07/16/2025
From the National Gallery of Art ..
More than 150 years ago in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, enslaved people began creating quilts to survive cold nights. Over time, that necessity became an art form—one carried on by their descendants today.
The community of Gee’s Bend is named for Joseph Gee, who owned a cotton plantation on the Alabama River. The plantation eventually passed to a relative from North Carolina, who moved to Gee’s Bend in a wagon while forcing about 100 additional enslaved people to walk the 700-mile journey south.
Slave cabins had no heating, and temperatures neared freezing on winter nights. So, an enslaved woman named Dinah Miller made quilts from fabric scraps.
Miller began teaching others how to quilt. These quilters, all women, used worn-out clothes and cottonseed bags to create vibrant, colorful designs. In addition to helping them survive the cold, quilting gave them a chance to express their individuality in the midst of dehumanizing conditions.
As the quilters passed down this skill through the generations, the wider world began to notice the distinctive quilts coming out of Gee’s Bend. In the 1960s, the tiny town started attracting tourists. The quilts even made their way to the shelves of New York City department stores and the pages of Vogue.
One of the most prominent Gee’s Bend quilters is Mary Lee Bendolph, born in 1935. Using complex geometric shapes, Bendolph creates abstract depictions of the colors and forms she sees in the world around her.
In Gee's Bend today, people of all ages and genders take part in quilting, carrying on this craft for a new generation. Quilter Mary Margaret Pettway said she finds the art form “good for the soul.”
“I can’t be dippin’ into other people’s business when I’m doing it. It’s pure peace. Some say it’s therapeutic.”
📷 Quilt by Marlene Bennett Jones. “A quilt tells no lie.”
📷 Quilts hanging from a fence during the annual Gee’s Bend Airing of the Quilts Festival. Photo © Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
📷 Arthur Rothstein, “Gee’s Bend, Alabama,” gelatin silver print, 6 3/8 × 8 3/8 in., National Gallery Collection
📷 Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, Souls Grown Deep
📷 “Claudia Pettway Charley (left), Tinnie Pettway (center), and Francesca Charley: Three generations of Gee's Bend quilters,” Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, Souls Grown Deep
📷 The quilts of Mary Lee Bendolph, Ellen Alvord
