Gee’s Bend
{Gee’s Bend Quilt images via thewalters.org}
It’s not often that quilts – something typically associated as a craft – make their way onto the gallery walls of a place like The Walter’s or onto US postage stamps, but the quilts of Gee’s Bend represent more than just a hobby. The current exhibit, Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, shows the rich tradition of four generations of quilting by African American women from Gee’s Bend, a remote penninsula of the Alabama River. (The pictures don’t do their work justice; seeing is believing). Show ends August 26th.
{Gee’s Bend stamps via USPS}
bangwaqueen
August 8, 2007 at 1:49 pm //
Indeed the the Gees Bend Exhibit is exceptional. One of the things that stands out to me as an Africanist, is the continued use of asymmetry just as we see in african textiles. Also the use of small pieces of fabric that were cut from garments worn by family members and its similarity to scraps of fabric used to make medicinal charms in West AFrica. Charms usually include items worn by the person they are meant to protect. The Gees Bend quilts have an overwhelming sense of protective quality to them. For the most part African textiles are considered spiritualy protective.
Rachel Malcolm-Woods