Gee's Bend modern: the isolated Alabama community of Gee's Bend has long nurtured a quilting tradition that resonates deeply with aspects of modernist abstraction. Now the quilts are the subject of an exhibition that is touring U.S. museums - Critical Essay

Simple, forceful design, unencumbered by fussiness, is a hallmark of the Gee's Bend quilts. The quilts speak of a work ethic, not a "make-work" one. Quilting was often a social activity, particularly during the labor-intensive stage of sewing the designed front onto the backing and thus sandwiching in the cotton filler. But it was not a hobby, a way of whiling away the hours. The women quilters were vital parts of a barely self-sustaining agricultural society, and their labor was needed in the fields during the day. The field work was tiring, and them were household duties on top of that--chores not assisted by the time- and labor-saving devices so common in the rest of American society. One reason for the quilts' relative simplicity is purely practical: the quilters wanted to finish them reasonably quickly so that they could be used fur their intended purpose--to keep warm. Gee's Bend was a very poor community that could ill afford luxuries like store-bought blankets and bed coverings. Even if, like Loretta Pettway, one of the most talented of the Gee's Bend quilters you didn't like to sew, there wasn't much choice in the matter. As she said, "I had a lot of work to do. Feed hogs, work in the field, take care of my handicapped brother. Had to go to the field. Had to walk about fifty miles in the field every day. Get home too tired to do no sewing. My grandmama, Prissy Pettway, told me, 'You better make quilts. You going to need them.' I said, 'I ain't going to need no quilts,' but when I got me a house, a raggly old house, then I needed them to keep warm." (4)

The Gee's Bend quilts embody a moral as well as a formal economy. In contrast to the larger culture of obsolescence, waste and disposability, in Gee's Bend nothing usable was thrown away (although not everything was worn; some polyester leisure suits sent down from the north were so out of style that they could only be recycled into bedding). Scraps of cloth were saved up for quilting--any sort of cotton, corduroy, knit or synthetic fabric was free. Clothing was worn until it was worn out, and then ripped up into quilt material rather than being discarded.

Used clothing is scarcely a neutral art material. Not only does it embrace a range of social signs, but it can also carry the physical imprint of the weare5 the trace of his or her body. We can see the pressure of elbows and knees, feel the stretch of fabric under the neatly applied patches. Denim clothing shows this to particular advantage, and some of the most emotionally affecting quilts were made from sun- and wash-faded work clothes. Missouri Pettway's daughter, Arlonzia, spoke of her late mother's quilt, a blue, white, reddish-brown and gray block-and-strip design made in 1942. "It was when Daddy died. I was about seventeen, eighteen. He stayed sick about eight months and passed on. Mama say, 'I going to take his work clothes, shape them into a quilt to remember him, and covet' up under it for love.'" (5)

In these work-clothes quilts the quietness of the colors--blues, grays, creams, browns--allows for an extremely subtle interplay of hue and value, and also for the counterpoint of darker passages: sewn-on patches, the unfaded area under removed pants pockets, or seams that had, prior to ripping, been unexposed. The clothes, by virtue of their hard use, were sometimes stained with earth, rust and sweat. That discoloration, rather than diminishing the power of the quilts, gives them a physical and emotional patina. This can be clearly seen in Rachel Carey George's quilt from around 1935, made of denim, wool trousers, mattress ticking and cotton. In it, a large horizontal rectangle of stained blue-and white ticking is contrasted with wide strips of oval-patched pants legs and another large rectangle of white stitched gray wool. The staining of the mattress ticking is echoed by similar brown areas in other parts of the quilt, particularly in the pants legs. The sense of time's passage, of difficulties endured and overcome, is palpable.