photo courtesy of Stacey Koenitz on pexels.com
MONTGOMERY, Ala – Quilts created by Mary Ann Pettway and her grandson, DeShaun Smith, are on display at AUM’s Cason McDermott Art Gallery, showcasing the history and ongoing evolution of the Gee’s Bend quilting tradition.
With the combined works of Pettway, manager of the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective, and Smith, a recent graduate of AUM’s Visual Arts program, the “We Are In This Together…The Legacy Continues,” show highlights how the community’s quilting practice has developed across generations.
“DeShaun has spoken a lot about how his work seeks to speak to the spirit or the souls of the quilts of Gee’s Bend,” said Fine Arts Chair and Associate Professor of Photography Will Fenn.. “But it also shows how they have been transformed through the last decade,” Fenn added.
Quilting in Gee’s Bend, a rural community located in what’s officially known as Byokin, Alabama, began as a practical response to the cold, according to the official Gee’s Bend website. For generations, in this community women assembled scraps of fabric into bedding to provide warmth, more often than not creating spontaneous and abstract designs that would become widely recognized works of art over time.
“I have a few quilts now that have stories behind why they were made and one of them is actually in the show,” said Smith. “The quilt ‘A Day to Remember’ is inspired by the events that took place on Bloody Sunday in Selma. The materials and buttons included represent the attire the men wore while the red in the quilt represents the blood spilled that day,” he added.
Not only are stories shared through these quilts, but the traditions involved in the quilt making process are also passed down. “With the new age sewing machines being available it’s easy to use those to complete quilts but I choose the hand sewing route to keep that Gee’s Bend connection,” Smith said.
One of the most notable pieces in the exhibit is the collaborative quilt, “A Team Effort”, Pettway and Smith made together. When asked in an audio interview by Professor Fenn what she thought about their first collaboration, Pettway said, “I started to think we did good together.”
Fenn hopes students who visit the gallery reconsider their assumptions about quilting and how there’s “much more to it than that,” reflecting art, history and collaboration.
The AUM exhibition, “We Are In This Together…The Legacy Continues,” is open to the public through Feb. 27. Gallery hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
