The Women Behind the Quilts by filien.luiten

GEEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BEND: the

Women

behind the Quilts

To all of the women of Geeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bend who inspire the rest of us daily. The real treasure is not the quilts but rather the women who created them.

The quilts reproduced in this book are from the William Arnett Collection of the Tinwood Alliance. Tinwood Alliance is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to advancing the understanding of vernacular art and artists (tinwoodalliance.org) Copyright ÂŠ 2017 Filien Luiten All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Filien Luiten at filien.luiten@gmail. com. For the rights to the content within the book address Tinwood Books (an imprint of Tinwood Media), 980 Marietta Street NW Atlanta, GA 30318. Cover and interior design by Filien Luiten Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN 978-1-4767-8478-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Mary Lee Bendolph

Art First Quilt Life

Loretta P. Bennett

Travel Exhibition

Lousiana P. Bennett

Family Recognition California

Index

GEEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BEND: the

Women

behind the Quilts

I was born in 1935.

My first memory was when I was two years old, walking with my dad, Wisdom, to his daddy’s house. His dad was Alfred Mosely. I remember crossing the branch between Papa’s house and my grandparents’ house and getting to the gate outside of their house.

MARY LEE B E N D O L P H

I don’t remember anything else until I was coming up on four years old. I remember they was building our new house. It was one of the Roosevelt houses*. The old house had some of those long poles, and mud was stuck in between the logs, and there were planks that weren’t so close together. We had paper plastered up in the house to help keep the wind out and also to help decorate the house. My mama, Aolar, and my oldest sister, Lillie Mae, did the papering. They would make some starch. They would hot the water and get some flour and make up the flour with some cold water, and then when they make it up good, they pour the hot water in there with the flour they had made up, and then they let it cool. Then they put it on the paper and then lay it up on the wall. When they get it up on the wall, they get a rag and wipe across it so it won’t have no lumps in it. Then

you could see how pretty it is. After that the house got so raggly and you could smell the dust from the outside.

Photo on previous spread: Ellen Alvord *“Roosevelt houses” were built by the federal government during the New Deal and sold at low interest rates to the Gee’s Benders.

In the winter it could be real cold, and she didn’t have that many quilts to keep us warm. I was the seventh child. Two died before I was born. Shadrack died when he was one, and Meshack was two when he died. So when I was born, we had five children and Mama and Papa living in that old house. They didn’t have nothing much to make quilts with.

I remember she would put some old raggly jackets on our bed to help keep us warm. There was some quilts, but they wasn’t good quilts. Leanna, who we all call Cute, came next to me. She was born in 1937, and Albert was born in 1939. We moved into our Roosevelt house in 1940. That felt good. We had to walk up on the porch on planks — they had the porch there but not the steps. We moved in before they put the steps there. Tom O. [Pettway] put the locks on the door. I don’t remember locks on the old house. Just close the door. Nobody ever broke in to no one’s house before, as far as I can remember. When we moved in, they had put everything on but the steps and locks. I think it was Nelson and Little Pettway who made the steps. They made the steps and then poured the cement in. When it dried, they took the planks from around it and that was the steps. Nelson was married to Virginia Carson, my aunt, and Little Pettway was married to Martha Jane. I always loved Martha Jane’s quilts. They were so pretty to me. I remember when I was about eight years old, Martha Jane had a quilt up in the frame, and they were together quilting it. Martha Jane, Mama, Virginia, Annie Bendolph, and one other lady were quilting together. Mama took me there with her. We were sitting up under the quilt, playing. Me and some of the

other children were sitting up under the quilt and seeing how they was quilting it. It was a “Nine Patch” quilt. It was made out of red, blue, white, and yellow cloth. That was my first

memory of them getting together quilting. I can remember Mama piecing her quilts, alone, late at night, but that’s my first real memory of them quilting together. We didn’t have nowhere to quilt in the old house. Back then they had to lay the quilt across the bed or put it in their laps to quilt. Now they could put the quilt up on a frame and hang it up in the loft and sit down together and quilt. When we got the new houses, they built a co-op store. They built a warehouse. They built a school and four houses for the teachers. And they built a gin house for the cotton. Before the gin house, they pulled the cotton from the seed and pad it out on the quilt lining. After they built the gin house, they could get the old scrap cotton, what we called “lint,” from the gin house. It be dirty and have a lot of trash in it. The clean cotton go to the bale, but the trash get blowed to the floor. Some cotton would end up with the trash. And Papa would go to the gin house and get those scrap cotton what they wouldn’t use and bring it home to Mama.

The old Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, which doubled as the schoolhouse, Gee’s Bend. Photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1937. Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

She would put the cotton on the porch and then tell us to beat the cotton to get the trash out. But don’t all of it come

out. She’ll put it on her lining, then she tell us to beat the cotton all across the lining, but she would be there to help see us do it right. If we don’t do right, she’ll finish it up. Then she’ll get her quilt top and spread it across on top of it, and get the four frames and get a needle and thread, and hook the quilt up to the frame. She’d have four nails up in the loft of the house and then she had four strings on them. She’d get the four strings and roll it up to the frame to hold it up. Then when night come, we roll the quilt up in the loft so you could walk up under it. Mama didn’t make too many pattern quilts. She made a couple of “Nine Patches” and maybe an “S” quilt, or it might have been a “ Z”— she never did say. Most of the other quilts, she just put them together. She made a few “Bricklay ers” and a few square-block quilts, and I don’t really know the names of the others, if she even had names. Some people back then had names for their quilt patterns, like “Pig in the Pen*,” “Nine Patch,” “Bricklayer,” “Crazy Quilt,” and “Lazy Gal.” A lot of those people lived in Brown’s and Sodom†. In Pettway‡, people just made a quilt, put something together. I

didn’t care too much about a quilt’s name; all I wanted was to make a quilt. The first one I made was a “Nine Patch,” but I didn’t know that’s what it was named until Mama told me.

* a variation of “Housetop” † Brown’s Quarters and Sodom are Gee’s Bend neighborhoods ‡ the homes around the site of the old Pettway plantation house

ART

i didn’t know nothing about art. I ain’t never heard her say nothing about art. Never as I know did she ever say anything about art. If she knew anything, she

didn’t tell me. But she didn’t tell me everything she knew. But I doubt she knew anything about art. All they would do was make quilts to keep us warm. I see other people’s quilts like when the spring of the year come. The women would hang their quilts out, and we would just go from house to house looking at the people’s quilts. And I would take a pattern from looking at their quilt and try to make one like it. But it don’t never be just like the quilt I see hanging on the wire. When people go around looking at the quilts, we wanted them to be pretty and make them look better than the next one. We didn’t have no museum in Gee’s Bend, but we would go from house to house looking at quilts and getting ideas about how I would like to lay mine out. People go from museum to museum checking out other people’s work. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don’t. They go home and try to make it, too. I think that was the same thing we was doing back then. They have a name for it — art — and we didn’t. And ours was hanging on the outside. When people would go to your house, they want to see your quilts. And they look at the quilts on the bed. They’d tell you if it looked pretty. That would make me feel good about my quilt. I would go and make more by them looking at my quilts and saying they was pretty. The materials I use is mostly old material: pants, shirts, dresses, corduroy, jean pants. I take it and make quilts. Sometimes I use new material, but mostly I just use old cloth. People loved their pants or dresses, and they have worn out or don’t fit anymore. I make quilts out of it because I hate throwing away things, because somebody can use things

“Old clothes carry something with them. You can feel the presence of the person who used to wear them. It has a spirit in them. Even if I don’t know the person, I know someone wore those pants, and it feels lovely and warm to me.”

Work Clothes Quilt by Mary Lee Bendolph. 2002; denim and cotton; 97 x 88 inches.

that people throw away. People are so wasteful now. It hurts me to see people waste up things. Because everything you throw away, it can be used and make something beautiful out of it. It makes me feel good when I take old clothes and make something beautiful. And old clothes have spirit in them. They also have love. When I make a quilt, that’s what I want it to have, too, the love and spirit of the clothes and the people who wore it. When I make the quilt, it has that love and spirit in it. When I make a quilt, I be praying and

asking the Lord to help me to do the work I do. I sing, I pray, I read the Word. I can’t do nothing without the Lord’s help. I think I get my singing and praying from Mama. She always would be praying and singing around a quilt, moaning a moan. I couldn’t know exactly what she was saying, but I know tears be dropping from her eyes. And then after a while she would lead a moan, “Oh please, oh please, Lord, have mercy.” I know that be what she be moaning. And then she would be singing another moan, “The Days Have Passed and Gone.” Don’t nobody moan that moan like she moaned.

It just do something to me. I can hear that voice in my spirit. It’ll always be in my spirit because I love my Mama. She did things for me that I couldn’t do for myself. I told her that I would always be there for her, because she didn’t have to do it. But I thank her for the love she showed me and for teaching me to love and to care about people. All of my quilts I make, it be kind of like her quilts. Because I got it from her. My aunt Louella, aunt Mary Ella, aunt Virginia, aunt Nicklesh, and aunt Prissy would get together in the winter and go from house to house quilting, helping each other quilt their quilts. They mostly piece quilts in the spring and summer, and then in the winter we quilt them. And Martha Jane. I could see the things they was doing, and it influenced me to do it, too. I’m thankful to them for what they taught me about quilting.

“ I can hear that voice in my

spirit. It’ll always be in my spirit because I love my Mama. She did things for me that I couldn’t do for myself. I told her that I would always be there for her, because she didn’t have to do it. But I thank her for the love she showed me and for teaching me to love and to care about people. All of my quilts I make, it be kind of like her quilts.

Because I got it from her.

”

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Housetopâ&#x20AC;? Variation by Mary Lee Bendolph. 1998; cotton corduroy, twill, assorted polyesters; 72 x 76 inches.

FIRST QUILT

i was only twelve years old when i pieced that first quilt. It took me a whole year because I didn’t have nothing to piece the quilt with. It was some jean pants, some overall pants, shirts, sleeves off the shirt — the good part I could find off of there — skirts, flower sacks, fer tilizer sacks. Anything I could find — a scrap piece — I put it

in that quilt if Mama wasn’t using it. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was something to go in. I remember picking a piece from out in the road; it was a raggly old shirt what the wagon had rolled over. And it was muddy. It was kind of blue, a gray-blue Indian-head cloth. I washed all the mud out of it and hung it on the wire. When it got dry, I put it in the quilt. And when I finished that top, I got the cotton that Papa had gotten from the gin house. I beat it out on the porchyou couldn’t beat it out in the house because there was too much dust in it. When I beat all the dust I could get out of it, I spread my lining on the floor and put the cotton on top of it. Mama showed me how to beat the cotton all over the quilt lining. She didn’t do it; she just showed me how to do it. When I got through, she told me to get my quilt top and spread it over the top of the cotton. Then I got the frame and I hooked up two sides of it. Then I took it in the house and hooked the other two frames to it. Me and her hung the quilt up with the strings. And then we sat down to quilt that quilt out. It was me; Mama; my oldest sister, Lillie Mae;

When it was finished, I had to hem it. My sister Elizabeth helped me. When I fin ished, it looked good. And that made me feel good. I had finished my first quilt.

my next sister, Elizabeth.

If it had been Mama’s quilt, it would have been some little rows. Since it was my quilt and wasn’t made so good — because

I was just learning how — we just put the big rows on it. It took me one year, from twelve to thirteen years old, before I finished it. And after that I didn’t try to do it again until I was fourteen. It took me longer to make the second quilt. Because I had made my first quilt, I was so glad. I just didn’t take the time to put into the second quilt like I had the first.

That’s when I found out about boys. I was thirteen and had sex with a guy who was four years older. Then my period came on. Nobody told me nothing about that. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what it was. I just wash, wash, wash, trying to wash it away, but it wouldn’t go away until it stopped itself. When it came on again, it was the same way. Nobody told me nothing. Nobody told me what it was. I thought I had done something to myself. I was too shamed to tell Mama about it. And then I had sex again. It was the twenty-eighth of August. And I didn’t see my period no more. And I was glad of it because I was tired of seeing it. I didn‘t know I was pregnant. In November I found out. I just cried, cried, I just cried all day long and prayed, telling the Lord to take it away. But he didn’t. The way I knowed I was pregnant was Mama told me. Every Monday morning we had to get up to wash clothes before school. And when I stop washing, I went to go get dressed to go to school, and she asked me where I was going. I said, “Put on my clothes to go to school.” She told me, “ You don‘t want to go to school.” I asked her, “Why?” She said, “You know the reason why.” I asked her again, “Why?” She told me I was pregnant. Oh, it hurted

me. And I just cried, prayed, and cried. I asked the Lord to take it back. The Lord told me he don’t take back nothing he do. And I just stopped crying. And I went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt better. I couldn’t go to school no more. I didn’t know the teachers had told her to keep me at home. They didn’t want me to influence the other kids. After I had the baby, I tried to go back, but they told me I couldn’t go back. I cried again. I said, “When I get grown I’m gonna tell my children about life so they won’t have to come through the things I come through.” I got married in ‘55, the twenty-fourth day of December, to Rubin Bendolph. I already had three kids when I got married. Peter was not by Rubin, but Harrell and Russell were. I got pregnant again about the same time I got married. Essie was born the first day of September 1956. I was glad that I had a girl. That’s what I had wanted. And that’s what Rubin had wanted, a girl. Henry was born in September of ‘57. Rubin

was the boss. He wanted babies, and I just had them. I didn’t

have no say-so, and I didn’t know what to do to keep from having them. That’s just the way life was back then. I asked him for me not to have the babies too close, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He wasn’t the one having them, but I had to obey. I ended up having another in ‘59 — Albert Lee, who is married to Louisiana. I had two more, McDuffey and Rubin Jr. When they got in age, I did not talk to them about life. When Essie turned fourteen, then that’s when I told them all about life. I worked at the Freedom Quilting Bee, I think it was in 1968. I worked there two and a half months, but Rubin made me quit. They said they didn’t have any money to pay me. They gave me fifteen dollars after I had quit, but didn’t give me nothing while I was there. It cost me more to get there than I ever got paid. Rubin wasn’t going to pay me to go work up there. I loved to be with the other ladies, but they wasn’t paying me. So I just stayed home and tended to other people’s children. I made four quilts before I got married and two in that year. It took me a long time before I made another — I was having babies too fast. After Rubin Jr. turned two, I went back to piecing quilts pretty regularly until 1974. In 1970 I went to work at the silk mill in Camden, but I still pieced quilts when I came home. In 1974 I went to work at Selma Apparel making uniforms for soldiers in Vietnam. I worked there almost five years. Then I got sick. The doctor told me to go back to work, but I was still sick and wouldn’t go. Then they terminated me. They wouldn’t let me get unemployment. I told them that’s alright,

I was living before I ever see’d them; I know I’ll get another job. I went back to piecing quilts. I did get another job, at Dallas Uniform, fixing mistakes that other workers had made on the army uniforms. I worked there for nine years. Then I worked at Wallace Apparel for four years. The last day of May in 1992, I retired because my grandchildren wasn’t going to school because they got “bus left.” I would get them up and put on their clothes, and then I would have to leave to go to work. They would go back to bed and get “bus left.” So then I had to retire. I didn’t want them to be like me and not have any learning. I stayed home and made quilts and quilted with Arlonzia, Aunt Louella, Ethel Lou, Annette, and Linda.

When Mama got sick, I stopped and waited on her. I pieced my quilts and quilted them at home. And that is where I am still — at home, piecing and quilting.

Blocks and Stripes by Mary Lee Bendolph. 2002; wool, cotton, corduroy; 98 x 86 inches.

LIFE

my life is different now. When people used to come here in Gee’s Bend, sometimes they would buy quilts from me. They didn’t ask me what I charge for my quilts. They just give me what they want to give me. I’d get five or ten dollars for a quilt. The highest I ever got was thirty-five dollars. And it was a pretty quilt.

Things have changed a whole lot for Gee’s Bend and for me in the last few years. I have been to so many different places that I never did think I would see. And now I can get the things I desire to have, and I can help some of the poor people in the world. I can help feed the poor and hungry, and at my church I can pay tithe and then some. I can give more than I ever gave in my whole life. I’m still the same person. I don’t try to be more than I am. I don’t try to be high up on the hog. I still be humble. I still love people, just like when I didn’t have any money. I still love quilting and piecing. I’m thankful the world can see the beauty of my work. Thank the Lord for losing the spirit I had. I had always feared white people. But since I have been making art, the fear left me. And now my quilts have more feelings than they ever had, because the world can see and I can share them with the world. My quilts are in Africa and in museums, and I am very honored to have my quilts all over the world. But my quilts haven’t changed. The way I make them is still the same way my mama taught me. I can have any material I want now, but I still love to use leftover and recycled-again cloth. It’d been a pleasure to buy some new cloth I wanted to put into a quilt, way back when I didn’t have any money. Now I can have it, but I see the value of the leftover cloth. Old clothes have the spirit, and I can’t leave the spirit

out. The spirit is all we had to lead and guide us, back in the day. And it still is.

Most of my ideas come from looking at things. Quilts is in everything. Sometimes I see a big truck passing by. I look at the truck and say, I could make a quilt that look like that. It don’t never come out the same way. I change my mind about it. My mind tell me to go another way. When I listen to my mind, it comes out right. But when I don’t listen to my mind, I have to take it loose, because it don’t look right to me. But that don’t mean I always listen to my mind. It’s like I am disobedient to my own self, because I didn’t listen. I see the barn, and I get an idea to make a quilt. I can walk outside and look around in the yard and see ideas all around the front and the back of my house. Then, sitting down looking at a quilt, I get another idea from the quilt I already made. When I get an idea and don’t do nothing about it right then, I forget it. But it will come back to me, and I go in there and get the cloth out so I can see how I can fix it. Back in the day, I had the idea but didn’t have anything to use with the idea. If I’d had the material to work with my idea back then like I have now, I could have gotten my ideas shown in the quilts. Now, I have the material — I save it up and put it on my shelves — so when my ideas come I can lay it out and put my idea together.

Quilts on the clothesline, Mary Lee Bendolph’s Yard, Gee’s Bend. Photo Matt Arnett, 2006.

When I piece quilts, I take my material off the shelf and lay it out on the bed. I see which materials I want to match with the other pieces. Sometimes I don’t know my color. Sometimes it don’t matter what color it is, I just feel that it will fit. When I hold it up and look at it, if it don’t look right in there, I take it out. Sometimes it looks good, and some-

I see all them pieces that I didn’t believe would work, but I made it work. And it looks good to me. And that’s what matters.

times it don’t look right or it don’t look the way I want it to be, so I take it out. Sometimes I let it stay in there. If I let it stay in there, it is a challenge to me. Then I try another

piece to get it to work out. And then it come out right. When I finish it and lay it on the bed, I see all them pieces that I didn’t believe would work, but I made it work. And it looks good to me. And that’s what matters. As soon as I leave the house, I get ideas. If I go to church or someplace where a lot of people are at, I can see a pattern that I can take and make a quilt with. The clothes people wear — not the clothes, but the colors — give me an idea about how to put my quilt together. When I’m in the church, sometimes my mind visions on how the church be decorated with purple and the colors the people have on; it matches up with the colors in the church. It gives me an idea I can work with. The neckties that the men wear give me an idea, too. I get ideas from the pictures in my house. Red, blue, and brown is in a lot of the pictures of the people in my house. On my porch, I sit and quilt, looking at the pictures on the wall, and I get ideas. The newspapers and magazines they used to plaster up on the walls had pictures. And that gives me an idea of how Mama and Lillie Mae got ideas for their quilts. They put pictures on the walls, but they didn’t know the people in the pictures. But I know the pictures of the people in my house on the wall. And I can design my quilts like those pictures.

I remember the first time I went on an airplane. It was night, so I couldn’t see out the window. When we was coming back, I was sitting in the rear of the plane. And I was looking down on the earth out the window. I was getting ideas about how I could put my quilts together; and the way the road was made, it gave me an idea about how to lay my blocks out. And looking at the houses, how they were put together, looking from above, gave me ideas, too. Every place I fly to, I try to sit by the window, where I can get a idea of how to put my quilts together. Mama flew to New York twice to visit my sick brother. I wonder if she did the same thing. I have been blessed to fly many places now and see some parts of this world. I ain’t done yet. I even get letters from the airlines because I’m a frequent flyer. I waited until I got older to do my flying. I never had any idea I would fly to all these different places. I thought I was afraid of getting on a plane. I’m not afraid now. I was going someplace and I said, “This should have been for my mama and the older people because of the prayers they made to the Lord to ‘bless my children.’” And now we are enjoying going places, seeing things and

having things, because of the older people. But they never got a chance to see any of this. They would feel so wonderful to see this, what’s going on with us now. Mamas taught us how. Now we pray that our children can take a pattern from us and do greater things than we are doing. When I was teaching Essie how to make quilts, this didn’t come in view. I was teaching her to make quilts to keep warm. Life is like making a quilt. Not just to keep warm, but to help her go through life, to understand life. Quilting ain’t easy. It takes work. It takes time. It takes faith. It takes a mind to do it. It takes patience. Sometimes you have to give up pleasures of your life to make a quilt. Sometimes your hand gonna be stuck up with the needles. Sometimes it won’t work, but you have to keep on and go on anyhow because you need to do that to help you go through life. Some things you see other people do and you can’t do it. You do what you can do. And

“ Life is like making a quilt. Not just to keep warm, but to help her go through life, to understand life. Quilting ain’t easy. It takes work. It takes time. It takes faith. It takes a mind to do it. It takes patience. Sometimes you have to give up pleasures of your life to make a quilt. Sometimes your hand gonna be stuck up with the needles. Sometimes it won’t work, but you have to keep on and go on anyhow because you need to do that to help you go through life.

”

Mamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Song by Mary Lee Bendolph. 2005; Intaglio print; Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint, and softground etching; 33 x 24 inches.

that’ll be alright. I do what I can do, not what other people could do. Sometimes she may want to make a quilt like me, but she have to do what her mind tell her. Quilting teach all of this to her. Last year, when I was in California making art prints with Louisiana, I saw what she can do and I wanted to do like her. But it wouldn’t work, because we all are different. She gets the praise of her work and I get the praise of my work. But I praised her work and I got little jealous. I said, “She’s young, and these patterns and ideas can fall in her mind be cause she is more willing and strong.” That made me want to be strong. It kept me going awhile. Then I told her I was going to stop, but she said, “No, you can’t. You can’t teach me by stopping. You have to go on encouraging me.” And that

encouraged me. I thank her for it. I was ready to give up. To stop. Louisiana told me, “You can do it.” I told her, “You the best,” and I was going to stop. But she gave me faith to go on. And the next print I made was Mama’s Song, my favorite. I thank her for pushing me to go on. I have a long way to go.

I was born December 29, 1960, in Geeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bend, Alabama. As a young child living in Geeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bend, I grew up on a farm and had to work in the fields. Because of my young age, I was only allowed to carry water to those who were big enough to chop cotton and the other things that we grew in our fields.

LORETTA P. B E N N E T T

Our field was located in an area called Carson, although my grandfather had two fields, one in Carson and the other one located in a place called Hotel*. Hotel was the area where the old cemetery was located. There my family grew cotton, corn, peanuts, and sweet potatoes, just to name a few of our crops. We started our day early because my mother had to make breakfast and lunch so we could carry our lunch with us to the fields. When I got a little older, about eight years old, I also helped with getting the meals prepared, and now I was old enough to chop and pick cotton. This

was not an easy job, and I can remember we hardly ever complained. And even if we did, we were only wasting time and energy. In my early teens, cotton started to fade away, and only a few people who were a little more well-off than the rest continued with planting cotton. So we “hired out,” working for those who had a bigger farm. To pick a hundred pounds of cotton a day was really hard for me because I was so small, but I am sure it was no problem for my grandfather, Tank Pettway, because he was a big, tall man. It was not long before cotton faded away from Gee’s Bend and another crop of hard work was born the birth of cucumbers.

34 * some people called it Long Bottom Photo on previous spread: Matt Arnett

Roman Pettway, the community entrepreneur, introduced Gee’s Bend to a new mode of farming. Cucumbers were the “new cotton,” but thank God, the season for cucumber picking was very short, from late May to the first week in July. We knew when the month of July came it would not be long before we could finally have a summer break. Growing cucumbers lasted for nearly a decade, and many families planted a second crop because this was a quicker and faster way to earn income. My family and others planted their own gardens and grew almost all the vegetables needed to survive the winter months. I learned to can vegetables and to make plum and blackberry jelly and jams. My mother Qunnie Pettway’s first paying job was working at the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her paycheck was not a whole lot, and sometimes she would have to work several weeks before getting any pay. During her absence, my oldest brother and I had to do most of the household chores. We didn’t have a water pump of our own, so we carried water from my aunt Lucy T. Pettway’s house. We also carried water from a natural spring, a spring called Cross Spring. Some of the men in the community tailored the spring into a well by damming it up with barrels; this made it much easier to obtain the water. The water was used to cook and wash our clothes. We also heated our bath water in the same wash pot we used to wash our clothes. By the time I turned about fifteen, we got running water and paved roads. Now that the roads were paved and we had running water, washing, cleaning, riding the school bus, and walking got a lot better .

Aunt Lucy was the sister of my father, Tom O. Pettway Jr. An interesting thing is that her middle name was Torno. Because so many people in Gee’s Bend have the name of Pettway, people get middle names that let others know who their fathers are, so nobody marries a close cousin by mistake. My father and his father carry the middle initial O. for Ottaway, a name that goes back to an original Pettway slave called Ottaway.

I can recall that I was about five or six years old when I was first introduced to sewing. At that age, we were only allowed to thread the needles for the quilters in my grandmother’s and my mother’s quilting group. The leftover scraps are what we got to sew and piece together, practicing on how to make a real quilt. We never actually made a quilt, because the leftover pieces were so small in size, so I looked for something else more interesting to do than sticking my fingers with a needle. During grade school the bulk of my school clothes were homemade by my mother, Qunnie Pettway — she has always had a passion for sewing. Since quilting and making quilts were such a big

part of my grandmother’s, my mother’s, and my aunt’s life, I believe the seed of quiltmaking was planted into my genes. Whenever we would go to either Aunt Lucy T. Pettway’s or Aunt Ruth Mosely’s houses to play during the summer months, they would always say, “Come here, sit down and learn how to sew.” During the winter months, we helped my mother and grandmother with their quilts, and they would let us practice on some of them, but tacking quilts was then the new thing, and we could tack several quilts in a day. Tacking is where you use yarn with a large needle by making one stitch, and you tie the yarn on top of the quilt to hold the top and backing together. In my junior year of high school, about four to six of us from Gee’s Bend were given a project to do in home economics class: making a baby quilt

for our H.E. teacher, for her first grandbaby. I had the last and final part of the project, which was to make sure the quilt was quilted. My mother helped me to complete our project. I made and kept a copy of that baby-quilt pattern, and most of the baby quilts that I have made and given away are copies of it. It consists of baby clothes appliquéd to a white background, with the clothes hanging from two clotheslines, and a bird and a cloud in the upper corner. The baby’s name, along with the birth date and the weight, was done with embroidery on the band and pockets of the small overalls. My grandfather Tank Pettway was a very tall, light-skintone man. He didn’t normally talk a lot, but weekends were different. He talked. That’s when we would hear stories about his mother. He would always say, “I am old lady Sally [Miller]’s son.” He would tell us the part about his mother being a squaw* and a midwife, which was something that brought great pride to my grandfather. I heard stories about his grandmother Dinah, told by Arlonzia Pettway†. She would tell stories about Dinah coming over from Africa. As a young girl growing up in Gee’s Bend, I kind of knew what my life was going to be like. It would consist of learning how to cook, sewing, doing laundry, and cleaning up, because

As a young girl growing up in Gee’s Bend, I kind of knew what my life was going to be like. It would consist of learning how to cook, sewing, doing laundry, and cleaning up, because someday I would get mar ried and have a family.

someday I would get married and have a family. I attended school in Gee’s Bend until seventh grade. During this time,

the South and Wilcox County were introduced to integration and desegregation, and the school in Gee’s Bend was closed down. We were bused

to Camden High School, in Camden, Alabama, for the first year. The forty-mile bus ride to Camden would take about two hours (there was a lot of stopping for pickups). In order to arrive at school on time, we would catch the bus about 6 a.m. every day. The school bus would always be overloaded — three persons to a seat — and when there were no more seats * she was half Indian † my mother’s first cousin

the remaining students would stand for the entire long ride. In other words, the last fifteen students or so that boarded the bus would have to stand. The next year we did not attend Camden High. Instead, we were bused to Pine Hill Consolidated School, in Pine Hill, Alabama, which was also a two-hour bus ride from Gee’s Bend. We went there for about six weeks, and then we were transferred to Pine Hill High School, about the same distance away, a two-hour bus ride. We were very limited in after-school activities, such as participating in sports, because of the long bus ride. Although the bus ride was very difficult

to deal with, we made it. And after four years and thousands of miles of traveling to and from school on a crowded school bus, we were never involved in any accidents, thank God.

When I was about fourteen years old, I pieced my first quilt. It was supposed to be a “Flower Garden,” which was a popular quilt pattern around the early to mid-seventies. As to what happened to the quilt, I really don’t know. After I graduated from high school in 1978, I married my high school sweetheart, Lovett Bennett, who was also from Gee’s Bend, on July 7, 1979. He enlistedin the U.S. Army right out of high school, and by this time he was stationed in Germany in a small town named Blankenheim. In November of the same year, I joined him in Germany, and this was a real culture shock. I don’t mean Germany itself, I mean the small, isolated town of Blankenheim.

TRAVEL in the military, all soldiers are referred to by their last names. That is why I am accustomed to calling my husband “Bennett” (a hard habit to break). In Bennett’ s unit there were only twenty-nine American soldiers; there was no American housing area, no American television, no American radio to listen to. Although American Forces Network (AFN) did broadcast, we were so far away and the reception was very poor. Therefore, we had to live and communicate speaking their language, German. We were isolated to the point that we only received mail three times a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — on a good week. This was a very cold but beautiful country. I never saw so much snow in all my nineteen years of life. The Germans were not big on having a lot of different colors, especially not on their houses, cars, and clothing, compared to Americans. But in the springtime things were different.

I got to see another side of Germany, as many houses were decorated with flower boxes of red geraniums and pansies sitting on the window ledges, with white- and black-trimmed houses in the background. As a junior in high school, I took a French class not knowing that a few years later I would actually have the opportunity of hearing a different form of French being spoken. Bennett was not only working with German soldiers, he also worked with Belgian and Flemish soldiers. We both took some German classes, which made our traveling in and around the countryside easier and more fun. I struggled some with the German language, but it was a breeze for Bennett. We traveled to many places in and around Germany such as Bonn, Frankfurt, Kaiserslautern, Trier, Cologne, the Black Forest, Munich, Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s house at Obersalzberg, Innsbruck, and Garmisch Partenkirchen, just to name a few.

We also visited the famous Neuschwanstein Castle*. We also visited the Eagle’s Nest, which was one of Hitler’s summer resorts. We traveled to several other countries such as Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. We also visited the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, and later on we visited Rotterdam, which is also located in the Netherlands. We grew to like it there so much we extended our tour an extra year. We lived in Germany from November 1979 until September 1982. I can recall I did make a quilt in 1981 during my stay in Blankenheim. The quilt was a “Dresden Flower Plate” appliqué on a white background. The flowers were bright red, blue, green, and pink. During this time, we lived in a three family house with our German landlord, Karone. She and her daughter Brigitte taught me how to knit. We also improved on each other’s language, cooking, and customs. For my remaining stay in Germany, I did a lot of reading and I also knitted scarves and a sweater for Bennett.

Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany. Photo by Mathias Konrath on Unsplash. * this is the castle that is shown at the beginning of the Walt Disney movies † where the 1976 Winter Olympics took place

In September 1982 we moved — or as the Army calls it, “Permanent Change of Station*” — to El Paso, Texas. That was my first time in El Paso, but it was not the first time for Bennett. This is where he started and completed his basic training. El Paso was quite different from Germany. The climate was very hot and dry. We were now living in a desert environment with cactus, tumbleweeds, and lots of dust storms. In El Paso we encountered another language setback. The majority of the people spoke Spanish because Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso border each other. The only thing that separates the two is a bridge that crosses the Rio Grande. On

a visit to Juarez, I could not help from noticing displays of an array of red and green chili peppers. The clothing and cars also displayed bright yellow, orange, pink, and purple colors. We enjoyed our visit to Juarez very much. We didn’t bother too hard to try to learn Spanish because we knew our stay in El Paso would be short lived. In May 1984, it was time to move again — as the Army would say, PCS — back to Germany, this time Burbach. Burbach also was a small and isolated town. There, Bennett worked with the German Air Force, but our living conditions there were somewhat better than the last time. We lived in a small American /German community, and this time we got mail five days a week, but still no American television. Burbach was much colder than Blankenheim. Occasionally we had to turn on the heat during the summer months. I can recall one summer we were greeted with a summer shower of white snow on the fourth of July in 1984. During the fall of that same year, some of the sol-

diers’ wives noticed some of my mother’s quilts on my beds, and they were so impressed with her style of quilting, they asked if there was any way possible to buy some of her quilts. I wrote and asked my mother to send me some of her quilts so I could sell them for her. She did, and I sold quite a few of her quilts during my second stay in Germany. * PCS

The winters were extremely cold and the snow seemed to always be waist deep. We had to shovel snow three to four times a day for the three years we were there. When Brian, our oldest son, turned six, it was time for him to start school. Along with four other American children, he had to ride for nearly an hour to attend the nearest Department of Defense school*. There were no school buses. Therefore, they had to take a German taxi to school every day using the German autobahn — what we would call “the interstate” here in the United States. The difference is that on the autobahn there is no speed limit. As parents, we were always on pins and needles as we waited for the kids to arrive home safely each day. It is now March 1987, and we moved (PCS) back to the States, and I had the opportunity to go back and live in Gee’s Bend for three months while Bennett attended Warrant Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. During my stay I was introduced to piecing quilts for a second time with my mother, grandmother, and Aunt Lucy T., my father’s sister. We would make weekly trips to Selma to buy scraps of cloth that sold for two dollars per bag. I can remember that the colors were mostly red, green, blue, and yellow polka dots. I tried my hand at making a “Bow Tie” quilt, and I made two matching green polka dot quilts. I later gave them both away, and sadly to say, they were lost in a house fire. My aunt Lucy T. gave me a quilt pattern, “Carpenter’s Wheel.” I tried to make it, but there were too many triangles and squares. That pattern block would travel with me back to El Paso, to Germany, back to El Paso and it is still traveling with me to this day. I would love to complete this quilt one day in memory of my late aunt Lucy T. Pettway.

Blocks and Strips by Loretta P. Bennett. 2005; polyester, cotton, cotton/polyester blend; 87 x 60 inches. * an American school

Time goes by quickly, but we like to explore places. In August 1987 we moved again from Gee’s Bend back to El Paso, Texas. During this stay in El Paso, we visited White Sands, New Mexico. There I saw the most beautiful, breathtaking mounds and mounds of nothing but white sand. It was like an entire white desert, instead of the usual brown, sandy, and dusty desert, and this one was a great deal more pleasant to look at. I also visited Alamogordo and Ruidoso, New Mexico; Ruidoso reminded me a lot of Germany because the scenery was draped in snow and there were lots of very tall pine and cedar trees. Our son Brian was now nine years old, and it’s time for me to stop being a stay-at-home mom, so I went back to school and became a medical assistant. After I graduated, I worked for an obgyn doctor for a short period of time before moving on again. It’s time to move again. In June 1989, we moved back to Germany again, this time to Bitburg, Germany. Bitburg was a lot better than the last two places we lived. We lived on Bitburg Air Base. Brian walked to school and I also walked to my job. I worked at the base commissary*. The base exchange, or BX†, was across the street from where we lived. There I bought some American-made cloth and other sewing materials, so I tried my hand again at piecing quilts. This time I made a “Double Wedding Ring” and a couple of baby quilts during my days off from work. It took me nearly three years to complete that “Wedding Ring.” Once I completed it, I had my mother quilt it. I didn’t work very long at the commissary; the Air Force had a dental assistant training program that I enrolled in and completed, and started working for the air force as a dental assistant. I enjoyed very much working in the medical field. I did not know this would be our last stay in Germany, but it was great to witness some of history’s most memorable events that took place from 1989 to 1990, events such as the Berlin wall torn down, the Brandenburg Gate opened, and Germany once again reunited. We lived there until August 1992.

* a large American grocery store † an American-type shopping center

It’s August 1992, and time to move again, this time to Decatur, Alabama, which is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Gee’s Bend. By this time, my mother had completed quilting my “Double Wedding Ring,” and I put the final touch on it by hemming it. I made another baby quilt, this time for my niece in North Carolina. We only lived in Decatur for one year. It’s now September 1993, and we moved again, this time back to El Paso, Texas. I made only babies’ quilts then because our second son, Brandon, was on the way. We still loved to travel, so we checked out Albuquerque, New Mexico, again, and the underground caves in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Making quilts of any size was really on the back burner now, because in 1995 I became a Jehovah’s Witness, preaching from door to door. In 1996 we visited Tucson, Arizona, for a three-day convention — another hot place, but lots of rain showers like mist from a water sprinkler. In April 1997, our third son, Byron (“B.J.”), came to us, and we were only a couple of months away before my husband finished his twenty-year military career, and we were preparing for our final and last move back to Huntsville, Alabama. Unfortunately, my grandmother, Candis Pettway, died the last week in May, so we returned to Gee’s Bend to attend her funeral. I remained in Gee’s Bend along with our two boys, and Bennett went back to El Paso to oversee the packing for our last and final PCS move to finish off his military career.

The next couple of years were really busy, with two small boys around the house and no time for sewing. It’s 1999 now, and the boys are in school. I tried my hand at quilting once again. I made a small-squared brown and beige quilt and quilted it in a lap loop. My oldest son, Brian, liked it so much he took it with him back to Austin, Texas. My mother and a few others were

still making quilts, although it seemed like piecing quilts was slowly disappearing from the younger generation of Gee’s Benders, and that worried me. Therefore, in 2001 I applied for and received a fellowship grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts for my mother to teach me the fine art and every small detail of quilting. The “Pine Burr” quilt had been designated the official quilt of the state of Alabama by the legislature on March 11, 1997. For our project, we chose the “Pine Burr,” which was not the easiest quilt to make, but with her help, I took the challenge, and we completed it on time. In 2005 I donated the quilt to the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The quilt regularly hangs on display in the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Photo courtesy of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, Center for Traditional Culture, Steve Grauberger, photographer. Quilt made by Loretta Pettway Bennett, daughter of Qunnie Pettway, a quilter from Gee's Bend.

EXHIBITION

the first quilt exhibition of gee’s bend quilts opened in houston, texas, in September 2002. There my eyes were opened, and it touched me in a way as to question myself: “Can I make a quilt that someday might hang on the wall of a museum?” At that time, according to me, the answer was, “No way, no way” — not after seeing my relatives’ quilts hanging in a museum; they had been making quilts for generation after generation. Several months passed and the Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition opened in New York; still I had not made any quilts. Finally, after hearing all the great news reports about my ancestors’ quilts, I decided to try my hand at it. After all, I am

an offspring of some of the great quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend. I came to realize that my mother, her mother, my aunts, and all the others from Gee’s Bend had sewn the foundation, and all I had to do now was thread my own needle and piece a quilt together. I get my designs in different ways. Some come from the fabric first. When that happens, I’ll do a sketch. I draw it out and then I will take crayons — the same colors, or close to the same colors — and I’ll color in the design. If it doesn’t look like I want it to look, I will redo the colors, keeping the same design. I know when the design is right. I just have to swtich the colors to get it the way I want it to look. Sometimes I draw the design out before I get the cloth, and when I get the cloth, I’ll take the crayons and see how it looks after I color it. At first I was just doing it on paper. After I made the quilt, I would throw the sketch away. But then I bought this little composition book with lines in it, and now I use that for my sketches. I found some of the old designs that I had forgotten to throw away, and cut them out and glued them

“ Finally, after hearing all the

great news reports about my ancestors’ quilts, I decided to try my hand at it. After all, I am an offspring of some of the great quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend. I came to realize that my mother, her mother, my aunts, and all the others from Gee’s Bend had sewn the foundation, and all I had to do now was thread my own needle and

piece a quilt together.

”

Blocks and Strips by Loretta P. Bennett. 2005; cotton; 84 x 67 inches.

into my book. When I was in a hotel in Atlanta recently, I saw a picture in one of the rooms, and I sketched that out. The drawing wasn’t exactly like the picture, but to me it looked like a housetop with a slanted roof and a window. This is a quilt I plan on making once I get the right colors. I’m not going to match the picture. I’m going to choose my own colors to go with the design. When I was on my way to the King Center, we passed a store with curtains in the window. It just had stripes and bars in it, so I sketched that out from my mind. I thought it would make a good quilt. Most of my materials now come from thrift stores. But that has not always been the case. I used to buy fabric at fabric stores, or use my kids’ clothes or Lovett’s pants, but now mostly I go to thrift stores. Because of the colors and the material at the thrift store, I have more choices. The fabric in the thrift stores is older, from when they used to really “make” cloth. They don’t make cloth now that seems to last very long. Sometimes I just buy the material. It is based on what the store has. I like to hunt for fabric. It is not a particular

Because of the colors and the material at the thrift store, I have more choices. The fabric in the thrift stores is older, from when they used to really “make” cloth. They don’t make cloth now that seems to last very long.

color I’m looking for. As I’m hunting through the dresses, I may see a bright red corduroy, and when I get that, I’m on the hunt for something to go with it. I take the dress and carry it around with me. I’m looking for something

that will help bring the red out. It might be blue or yellow, and depending on the size of the colors I find, I will probably look for another color to make the size and design I have in my mind work.

When I’m looking for something, I like to stick with the same material or feel. So I don’t like to mix polyester with denim, or corduroy with velvet or velveteen. But sometimes I will mix them if I really like the color, like the navy blue and hot pink quilt, where I mixed a pink velvet with a blue corduroy. That’s my favorite quilt. I think the reason it is

my favorite is because hot pink is my mother’s favorite color. She taught me how to sew and quilt, and I wanted to do something to honor her. My cousin Arlonzia made a green and white “Lazy Gal” quilt that I really like. That inspired me to make the pink and blue quilt. The triangle I put in there to make the quilt stand out, I wanted it to be like a window into my background and my childhood and where I came from. That quilt honors my mother, Qunnie, and Arlonzia. When I made that quilt, my husband said it was the ugliest quilt I ever made. But he has changed his opinion about it now. On the back of the quilt, I took similar pieces I had left over from other stuff. I tried not to cut them and to make a back that would be similar, but a different style from the front. I like the back, too, because it was made to honor my mother and Arlonzia. I don’t think I cared so much about mixing the cloth, because they would have done it. It’s 2006 now, and I have been asked, “Could my quiltmaking colors and styles have anything to do with my traveling to different countries, cities, and other states?” It is very likely that moving around so much could have influenced my style of quiltmaking, because I am somewhat of a shy person and tend to like colors and things that are simple and plain — but I will let you be the judge of that. Although I am not a painter, someday I would like very much to try my hand at painting, because if I could paint pictures like a painter, I believe they would look something like my quilts.

“That’s my favorite quilt. I think the reason it is my favorite is because hot pink is my mother’s favorite color. She taught me how to sew and quilt, and I wanted to do something to honor her.”

Two-sided Geometric Quilt by Loretta P. Bennett. 2003; corduroy and velveteen; 66 x 59 inches.

I was born October 20, 1960, to Rita Mae Pettway and Samuel Small. My mother lived with my great-grandparents, Ed O. and Annie E. Pettway, because my momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mom died when she was four years old. Growing up as a small child on a farm with my brother David and my sister Hazel, we worked hard as children.

LOUISIANA P. B E N D O L P H

We worked in the field from sunup to sundown. And we went to school only if it rained. Back in those days, when a woman had children and wasn’t married and lived with her parents or grandparents, the children would usually call their grandparents “Mom” and “Dad,” and that’s what we called Ed O. and Annie E. When we were growing up, my sister, my brother, and I were not allowed to go to parties or anything else besides church and May Day because my grandmother was killed on Christmas Eve on her way from a party. We were sheltered from the world because of what happened to her. It is hard to find yourself and to know who you are.

I wish that I could put into words how life was back then. Seeing the school bus go down the road while we were picking cotton and the other kids seeing us picking cotton made me feel like I should have been on that bus. We really weren’t allowed to have much fun when I was growing up. About the only thing I did when I was young to have fun was play softball and make quilts.

54 Photo on previous spread: Matt Arnett

My brother and sister and I would play under the quilts while my mother, Rita Mae (who we all call “Rabbit”), great-grandmother Annie E., my aunt Mary (who we called “Edie”), and my aunt Nellie would quilt. I remember doing that when I was six or seven years old, but I’m sure we did it earlier than that. We would sit under the quilt and I would watch the needle going in and out of the fabric. I loved watching and playing under the quilts. Our year in Gee’s Bend started in the month of March because we started getting the fields ready for planting. This lasted from March until May. We were preparing the fields to grow cucumbers, peas, squash, and corn. By June, it was time to begin harvesting the first crops. This lasted until the end of July. Then it was time to start getting ready for cotton. We planted the cotton — we had to hoe it and then hoe it again to make sure the grass stayed away. We had to do this every day except Sunday. Sunday was saved for church. If it rained, we went to school. If the sun shined, we were in the fields. It didn’t seem to rain too much. Of course, if it rained, it meant we got a break from working in the fields and a chance to go to school, but rain meant more hoeing when we went back to the fields. Of course, as kids, we wanted it to rain. By the end of September, some of the cotton would be ready to pick. We didn’t have machines or the luxury to wait until all the cotton was ready. We picked it as it opened. This would take us until the middle of November. Again, if it rained, we were in school. Otherwise, we were in the fields. By the end of November, we were in school every day. We had a break for Christmas and went back to school in early January. By March, it was back to the fields.

I started working in the fields when I was six years old. When I was sixteen, we stopped farming cotton, so I went to school more. But by then I had missed all of the basics that I really should have started out with. By the time I was sixteen, I had already worked so hard. We really didn’t have much of a childhood. My mom worked hard to make our life better than hers. I can’t imagine what her life was like when she was young. It wasn’t like she had a choice. She was a single mom with five kids by then, and we had to work in order to survive. Life was hard, but we did what we had to. I wouldn’t wish for any child to have to live my childhood.

I was twelve years old when I made my first quilt. I made it because it gave me something to do. We needed the cover, but for me it was just something to do. It was a “Housetop” quilt. I can’t remember what colors it was, but it was made from scraps that were left over from clothes that Rabbit had made for all of the kids. Rabbit made almost all of the clothes we wore in those days. The scraps that were left over from those clothes always ended up in quilts. Nothing went to waste.

Field supervisor helps and teaches younger children in demonstration of cooperative gardening, Gee’s Bend. Photo: Marion Post Wolcott, 1939. Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

“ My mom worked hard to

make our life better than hers. I can’t imagine what her life was like when she was young. It wasn’t like she had a choice. She was a single mom with five kids by then, and we had to work in order to sur vive. Life was hard, but

”

we did what we had to.

“Housetop” Medallion by Louisiana P. Bendolph. 1974; cotton and corduroy; 72 x 76 inches. One of Louisiana’s earliest quilts.

FAMILY

the year i made my first quilt, my brother christopher was born. That’s when I learned to cook. The women who had babies weren’t allowed to cook in the kitchen until the baby was about a month old, and they weren’t allowed to leave home until the babies were six weeks old. So I had to learn to cook for the family. The first thing I cooked was rice and chicken. My brother Chris

was born an albino. When people saw him they called him a white baby. It just made me sad because he was my brother and we loved him. Mama — Annie E. — died in June of that year. My brother, sister, and I were sitting on the porch barefooted when the hearse pulled up. It was long and black, and the people got out and went into the room where she was and put her in a black bag, and then they carried her away. I remember sitting there and crying as she was taken away. Sometimes I still sit and picture her face, and I can still feel her smile. Sometimes I can still hear her crying from the pain that she was in because of her illness and because she couldn’t do anything for her self. I think she was crying more for us, because we were the ones who had to do so much for her. In 1973, my brother Hank Snow Pettway was born. He was also an albino child. That meant that Chris had someone to look at and say, “He looks like me.” They would always ask why they looked different from us. We really didn’t understand it back then and didn’t know what

to say. That was just the way God made them. Whenever a baby was born, Rabbit would make some baby quilts for them. It was kind of a tradition. New babies meant new baby quilts. I was making quilts back then, too. Sometimes we would make quilts in my home_ economics class, but those quilts were always patterns. I remember a red and white

“Bow Tie” quilt, which I still have, and a baby quilt I made with three or four other students. One of those students was Loretta P. Bennett. It was more of an appliqué quilt, which is not at all like what we would make at home. But by then we were going to school in Camden. Those types of quilt patterns were always brought in by other people. That wasn’t really my kind of quilt. But most of my quilts in those days were pattern quilts because I wanted to make some pretty quilts. By the time I was sixteen, I stopped making quilts and spent my time making clothes. I got pregnant and had a baby in 1979 when I was nineteen. I named my daughter Sonda. I remember asking myself, “How in the world did I let this happen to me?” Growing up without a father around, I didn’t want to put my children in that same situation. After Sonda was born, I went back to making quilts. Most of them were pattern quilts from a book I ordered through the mail. I made about eight quilts the year after Sonda was born. One was red, white, and blue, with a lot of triangles, and it came from that book. Another one was a yellow and white quilt. Someone had given my neighbor Lillie Mae a quilt, and I saw it at her house. I went home with that quilt in my mind. Later I tried to make one for myself from memory. It was made with my colors and I really liked it. Another one was a “Wedding Ring” quilt. For the “Wedding Ring” quilt, I didn’t use the book colors and I did it my own way. I used purple fabric for the background, and red, blue, gold, black, white, and pink for the blocks. I just love color, and that quilt really stood out. Even today, color is the most important thing to me.

In 1980 I married Sonda’s father, Albert Bendolph. I

realized that I had a child and a husband but I still didn’t even know who I was. In many ways, I still haven’t figured it out. But I’m still searching. I was a mother and a wife without a good education or any job skills, and it was frightening. Shortly after we married, I moved to Mobile, where Albert had gone to get a job. I took my quilts with me. I left Sonda with my mom and got a job at a fast-food restaurant. I worked there for five years. I made a few quilts after I got married, but stopped because I had plenty of quilts to keep my family warm. In 1982 I had my second daughter, Melinda. By then we were living in a house that had central heat and air, and I wasn’t making quilts. The need for quilts didn’t really exist. I started crocheting, and that took the place of quilting. Most of my crocheted blankets looked like quilts. I made them from my head. Most look like “Housetops” or “Lazy Gals.” I made one for Dad*. I used to love going home because he would have

it spread over his legs. He always used it and it made me happy to see him with it. In 1990 I had Merrianna. She was named after Albert’s mom, Mary Lee; my mom, Rita Mae; and me, Louisiana. The same year Merrianna was born, Dad —Ed O. — died. My mom called early one morning to say that he had passed. I kept thinking that I was still asleep and it was just a bad dream. He was the man that had helped to raise me, and now he was gone. When Merrianna was one-year-old, I got a job working for the Lee Company, the people who make the jeans. My job was putting the zippers and pockets in. I worked for Lee for six years. Then the company moved that part of their operation out of the country. In the early days at Lee, we used to sit down at the machines and sew. They eventually took the chairs away, so we had to do our work standing up. We were getting paid

*my great-grandfather Ed O.

by the piecework, and we had a quota. I think that Lee thought we would get less done standing up, and therefore they wouldn’t have to pay us as much. But people ended up working harder and getting more done and getting more money. Then they closed that plant. I think they still cut the jeans in Mobile, but I don’t think they put them together there. I then went back home and took care of the girls. In 1997 my last daughter, Alleeanna, was born. She was named for Albert and me. I just stayed home and cared for her and the other girls. By then Sonda had had a baby, Tausyanna, and they were living with us, too. I had taught my girls right from wrong, and I

didn’t want them to have children until they were mar ried, but Sonda went ahead anyway. I was very hurt. I raised Tausyanna like she was my own. Sonda dropped out of school and moved out and got married, but she left Tausyanna with me. When Tausy was about nine, Sonda took her back. And it broke my heart. During this time, we would often go back and forth to Gee’s Bend and visit with my family and Albert’s family. The girls would spend time with their grand mothers, Rita Mae Pettway and Mary Lee Bendolph, and watch them piece quilts and quilt them. They were more involved with quilts than I was.

Lonnie Holley, Lousianna P. Bendolph, Thornton Dial and Mary Lee Bendolph. July 18, 2006. Photo: Matt Arnett.

RECOGNITION

in 2002 my mom called and invited me to go with her to Houston for the opening of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibit. That was the first time I really had heard anything about the quilt exhibit and book. People had been going to Gee’s Bend and buying quilts for years, but nobody had really done anything before. People got quilts and left and that

was the end of it. We never got anything more out of it. I guess most of us had just thought this would be the same. We really didn’t think anything of it. Most of us had no idea what to expect. I was just going because my mom asked me. They mentioned something about the quilts in a museum, but I had never been to a museum and didn’t know what to expect.

When I got to Houston, I saw the book for the first time and saw my quilt with my name next to it. I was shocked. Just shocked. I couldn’t believe my name was actually in a book. I see my name on maps, but that means the state, and I see my name on hot sauce, and that means the brand name, but I never thought I’d see Louisiana and it would mean Louisiana Pettway Bendolph. They gathered the women onstage and asked me to come onstage, too. I felt like I didn’t belong with those women because I had moved away from Gee’s Bend. I thought it was for them to be honored, but they asked me to join them. I had left home, but I was there so much that it felt like I had never left. I guess home is just home. I live in Mobile, but Gee’s Bend is still home and always will be.

Then we went to see the exhibit. When I got to my great-grandmother’s quilt, I cried. I cried to see our history and our past up on those walls, and realizing that Mama — Annie E. — have left a legacy. She was gone. We hadn’t forgotten her, but no one else in the world knew who she was. And then to see her quilt hanging on the wall, it was so beautiful. When she had died, she was just

“Mama,” but now she had been reborn as someone who people were respecting, and all of a sudden she was important to other people in a way she had only been to us. It brought tears to my eyes, and I was so overjoyed inside. She had helped to raise me. After her stroke, I helped take care of her. My strongest memories of her were late in her life after she was ill, of her having to be taken care of. When I saw her beautiful artwork on the wall, it took me back in time, back to a time before I knew her, before I was born, when she was a whole person with all of her abilities. I could now picture her in her happier times. She had done something important. I could see that now. She never got to go places or do anything. I felt like in spirit she was there with her quilt and with me. I remember how Mama and them used to pray for better things for their children. And I remember when I saw her quilt, I could see her face so plain, and I felt like she could see it, too. When I travel now, she is there with me. She is now known all over the world. In a way, she’s still alive in that quilt. We went through and saw our aunts’ and sisters’ and moms’ and neighbors’ quilts on the walls, and it was breathtaking. I saw work they had done. They didn’t make them

and think that anyone would ever see them, and here they were with all of these people looking at them. To me, that’s the best thing that could ever have happened to our community.

â&#x20AC;&#x153; When I saw her beautiful

artwork on the wall, it took me back in time, back to a time before I knew her, before I was born, when she was a whole person with all of her abilities. I could now picture her in her happier times. She had done something important. I could see that now.

â&#x20AC;?

66 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Housetopâ&#x20AC;? Variation by Louisiana P. Bendolph. 2003; cotton and cotton blends; 98 x 68 inches.

When I was coming back from Houston on the bus, I started having visions of quilts. At first I didn’t pay any attention to them. They just kept coming. I tried to ignore them. I said, “I really just don’t want to do that anymore; I’m done making quilts.” But they wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought, I’ve just been to a quilt show, and that’s why the images are in my mind. But the images I was seeing didn’t look like anything I had seen in the show or anywhere else. I ignored them. But they didn’t stop. So I got a pencil and a piece of paper and drew them out. I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Finally, I decided that I would get some fabric and make a quilt. I thought my days of making quilts were over, just a part of my past, like planting corn and picking cotton. But the images wouldn’t go away. They wouldn’t leave my mind. So I made another quilt, and then another, and then another. And I’ve kept on doing it because those images won’t leave me alone. Sometimes I sit down with pieces, without a vision or design in mind. I’ll use pieces that I’ve already cut and use them as the basis for my design. Once I start putting the pieces together, I’ll see which direction the quilt is going. I’ll put it on the bed and stand back and look at it. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. If I like it, I keep sewing on it. If I don’t like it, I’ll cut it apart and redesign it. Or I’ll put it aside and comeback to it later, when I am inspired. Lately, I’ve started three or four quilts, but they weren’t coming together the way I thought they should, so I folded them up and put them away where I can’t see them. Every three or four days, I’ll go pull one out and put it on the bed. If I get a feel for where it needs to go, I’ll start working on it again. Sometimes this process will take me five or six months. The one in the High Museum’s collection is one that I designed totally different in the beginning. I cut it apart and redesigned it. And I took the rest of it and made

something else. I ended up making two quilts that I really like and worked out like I wanted them to. Most of my quilts are made from cotton and cotton-poly blends. I sew new material, but sometimes I use old and leftover material, which is how I learned to piece quilts. For my new material, I go to the fabric store. Sometimes I have the quilt designed in my head, and sometimes I’ll draw it out. When I go to the store, I already know what colors of fabric I want. Sometimes I’ll go to the store just to look at the colors. I see the colors and then I’ll work backwards with the color coming first. Most of my quilts are really based on the “Housetop” design. But once I start working on them, they get “un-Housetop.” I started with “Housetops.” I never really thought about “Housetops” as my favorite, but they always start out that way. Many times they don’t really end up looking like a “Housetop” unless you stand back and look at them. Then you can see that it is based on the “Housetop.” There are lots of ways to make a “Housetop.” They look simple until you start working with them. I’ve just started a new generation of “Housetops.”

“Housetop” Variation by Louisiana P. Bendolph. 2006; cotton and cotton blends; 87 x 85 inches.

CALIFORNIA my mother-in-law, mary lee, was going to california to make fine art prints. I didn’t have any idea what that was. Matt Arnett asked me if I wanted to go, too. I was excited about spending two weeks in California, a place I had never been, but I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I have always shied away from things where I had to step out front. I never liked being the center of attention.

But I remember in the old days, my foreparents had always prayed for better days for their kids and grandkids. So it was like God had heard their prayers and blessed us. I felt a responsibility to take advantage of this opportunity. When we got to California, Mary Lee and I were so nervous. We make quilts, but that’s always by ourselves without anyone watching or paying attention. Not even my husband pays attention until the quilt is spread on the bed. My daughter and granddaughter, Alleeanna and Tausyanna, will sometimes watch. They will pick up a piece off of the floor and ask if they can make a quilt. I told them they were too little and I didn’t want them to stick themselves with the needle. The real reason is, I’m not really ready to teach them yet. And they were really too young. So they got some paper and started drawing their own “quilts.” Then they started doing it on the computer. I would tell them, if I liked some of their designs, I would make a quilt from them. I was really surprised at how good their designs were. So I kept my word — they were constantly reminding me, anyway — and made some quilts based on their designs. But for the most part, my work is done alone. In California I was working with a group of printers, and Mary Lee was working right across from me.

I had never really seen her working, and she had never seen me working either. I don’t really like for people to watch me work and to see what I’m doing before it is finished. The people at Paulson Press respected that and let me work alone. I had to make decisions and work with a team when it was time to print. It was strange. We were working with people,

and for the first time, I was able to make work decisions by myself. When I farmed, someone always told me what to plant, which field to go to. In my jobs, I never was a supervisor and never got to make decisions. I was always taking directions from other people. Now here I was, and everyone looked to me to make choices. It was scary, but good. Someone wanted my opinion. They kept saying, “It’s your print. You decide.” When it came time to print my designs, I got to make all the choices about what to print, and the colors, and all of that. But we all agreed with each other. It was like working with a family where everyone got along. In the mornings, it wasn’t like going to work. It was like going to a family gathering. It really made me feel great. When I put on the apron that was covered in ink and I picked up the paintbrush, I kind of-for one moment-felt like I was an artist. There was so much ink on the apron. It was clear that so many other artists had worn it and painted in it and done “spit-bite” in it, that I felt like I was becoming an artist, too. The apron was made out of denim. I looked back to the work-clothes the men wore in the fields in the Bend and everywhere else. Coveralls were what the men wore. The women would take those old worn-out clothes and make quilts out of them. Here I was wearing the denim apron, and I couldn’t help but think about those work-clothes quilts that were made back in Gee’s Bend when I was growing up. I also thought about the fact that I was making quilts from fabric and my children were making quilts on paper, and here I am in Berkeley and the tables are turned. I’m making quilts in fabric and transferring the designs to paper. The whole thing was

overwhelming and made me feel such a strong connection back to my family and home.

Home has made me who I am, and I’m thankful for that. My life growing up was so hard. But it built character. I see that now, but back then, all I could think was, My life shouldn’t be this hard. Now, my life is great. I have so many opportunities that I never thought I would have. All of that because of quilts. I had always wondered why I was born without any talent to do something good or important. When I was growing up, we weren’t taught to have pride in ourselves or to have pride in what we did. It just wasn’t taught to us. When we were growing up, we had a lot of “parents.” Any older person was our “parent.” Any older person could tell us what we had to do. And we had to do it. None of them ever praised us. They never told us we did a good job or that they were proud of us. So now, when people celebrate our work or praise our talent, it is sometimes hard for us to say that we are proud. We are proud on the inside, so we feel good in our hearts, but we were not taught how to accept being proud or how to express it. I’m so thankful that the exhibition and all the changes that have followed has brought that pride to my community. And I’m learning how to take pride in what I do. Or at least I’m working toward that. Part of me feels like I’m living in a dream and I’m going to wake up and realize that it has all been a dream. I hope not. In the meantime, I’m still learning to accept that fact that people think of me as an artist. To me, I’m still just plain-

and-simple Lou. I need to get used to “Louisiana Bendolph, the artist.” But I’m proud of that. I really am.

REFERENCES

COVER African American Quilts, vicinity of the Alabama River, Wilcox County, Alabama. Photograph: attributed to Edith Morgan, circa 1900; courtesy of Marian and Herb Furman. Sourced: Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p6. p1 / 76: Blocks and Strips Work-clothes Quilt by Lucy Mingo. 1959; cotton and denim; 79 x69 inches. Sourced: Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p66.

MARY LEE BENDOLPH Text: Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p172 – 187. Taken from interviews with Mary Lee Bendolph by Matt Arnett in 2006. p10 9artmuseum.mtholyoke.edu/exhibition/piece-together p14 Gee’s Bend: The Women and their Quilts p32 p17 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p174 p20 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p177 p24 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p178 p26 Mary Lee Bendolph Gee’s Bend Quilts and Beyond p30 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p179 quilt patches (p14, 18, 23, 27, 31) Blocks and Strips by Mary Lee Bendolph. 2003; corduroy, 77 x 71 inches. Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p183

LORETTA P. BENNETT Text: Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p156 – 171 p32 dyokel.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lb4.jpg p40 unsplash.com/photos/Y7BG6yO9Q9o p42 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p 166 p45 netstate.com/states/symb/quilts/al_quilt.htm p48 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p 162 p51 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p 28 quilt patches (p36, 41, 44, 50) from Autumn Lady by Loretta P. Bennett. 2008; 87 x 65 inches. scrapyardfabrication.blogspot.dk/2013/02/gees-bend-quilts.html

LOUISIANNA P. BENDOLPH Text: Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p189 – 205. Taken from interviews with Louisiana Bendolph by Matt Arnett in 2006. p52 soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/louisiana-p-bendolph p56 loc.gov/item/2017753780/ p58 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p190 p62 internationalfolkart.org/eventsedu/education/geesbend/geesbendartists p68 Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p201 quilt patches (p60, 64, 69, 71) Blocks and Strips by Louisiana P. Bendolph. 2006; cotton; 90 x 91 inches. Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt p204 *Many of the quilts contained within this book can also be found within Gee’s Bend: The Women and their Quilts and The Quilts of Gee’s Bend as well as on soulsgrowndeep.org.