Missouri Pettway’s Blocks and Strips Work-Clothes Quilt

The quilt I was most drawn to was the quilt by Missouri Pettway in 1942 titled Blocks and Strips Work-Clothes Quilt.  Missouri created the quilt after her husband’s passing, according to her daughter, Arlonzia, who told the story of its creation.  Missouri used the clothes of her husband to create “…a quilt to remember him and cover up under it for love,” Arlonzia said her mother told her.  That story was so powerful to me and resonated strongly with me and my experience.  I believe the story would resonate with many who have experienced losing a loved one.

The shirts and pants created a block and stripe pattern quilt.  It would be difficult to create much of a different pattern considering the materials.  This quilt is in an irregular pattern as not all clothes would have the same size or be able to be cut out the same as well as being different types of clothes.  The different colors also reflect the different clothing items.

“Single Irish Chain”—Nine-Block Variation a quilt made by Maggie Benning

The quilt that I chose to write about is called “Single Irish Chain”—Nine-Block Variation made by Maggie Benning in the 1950’s. Maggie was born in the year of 1891 -=and died in the year of 1985.

I see three main sections of this quilt. The first most eye catching to me is the blue background with the squares arranged in crossover diamond shapes. This diamond shaped pattern looks like it was laid on top of the background. The background is like a frame for the quilt, it uses longer pieces of fabric and a lighter color to stand out from the main focal point. An interesting thing about this quilt is that the bottom left hand section of the diamond section has a different background. It is still blue but in pieces instead of a smooth background. This creates a difference in the pattern. Within the entire quilt, there is stitching in wave like lines. The quilt is not perfect but that makes it special.

I believe that this quilt looks the way it does because of the small stitching used throughout the quilt, the repetitive use of colours and the repetitive use of square or rectangular shapes. The square on the lower right side disrupts the pattern and almost seems to form a new pattern. The patterns are so similar yet so different. The brown square is the connection between the background and the foreground of the blue squares.

Like most other quilts made in Gee’s bend I believe that this was made of various fabric originally used for other purposes. This quilt was made by a mother of two children so it would make sense to use the clothing that the children grew out of.

In looking at all of the quilts in Gee’s Bend I see a lot of time and effort put into these artworks.

“Hexagon Mosaic-Single-Block variation” By Seebell Kennedy

This quilt has two very obvious levels of depth to it, the first being the hexagon and the second being the stripes. The large hexagon is made up of many smaller hexagons alternating every other line with color and gray. Creating a new stripping pattern within the hexagon itself, adding a similar connection to the red and white strips outside the hexagon. The interior hexagons vary in color and pattern from plaid blues to squared oranges. While the gray pieces get darker each layer into the hexagon. On the outside of both the hexagon and stipes there is a white border creating the edge of the quilt. The stripes on the outside of the hexagon are mostly all horizontal except for the section on the left and right of the hexagon those stripes are vertical. Being a quilt it also has some flaws to it that would not appear if it was created on a computer program such as Adobe Illustrator. The white border is not perfectly squared off and the smaller hexagons within the main design are slightly skewed off center in some places as well.

The inspiration for this quilt design could have come from quite a lot of different places but it looks as it could have started from Seebell Kennedy’s other quilt work. They all have very specific patterns and no pieces that look too out of place on the quilts. After reading a brief description of the history from this quilts origin in Alabama from the book, Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts the quilts have a huge amount of significance. Outlining the history for some or the cultural past times that were experience during their time in Africa or the Great Depression. Meaning this quilt by Seebell Kennedey most likely has much more value to it other than just its design principles.

Bars by Emma Pettway

The pattern used in this quilt was built with stripes of two colors, a bright yellow and a dark blue, which made really good contrast. The stripes were in similar thickness but the artist aligned them with both horizontally and vertically, as well as scaling the stripes so some of them or longer, some of them are shorter. The lines were repetitive and it gives a modern feel to the quilt. I’m still amazed how these quilt just came out of women’s head when they had never seen modern art, never been to a museum, went on internet or had any professional trainings before.

Because of how our human brain is so hypersensitive to image we know, right when I was looking at the quilt along with the other ones made by the same woman, I can’t help but noticed the letter E in all of them. I could see how the yellow lines make different sizes and scales of the letter E, like rotated and squeezed. The woman who made this quilt is Emma Pettway, and I think what inspired her a lot in these quilts are not just her surroundings, but also herself and her identity, like her name, Emma, that starts with the letter E. The dark blue part of the quilt however, looks like a window or a barred wall, so I think she was also looking for ideas around her house, as the women in the documentary mentioned, they were look at the ceiling and imagine things that ended up being on a quilt. Though it could be a very simple idea on this quilt, but I think we could interpret it as how Emma Pettway was proud and happy with herself, but felt a little blue about her living situation.

“Drunkard’s Path” by Lucy T. Pettway

My quilt is found in the patterns and geometry section of the quilts. The artist is Lucy Pettway. She was born in 1921 in Alabama and made her first quilt when she was 12. She mostly made her patterns by herself, using a pattern from a book only twice. This quilt caught my attention for it’s symmetry while also staying quite organic. The different fabrics have their own patterns on them that don’t match each other, but the shape of each piece is still the same which creates the symmetry. The main shape inside each the four squares is also interesting because it is very organic and flowy, but also more geometric in the repetitive nature. Each section is the same, but when you look closer is actually different. The different fabrics used make each one look unique while they all uphold the same shape. I think the inspiration for this pattern comes from the name “Drunkard’s Path.” The shape resembles the route one would take while stumbling. There’s no single straight line, it sort ofwavers, but it keeps going in the same direction. This artist loves to quilt, and would use lots of different scraps from around the house or old clothes to make her quilts, so it seems thats where this came from as well.

Mary L. Bennett Quilt “Housetop”

I am choosing to look at Mary L. Bennett’s quilts for this post. The one that caught my eye, “Housetop” was made in 1965. She started working in the fields at age ten or eleven picking cotton, farming, and pulling corn. She has no education besides a day of school here and there. Her story really emphasizes the importance of her quilts because they share a large resemblance to Mondrian’s paintings in early abstraction. She uses large blocks of material that are, for the most part, a solid color. She then places more strips of different colors to

Piet Mondrian Painting

The quilt “Housetop” created by Nellie Mae Abrams created c. 1970. (Souls Grown Deep Foundation)

The quilt I selected is “Housetop” by Nellie Mae Abrams created c.1970. The patterns in this quilt are made entirely linear paths in the form of stripes. While there are quite a few stripes in the quilt, they fail to interact in a manner that would form a grid. The pattern in this quilt is caused by the repetition of the rectangular strips of fabric around the blue center square. The shapes in this image are all geometric as the edges are both hard and angular. Additionally, the rectangles of fabric, which are polygons, are organized and arranged in a very organized manner, and not in an organic way. The pattern of the inner portion of this quilt actually differs a bit from the rest of the quilt. While the inner portion frames two sides of one patch, with the rectangles attached to the left of the patch, the outside seems to frame each side of the inner portion.

The quilt displays the “Housetop” pattern which is displayed through the use of rectangular strips of fabric around a central patch and is a very popular choice of pattern. To show the contrast between the layers of the outline through the use of differing fabrics. A lot of attention is drawn between the grayish-white border and the strong blues and grays within the internal portion of the quilt.

This quilt reminds me of looking out a skylight or hole in a roof. The majority of the central square is blue, and the alternating outlines of blue, white, and grey sections represent the light streaming inside. However, due to the name the image is likely inspired by and representational of a housetop, as many quilts created in the “Housetop” pattern. This quilt appears to be made of denim and cotton, two popular choices of fabric for clothing. Similar to one of the quilts mentioned in the video, this one could have been made from the remnants of a loved one’s clothing in order to remember them. The quilt also could have been made to be representational of a specific place with the colors of the quilt tying it back to the location.

The high contrast of blue and red against the pink helps give focus on the star or sun-like design in the center. Stella Mae Pettway, Polyester/cotton blend and polyester, 1985

The quilt that caught my eye as I was scrolling was one called “Star” by Stellla Mae Pettway. It utilizes dark red, dark blue, black and pink pieces of fabric with an off-white color around the border. It is mostly geometric, with many small triangles laid in a circular fashion that radiates into larger triangles and thus into a sun or star-like pattern. However, a few irregularities can be seen in some of the red patches where corners are uneven or look torn against the pink and the red patches that are meant to fill the background ore also irregular and almost more organic in nature compared to the uniformity of the star shape. This leads me to believe that, like other quilts from the documentary, this quilt makes use of old clothing or fabric scraps that were recycled for another purpose once they were too worn or didn’t fit. The radiating geometric pattern clearly resembles a star or sun, which is clearly the source of inspiration, as it also takes up a majority of the design on the quilt. While it is hard to tell why the artist made this piece, I notice that in comparison to other quilts, this seems more planned out and organized. There is a distinct geometrical pattern of triangles as opposed to many jagged pieces put together, which is a representation of the fundamental geometry often stands for metaphors of existence in Gee’s Bend. The artist likely drew some sort of inspiration from her ordinary, daily life in the Bend and found a way to represent it in a creative way.