quiltersmuse.com Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Four Quilt Kits and 19 Solid Fabrics Available at Retailers Worldwide in November 2009

GEE’S BEND, AL – (September 23, 2009) – Just in time for the holiday season Gee’s Bend and Baum Textiles/Windham Fabrics announce a partnership to present four quilt kits and 19 Gee’s Bend solids. The kits and solids will be shipping to quilt stores worldwide in November 2009. The quilt kits include instructions, fabric for the quilt tops and binding; batting, backing; thread, needles, and thimble are additional. The suggested retail price for the quilt kits is $60 to $70 and the suggested retail price for Gee’s Bend Solids is $9/yard. For a full list of colors, kits and retailers please visit Baum Textile or Windham Fabrics.

Based on designs by acclaimed Gee’s Bend Quilters, Mary Lee Bendolph, Mary L. Bennett, Qunnie Pettway and Rita Mae Pettway, Windham Fabrics encourages “every quilter to be inspired by the vision and courage of these modern quilting pioneers.” The four quilters will share a percentage of the royalties with The Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective and The Gee’s Bend Foundation.

According to Windham, “We have recreated the genius that this group of quilters in rural Alabama has made famous. Every bit of the distinctive style that has made these remarkable quilts come alive is now available in a kit from Windham Fabrics.”

The Strips and Strings quilt kit is based on Mary Lee Bendolph’s design of that name. The manufacturer’s style is #30552 and the final quilt measures 75” x 50”. Mrs. Bendolph (b. 1935), the 7th of 17 children, descends from generations of accomplished quilt makers. She learned to quilt from her mother, Aolar Mosely and a network of aunts and female in-laws. She worked in the Alabama fields and attended school intermittently until she was 14, when she began her own family. Bendolph was one of many Gee’s Benders who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. in his march at Camden, AL in 1965. Her quilt making style marries a flair for improvisation to traditional construction techniques that emphasize rectangles and squares. Her minimalist patches, small compositions of cloth, build to create intricate overall compositions that contain humorous touches and autobiographical references.

Housetop 4-Block Variation is 57” x 65” and styled after the work by the same name by Mary L. Bennett – manufacturers style #30550. Mrs. Bennett (b. 1942), granddaughter of Delia Bennett (1892-1976) ancestor of many quilt makers in Gee’s Bend. Mary L. Bennett pieces primarily “Housetop” and “Bricklayer” compositions and imaginative variations on them.

“I was born down here in Brown Quarters and got raised by my grandmother. I started out working in the fields for my uncle Stalling Bennett. I didn’t get no schooling – every now and then a day here and there. Didn’t nobody teach me to make quilts. I just learned it by myself, about 12 or 13. I was seeing my grandmama piecing it up, and then I start. I just taken me some pieces and put it together, piece them up till they look like I want them to look. That’s all,” states Mary L. Bennett.

Lazy Gal Variation, based on the design of the same name by Qunnie Pettway measures 52 “x 62” – manufacturers style #30549. Mrs. Pettway (b. 1943) is the great-granddaughter of Dinah Miller who is said to have arrived in the United States aboard a slave ship from Africa, the “Clotilde” that docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama prior to the Civil War. Qunnie learned to quilt House Tops under the tutelage of her mother, Candis Pettway. After she married in 1960, she found her unique artistic voice and began making patterned quilts including Wedding Ring, (which she learned from her sister), Chestnut Bud, Bear Paw and Crazy Z. Qunnie’s daughter, Loretta P. Bennett is one of the youngest quilters actively creating extraordinary quilts today.

Housetop, measuring 52” x 64” is based on the same titled design by Rita Mae Pettway – manufacturer’s style #30551. Mrs. Pettway (b. 1941) made her first quilt at the age of 14. She was raised by her grandmother, quiltmaker Annie E. Pettway, and still lives in the house that her grandfather built for the family in the 1940s.

Rita Mae says, “Onliest thing we did after everything else was done, we sit by the fireplace in the wintertime and piece up quilts. Me and my grandmama Annie. She didn’t have no pattern to go by; she just cut them by the way she know how to make them.”

Piecing quilts, according to Rita Mae, was done individually but quilting “we all did together.” Rita Mae, along with her ancestors and her daughter, renowned quilter Louisiana Bendolph share a penchant for creating strip quilts in concentric squares resulting in Housetops or Hog Pens, each artist though has a unique style and variation on the theme.

About the Gee’s Bend Quilters

Gee’s Bend, a miniscule rural community, is nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times on the site of cotton plantations owned by Joseph Gee, the town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Modern Art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through multiple generations to the present and in 2002, an exhibition of 70 quilt masterpieces from the Bend, organized by Tinwood Alliance of Atlanta, Georgia, premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Since then, “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” exhibition has been presented at more than a dozen major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Newsweek, NPR, CBS News Sunday Morning, House and Garden, and Oprah’s “O” Magazine are just a few of the hundreds of print and broadcast media organizations that have celebrated the quilts and history of this unique town. Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works of important modern artists, such as Henri Matisse, and the New York Times called the quilts “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.” For more information, visit www.quiltsofgeesbend.com.

About the Manufacturer

A family run business since 1955, Baum Textile Mills, Inc. has produced the finest quality WinterFleece™, flannel and Flurr™ fabrics for the home sewing industry. In 1995, after recognizing a need for more quality quilting and crafting fabrics, Baum began to add beautiful cotton sheetings to its collections and saw the popularity of these lines grow rapidly. In response to this growing market, Baum decided to focus its efforts on the needs of the independent quilt shops and introduced a new division, Windham Fabrics. Working extensively with quilt historians, industry experts, an in-house design studio, and well-known designers from all around the world, Windham Fabrics has become a leader in the marketplace. Known for its authentic reproductions of antique fabrics, Windham also offers florals, textures, retro and many other fabric collections exclusively for quilt shops only.

This press release, sent by Dindy Yokel, is provided as a courtesy of Quilter’s Muse Publications

Last night, I stumbled across the “Sisters In Stitches” website. This is the web presence for the only African-American Quilting Guild in New England. We attended several of their shows, in the past, and were not disappointed.

They have another one coming up this year, in Roxbury. The details are available on their website. I wish I could attend, but we find it too confusing and upsetting to try to drive through Boston, a maze of one way streets, and where one has to be the correct lane for turns, etc. It’s easy to get lost. For “old people,” like us, we just can’t handle it. If you don’t already know, Roxbury is more or less a suburb of Boston.

A great quilt, taken at a lousy angle, at one of the “Sister in Stitches” shows. To learn more about this quilt, visit our show reviews, linked below.

I wondered if there was a stated list of attributes of African-American quilts online. The Sisters in Stitches’ site provides a nice overview of typical design elements as well as the parts of Africa from where African-American people came. One has only to look at one of the books that feature photos of Gee’s Bends quilts to understand some of the qualities of quilts that are listed.

Design elements can include, but are not limited to, the use of African hand-woven, or African commercially-produced fabrics, asymmetry, large shapes and strong colors, appliqué (as in former slave, Harriet Powers’ famous Bible quilts), inclusion of religious symbols and protective charms. The great tradition of storytelling by town griots (wise keepers of oral history in African towns) may be reflected in some quilts. Certainly, the storytelling tradition is present in Harriet Powers’ Bible quilts. Lists are fine for brief explanations but not if they lead to a superimposed aesthetic.

Can someone who is not African-American make an African-American quilt? No, but that quilter can make an “African-American style quilt.”

Vest designed by Patricia Cummings that includes fabric with African Masks

In my opinion, it is a cop-out when someone makes a sloppy quilt in garish colors and calls it an “African-American” quilt. That person has just not bothered to learn the rudimentary steps of quiltmaking. I have seen this happen. Like Dave Barry, “I am not making this up.”

It is equally strange, when a quilt shop run by a Caucasian women offers classes in “How to Make an African-American Quilt.” Again, I am not making this up, although this situation did happen quite a while ago.

Being informed about another culture, cultivates a better appreciation of their needlework and quilt traditions. You know something? When we attended the shows mounted by this very creative group, “Sisters in Stitches,” the quilt patterns were innovative, but also strongly-grounded in traditional quilt designs. I remember a quilt based on “Tumbling Blocks,” but with a humorous twist!

You might like to visit the two show reviews we have on our website – 2001 Bridgewater, MA Show; and the 2005 Holbrook, MA Show.

I have a problem with others trying to pigeonhole groups of people and make them seem as homogenized as milk. We cannot make sweeping generalizations. I would hate to think that my quilts are what they are because I am an aging, Caucasian, female. Stereotypes just don’t work. We don’t all fit into any given mold, whether we are White or Black or Green. Quilters are always innovative, no matter what color their skin. We can find more that is alike, rather than more that is different. In the end, we are all “Sisters” – “Joined by the Cloth.”

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications and Virtual Museum

Press Conference Held to Set Record Straight on Gee’s Bend
Call by Arnetts for End to Allegations Harmful to the Quilters of Gee’s Bend

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes – Mark Twain

One of three quilts belonging to Lucinda Pettway.
All photo edits by Patricia Cummings

Atlanta, GA – (Wednesday, June 27, 2007) – Gregory H. Hawley, of White, Arnold, Andrews, & Dowd P.C. of Birmingham, and Gary L. Coulter of Coulter & Associates of Athens, Georgia, co-counsel to William Arnett, Paul Arnett and Matt Arnett, art collectors and promoters of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend, held a press conference today (June 27, 2007) to set the record straight on recent allegations concerning the Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

During the press conference, which took place at 1:00 p.m. at the main conference room of the Birmingham Bar Association, 2021 2nd Avenue North, Birmingham, Alabama, Mr. Coulter and Mr. Hawley discussed the most recent lawsuit and the quilt at issue in that lawsuit, which were on display.
We called this conference to set the record straight about three quilts that are at issue in a lawsuit filed last Thursday (June 21, 2007) and that were the subject of a recent story in the Mobile newspaper. Plaintiff’s lawsuit makes some remarkable claims. First, the plaintiff claims that the quilts were made by her great-grandmother, a quilter in Gee’s Bend. Second, she claims that two of the quilts are more than 100 years old. Third, she claims that the quilts are “priceless,” stated attorneys Coulter and Hawley.

Lucinda Pettway’s “Economy Quilt” valued at $100 – $250 by Julie Silber and dated 1950-1960. Called “Diamond in a Square” by Holly Anderson, and dated circa 1965.

Ten years ago, the Quilts of Gee’s Bend were a local craft that was unrecognized and largely unknown outside the Black Belt of Alabama. The story of Bill Arnett’s recognition of this local craft as significant art is well known. Through his efforts and the efforts of his son, Matt Arnett, these quilts have toured the nation and appeared in dozens of museums that have validated this as an important art form. Now that these quilts are well known – and some possess great value – it is important to protect the integrity of Gee’s Bend Quilts. To misrepresent the age of a Gee’s Bend Quilt, or the creator of a Gee’s Bend Quilt, is just as reprehensible as promoting a counterfeit as an original Picasso. Some of these allegations in these lawsuits undermine the good name and goodwill of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend, to the detriment of the quilt makers who earn a living through this art.

As Bill Arnett has said, “What is at stake is public confidence and the integrity of the Gee’s Bend Quilts. Ultimately, unreliable attributions can attain the status of settled fact. and the seriousness and reputation of projects about Gee’s Bend Quilts are undermined and are harmed.”

Background

In early summer 2004, there were discussions regarding an exhibition and book about the legacy of Dinah Miller, a former Gee’s Bend resident, who, according to family history, came to Alabama from West Africa around 1859. Arlonzia Pettway, Dinah Miller’s great-granddaughter and one of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, asked Matt Arnett to accompany her to Mobile and Pritchard to visit some of her relatives who might have information to share. She also wanted Matt to look at quilts made by her relatives.

Arlonzia Pettway, Mary McCarthy, and Matt Arnett traveled to Mobile, and visited the home of Arlonzia’s sister, Lucastle Pettway. After looking at some quilt tops that she had made and meeting several other family members, the group traveled to the home of Lucastle’s daughter, Lucinda Pettway Franklin, who is the plaintiff in this lawsuit. Ms. Franklin showed the group several quilts, including one she claimed was made by her mother and two others that she claimed were made by her great-grandmother, Sally Miller. Matt Arnett inquired as to how she knew the origin of the two older quilts, and Ms. Franklin claimed an uncle had given her that information.

Although he believed the quilts to be from a time period after Ms. Miller’s death (July 11, 1943 – death certificate available upon request), Matt Arnett photographed the quilts and then he and Arlonzia asked if he could take the quilts to Atlanta for further study and to obtain conservation information. Ms. Franklin agreed to loan these quilts to Matt Arnett, and he took the quilts back with him to Atlanta, and they have been in his possession until today.

Upon returning to Atlanta, Matt Arnett compared the quilts with other quilts and determined that they were made in the 1950s or the early 1960s. Matt Arnett acknowledged that “we have worked really hard to protect the integrity of the Gee’s Bend Quilts, and didn’t want anyone misrepresenting the quilts or their makers.”

He had the quilts verified by experts in the field, who also concluded that the quilts were made in the 1950s or 1960s. Matt Arnett was uncomfortable returning the quilts through the mail, and he expressed this concern to Ms. Franklin, as well as his desire to deliver the quilts to her in person. On several occasions, Ms. Franklin told Matt Arnett she was in no rush for the return of the quilts and that all she asked was that he care for them and keep them safe, which he has done.

Based on his consultation with various experts, Matt Arnett knew that the quilts’ origins were not as Ms. Franklin believed them to be. Although Matt Arnett had attempted to convey this to Ms. Franklin several times over the telephone, his attempts had been without success. In April 2007, Matt Arnett and Ms. Franklin had an e-mail dialogue related to scheduling the return of the quilts. Unfortunately, last Thursday, on the same day Matt Arnett e-mailed Ms. Franklin to arrange a weekend meeting to return the quilts, Ms. Franklin filed her lawsuit.

As Matt Arnett stated, “This exaggerated dating of the quilts is exactly the type of thing I was trying to protect against, and aside from the quilts’ safe return, was the main reason I had hoped to hand-deliver the quilts to Lucinda (Pettway Franklin).”

“Pinwheel (variant)” quilt appraised at current market value for $250 – $450, by Julie Silber, certified quilt appraiser. Date: 1950-1960. Holly Anderson dated the same quilt, circa 1965.

The quilts presented at the press conference today are the three quilts that were given to Matt Arnett by Lucinda Pettway Franklin at her home. One of them is clearly of recent vintage, but two are older. These are the two that Ms. Franklin was interested in having Mr. Arnett investigate and authenticate the date of creation.

The quilts depicted in the photographs were taken at the time that Ms. Franklin lent these quilts to Mr. Arnett. Ms. McCarthy (who was present at the press conference today) has verified that these are the three quilts that they collected from the plaintiff.

We have had these quilts appraised by certified appraisers from Georgia and California. The Georgia appraiser, Holly Anderson, appraised the two older quilts as created in 1965. Julie Silber, an appraiser in Albion, California, dated one of the quilts as made between 1950 and 1960, with a value of $250 – $450. Ms. Silber appraised the second quilt as made between 1950 and 1960, and valued at $100 to $250. (Copies of these appraisals are available upon request.)

According to these evaluations, these quilts clearly cannot be 100 years old. Moreover, because these quilts were estimated to have been created in the 1950s or 1960s – and contain fabrics made in the 1950s – it is impossible to believe that they were made by Ms. Franklin’s grandmother, who died in 1943.

Finally, these experts in the field of fabric and quilts indicate that these quilts are worth, at most several hundred dollars. They are not “priceless” as plaintiff claims, or worth “$100,000,” as was reported in one newspaper story.

Because Ms. Franklin’s claims may have the effect of undermining the integrity and goodwill of Gee’s Bend Quilts, a motion was filed today by the Arnetts’ attorneys for the federal court to appoint its own expert in the field of quilts and fabrics so that these sensational allegations can stop before further damage is done.

When public confidence in the integrity of this art is undermined, the ultimate losers are the women of Gee’s Bend who create these quilts. When the integrity is called into question, art galleries are less likely to represent the women and their quilts. Art museums are less inclined to promote tours of the quilts. Ultimately, the value of these art forms could decline and the demand for them will diminish. This is to the detriment of everyone involved with Gee’s Bend Quilts.

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Press Release sent to Quilter’s Muse Publications: http://www.quiltersmuse.com
by Dindy Yokel,
(305) 632-4455, dindy@dindycopr.com