Artisan quilters Gee’s Bend finally get their moment on the fashion stage.
Gee’s Bend is a tiny, isolated rural hamlet in Alabama, USA. Located in a literal bend in the Alabama River, the community is almost completely surrounded by water geographically and culturally disconnected from so much of the rest of the world. Many of its African-American community, who number less than 1,000, can trace their descendants back to slaves from the cotton plantation established at Gee’s Bend in 1816.
Here, over the course of 200 years, the women of this community turned the cottage craft of quilting into something much more. Their boldly coloured, geometric approach to composition, passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter, became exceptional abstract art. In 2002,described the quilters of Gee’s Bend as the creators of “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced”.
Back in 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King visited Gee’s Bend. He told the crowd: “I came over here to Gee’s Bend to tell you, you are somebody.” It was true, but it took until the early ’00s for the rest of the world to recognise it. Historic examples of the quilts are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, America’s National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. They have been exhibited across the globe, including in the UK.
“When you make a Gee’s Bend quilt you are putting a part of yourself into the quilt,” says Claudia Pettway Charley, the community manager of Gee’s Bend. “Your emotions go into it. If you’re feeling a certain way you may choose certain colours. So, to me, every quilt tells a story.” The Gee’s Bend art movement is informed by their minimalist modern approach to design, and imbued with artfulness and soul.Despite this rich contribution to American craft and heritage, Gee’s Bend has enjoyed little economic advancement. Most of the community continues to live under the poverty line.
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