of cloth to form frames. Each frame is bordered by a larger frame until thequilt reaches the desired size.Quilts are often made of a series of individually patterned sections called blocks. “Log Cabin” is a quiltingblock pattern in which strips of fabric are sewn around a central square. Each strip is arrangedperpendicular to the ones immediately adjacent to its shortest ends. In this way, the strips appear to rotatearound the center. Often the colors of the strips are arranged to create a contrast of light and dark along adiagonal. The blocks can appear as many together on a quilt, or the entire quilt may be designed as a singlelarge “Log Cabin” block. Sometimes, Gee’s Bend quilters incorporate traditional “Log Cabin” patterns intotheir “Housetop” compositions.In the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ collection, there are eight variations of the “Housetop” and “Log Cabin”patterns made by Jennie Pettway, Linda Diane Bennett, Rita Mae Pettway, Louisiana Bendolph, Mary LeeBendolph, Creola Bennett Pettway, Linda Pettway, and Loretta Pettway. These quilts present individualinterpretations of these traditional compositions and embody the improvisational dynamic of Gee’s Bendquilts. Click through the slides below to examine the individual hand of each maker, and consider theartistic decisions she made as she worked. evertheless, the stitchers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama,were rediscovered by a canny collector, praisedto the skies by Jane Fonda, embraced by museumcurators, and described in the New York Times as“the equals of Klee and Matisse.”“Their creative urge to dream up designs while working in the fields and then gohome and make something beautiful to take their minds off their hardship wasamazing,” says writer Susan Goldman Rubin, who felt “haunted” by the quiltsafter seeing them at the Whitney Museum of American Art in a show that drewshining accolades from across the nation. “Their unusual and innovative colorsand patterns were thrilling, full of freedom,” says the writer, whose book TheQuilts of Gee’s Bend vividly tells the story of these women and their art.Now the work that has put the remote hamlet also known as Boykin on the mapand secured a place in America’s most prestigious museums has reached London,where their first show in Europe was a near sell-out. Most of the thirteen quiltson display were acquired by European institutions keen to emulate MoMA, theMet, and other prestigious museums throughout the US that already have Gee’sBend hangings in their collections.They pieced together their quilts from scraps to keep theirfamilies warm and sold a few to put food on the table whencotton prices tumbled and left them destitute. Although theyheld “airing out” days when they hung up and admired eachother’s work, they never thought of themselves as artists.T H E G E E ’ S B E N DQUILT MAKERS “By ANTHEA GERRIEPhotography courtesy ofSOULS GROWN DEEPFOUNDATION AND ALISONJACQUES GALLERY, LONDONMary Lee BendolphPhoto © StephenPitkin/Pitkin Studiohis is a literal rags-to-richesstory—the quilts were madeby dirt-poor women, nearly allnamed Pettway for the ownerof the plantation home of their slave ancestors; yettheir works now command five-figure sums. Thetrickle-down effect has stopped short of makingthem rich, but fame has transformed the lives ofmany with basic necessities like indoor bathroomsand appliances. “Things have changed. I have gas;I have water; I have lights, a washing machine, arefrigerator, and a deep freezer,” says seventy-eightyear-old Loretta Pettway, one of the most legendaryquilters, even though she admits, “I didn’t like tosew.” Only the need to keep her children warmchanged the mind of the mother of seven whotrudged so many miles a day in the cotton fields. Asa child laborer, she came home too tired to join thefamily quilting effort.The women of Gee’s Bend first attracted attentionin the 1960s, when a Civil Rights–funded outfit,the Freedom Quilting Bee, was set up to supplySears and Bloomingdale’s with Southern folk art.But the stitchers of Gee’s Bend, whose creativityattracted early collectors like Lee Krasner, the artistwife of Jackson Pollock, were ill suited to the taskof neatly copying quilts designed by others frompattern books. Annie Mae Young, whose work firstattracted the attention of the collector who putGee’s Bend on the twenty-first-century world artmap, was rejected for the unevenness of her stitches,and the women gradually returned to expressingtheir original visions.One man who had heard of the Gee’s Bend womenwas Martin Luther King, Jr., who stopped thereon his way to Selma in 1965 and told them, “Icame over here to tell you, you are somebody.” Butas ninety-year-old Nettie Young reflected fortyyears later, “Martin Luther King got us out of thecotton patch; the Arnetts got us out from under thebedsprings and onto the museum walls.”She was referring to Bill Arnett, who brought thequilters to national prominence with the help of hisson Matt, Jane Fonda’s one-time son-in-law. ArnettSr. was an aficionado of African American art whowent to Alabama in search of Annie Mae, inspiredby a quilt he had seen in an art book. Surprised—shewas unaware her work had been publicized—she dugit out, sold it to him, and sent him on to other Gee’sBend stitchers. Arnett would meet 150 quilters bythe time he brought their work to the attention ofthe Houston curator who predicted they would finda permanent place in American art history.Sure enough, the 2002 show mounted by theMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston, went on to bea sensation in twelve American cities, includingMilwaukee, where the artists were greeted at themuseum by Jane Fonda. The actress pronouncedtheir work “full of love and patriotism and hope”in her speech introducing the stitchers to the city’sculture crowd.Unlike traditional slave quilts, which often told astory or contained secret maps to indicate escaperoutes to freedom, the Gee’s Bend work reflects themodern lives of their makers. “Housetop” squaresare inspired by the rafters they look up to from theirbeds. Other squares come from “work clothes,” agenre poignantly espoused by Missouri Pettway,who ripped shreds from her late husband’s clothes tomake a quilt “to remember him and cover up underit for love.” Some of the women would sit under atree and wait for inspiration; others said designs,which include dazzling displays of starbursts anddiamonds, came to them in dreams.The London show runs through February 6, 2021,at the Alison Jacques Gallery. It spans ninety yearsof craft, with highlights including a two-sided quiltmade by fourth-generation quilter Essie BendolphPettway when she was twelve; Loretta Pettway’sLog Cabin, whose brightly colored strips recall theOcean Park abstracts of Richard Diebenkorn; andthe dazzling Pig in the Pen, an array of colorfulsquares stitched by Rita Mae Pettway in 2019. Thisdazzlingly modern work belies the fact the artist wasseventy-eight when she made it. It is shown alongside the quilt made by her grandmother, Annie E.Pettway, in 1930, the oldest work in the show.At sixty years old, Loretta Pettway Bennett is theyoungest of the exhibited artists. She confesses that herfirst quilt, started when she was thirteen or fourteen,was “lopsided and my mom finished it.” Removedfrom the community when she moved to Germanywith her soldier husband, she was reintroduced to thepleasures of stitching alongside her mother, aunt, andgrandmother when she moved back to Gee’s Bendwhile her husband was in officer candidate school. Shehad no aspirations to fame when she applied for a grantfrom the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2001WITH BABY STEPS,SHE STARTEDCOLLECTING SCRAPSOF HER FAMILY’SWORN-OUT CLOTHESTO MAKE STRIKINGABSTRACTS LIKE HERDENIM WORK CLOTHESQUILT, REPLETE WITHPATCH POCKETS, NOWHANGING IN LONDON.“Loretta PettwayPhoto © Matt Arnettto study the art of quilting from her mother; she merelyhad a desire to keep the tradition going when she sawit becoming a dying art. But the Houston art show oneyear later made her wonder, “Can I make a quilt thatsomeday might hang on the wall of a museum?” Withbaby steps, she started collecting scraps of her family’sworn-out clothes to make striking abstracts, like herdenim work clothes quilt, replete with patch pockets,now hanging in London.Despite the fact that prices of up to $65,000 per quilt have been achieved in the newshow, the Gee’s Bend community as a whole remains impoverished, according toMary Margaret Pettway of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. The organization wasfounded by Bill Arnett to research, preserve, and exhibit African American art. MaryMargaret, who once slept under quilts made by her mother, Lucy—which now hangin the Met and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—reflects sadly, “The traditions thathave earned my community such acclaim have not resulted in economic advance-ment for the majority of quilters and their families. The average annual income here isunder $10,000, and well over half the residents live in poverty.”The foundation has mounted a fund-raising driveto train Gee’s Bend quilters how to market, brand,and sell their products and provide internet accessfor online trading. Some have already acquired theconfidence to deal with galleries. “For our show, weworked directly with some of the artists as well asthe foundation to source the quilts we exhibited,”says Hannah Robinson of the Alison JacquesGallery in London.Only in later life have the youngest artists, like Rita Mae’sdaughter Louisiana Pettway Bendolph—who expanded intofine art prints exhibited alongside Andy Warhol’s at MOCAJacksonville—come to recognize work born in hard times asa means of joyful creative expression. Hating stitching at agetwelve, the fourth-generation quilter was called back to the art inmiddle age by the critical acclaim that made her realize she hadinherited a very special talent. Now sixty, she says, “To me, I’mstill just plain and simple Lou. I need to get used to ‘LouisianaBendolph, the artist.’ But I’m proud of that. I really am.”Visit AlisonJacquesGallery.com to learn more about the exhibition. TheQuilts of Gee’s Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin is published by Abrams.Readers can also support Souls Grown Deep’s fund-raising driveat DonorBox.org/support-gee-s-bend-quilters.Anthea Gerrie is based in the UK but travels the world in search of stories.Her special interests are architecture and design, culture, food, and drink,as well as the best places to visit in the world’s great playgrounds. She is aregular contributor to the Daily Mail, the Independent, and Blueprint

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