About the artists and art featured in the The name “Gee's Bend” both expresses the exhibition, Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s geographical feature that defines this Bend Quilts, and Beyond community—a hairpin curve in the River that envelops a spit of Wilcox County— Written by Stephanie Burak and connotes the denial of personal identity that was at the heart of African American Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee's Bend Quilts, and Beyond bondage: Joseph Gee was the first white settler explores a dialogue of aesthetic influence and the founder of the cotton plantation in among four Alabama artists, focusing on the the “bend” that bears his name. Later, the creative vision of master Gee’s Bend plantation became the property of Mark quiltmaker Mary Lee Bendolph. She—along Pettway, who superimposed his name on Gee’s with numerous other Gee's Bend quiltmakers, slaves and brought in one hundred or so of his including many of her relatives—participates own. Today, Pettway remains by far the most in a tradition of African American quiltmaking common surname in Gee’s Bend. that stretches back into the nineteenth century. The genre of black Names weren't the only quiltmaking is likewise nested identifiers taken from enslaved within a broader set of ancestors: their languages, vernacular cultural practices religions, possessions, and that involve rituals of recycling anything else that would give a and reuse, ancestor veneration, people spiritual strength, hope, and the maintenance of and cultural cohesion were philosophical and religious prohibited. Plantation slaves far beliefs, all embodied in arts outnumbered their white ranging from painting and counterparts, but without these sculpture to utilitarian crafts identifiers to remind them of and the built landscape. who they were and where they Bendolph’s aesthetic, a mix of came from, they were community inheritances and considered more vulnerable to her irreducible personal flair, white hegemony. A primary has recently encountered a new Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935). Blocks‐and‐ means these enslaved people set of influences from her strips. 2002. Cotton, wool, and corduroy. developed to retain and pass contacts and friendships with a 98 X 86 in. down personal and communal number of other African identity was through finding American artists working in expressive opportunities in acts different genres. The of necessity. exhibition introduces a new chapter in the history of Gee’s Bend quilts, personified by African slaves and their descendants were this postmodern quiltmaker, who has become forced to adopt Christianity as their religion, aware of her place within overlapping, which is why the songs they sang in the fields dynamic, and syncretistic traditions. referenced the Bible. However, through their subversive choice of stories like Moses’ freeing Like most people in Gee's Bend, Alabama, of the Hebrew slaves, they openly yet Mary Lee Bendolph descends from slaves who indirectly communicated their sorrows and labored on the local cotton plantations. hopes, and were able to express some sense of Following the Civil War and Emancipation, identity. many ancestors of current-day Gee's Benders stayed on the land and became tenant farmers.

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This was a form of spiritual rebellion that had Since African American vernacular art can be to remain in disguise; exposing the truth was as humble as a bottle hanging from a tree tantamount to a death sentence: even after the branch, or as quietly monumental as tree Civil Rights movement a black branches leaned against the person in the South who expressed trunk, to many onlookers these ideas with political overtones or assemblages are cryptic, at critical social commentary was a best. To many other observers, target for racially motivated hate they are unrecognizable as crimes. This was true of all significant aesthetic expression. perceivable expression, including Invisibility or indirectness of art. meaning, which permeated the slave spirituals, lives on in the Thornton Dial, from Birmingham, forms and techniques of many artist and close friend of Mary visual artists within the black Lee's, used to bury the art that he community. made for fear that white people might see it. Now he is seen as one One becomes immersed in of the greatest artists of this Gee’s Bend’s mixture of faith, African American tradition. His music, and rituals of daily paintings (which are really painted, existence as one listens to multi-media high-reliefs) and Mary Lee Bendolph and her sculptures, which have been shown choir at Ye Shall Know the in major national museums, Lonnie Holley (b. 1950). Early Truth Baptist Church thank Beginner. 1994. Chair and jump ropes. incorporate objects he found and 34 1/2 X 20 X 21 in. Jesus for raising them out of salvaged for the purpose of hard times; as she and fellow making art. Lonnie B. Holley, also quilters hum praises while an artist and friend of the Gee's Bend ; or as Gee's Bend quiltmakers sing quiltmakers, creates sophisticated and with the spirit and vivacity of their enslaved intellectual art made of abandoned objects and ancestors at art exhibition openings and materials. The work of both artists are highly concerts performed around the country. The communicative, carefully designed and soulful energy of their ancestors' spirituals calculated assemblages that have deep meaning imbue these songs of praise. It is commonly while utilizing artistic known that African vocabularies not easily American song also recognized or understood led to the development by people from outside the of other forms of artists’ cultural group. The music with its first two men are often labeled makeshift instruments “outsider artists”—meaning being humble tools of that their art is made in a labor: washtubs and social, historical, and broom handles—and cultural vacuum—but are eventually evolving actually part of an artistic into the pride of legacy that has survived for American music, rock centuries in forms such as ’n’ roll. However, the

“yard shows,” root Thornton Dial (b. 1928). Creation Story. 2003. Clothing, carpet, story of African sculptures, assemblages, steel, enamel, spray paint, and Splash Zone on canvas on American music has and, of course, quiltmaking. wood. 67 X 91 X 5 in. been widely told. The

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Gee’s Benders’ other fundamental means of attending school only during agricultural off- expressing themselves and their heritage seasons. Even Mary Lee's daughter-in-law through acts of necessity was in their Louisiana Pettway Bendolph recalls such a quiltmaking. This story is still emerging into childhood, and she was not born until 1960. public awareness. Electricity, central heating, indoor plumbing, television, washing machines, and other As virtually every elderly Gee's Bend amenities common to most American quiltmaker says, they started quilting when households did not arrive until recent decades, they were between the ages of and even today not everyone in nine and twelve, and were the Bend has all of these taught by their mothers or other amenities. elder female relatives. Mary Lee Bendolph learned to quilt when In Louisiana Pettway Bendolph's she was twelve from her youth, only two locals owned mother, Aolar Mosely; later cars, which explains why the Mary Lee taught her daughter, sudden revocation of the ferry Essie B. Pettway, when Essie service to Camden, the county was approximately twelve. Now seat, during the Civil Rights Essie is also an acclaimed artist, movement was such a blow— whose quilts are included in all the ferry had reduced to a the major Gee’s Bend quilt handful of miles the eighty-mile exhibitions. roundtrip expedition overland to the voter registration site in Camden. Today, Quiltmaking was an important skill for young the quilters have cars and can access resources women to learn in preparation for like Wal-Mart for new fabrics of their choice. motherhood and in order to provide warmth However, some of the artists, including Mary and comfort to their families. Before the Lee, only like to quilt with used clothes. As she 1940s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's states, “Old clothes carry something with New Deal relief program provided Gee's them. You can feel the presence of the person Bend with new “Roosevelt houses,” many of who used to wear them. It has a spirit in the homes in Gee's Bend were constructed of them.”i She finds beauty in recycling discarded wood planks and logs sealed with mud. The things and wants that beauty to be seen and gaps in the walls and ceilings enjoyed by others. Her approach were covered by newspapers to teaches the value of discarded keep the wind and rain out. things and how a resourceful Roosevelt's relief efforts also person can surround herself with allowed Gee's Bend residents to beauty by giving unique purpose purchase the land at low interest to the possessions she already rates, which during the Great has. Depression and after was a godsend to a community By embracing and re-purposing deemed one of most cast-off things to create items of impoverished in the United beauty, Mary Lee Bendolph, like States. Despite this “leg up,” other African American artists, things were by no means easy enacts a spiritual triumph over for the Benders: from the age of Essie B. Pettway (b. 1956). the hardships of life and the twelve, Mary Lee and her peers Two‐sided quilt: Blocks [top] and "One collective history of her would work in the fields, patch" [bottom]. 1973. Cotton, community and culture. Her polyester knit, denim. 88 X 80 in 3

people, metaphorized in those discarded cannot be said to constitute a cultural materials, have been cast off by the more aesthetic—African American experiences and dominant society, but find expressive strategies are too diverse redeeming beauty and value in for that—they remain in wide themselves and make those practice, especially within the qualities visible to anyone willing to African American South, and are see them. found within other forms such as assemblage sculpture and yard art Mary Lee remembers enjoying environments. Lonnie Holley and watching her mother, her older Thornton Dial have influenced, and sister Lillie Mae, and others quilt are influenced by, Mary Lee together. She has said in interviews Bendolph and the other Gee's Bend that there is a little bit of her quiltmakers. Unlike the Gee's Bend mother's quilts in each of hers.ii quilters, who grew up in an all-black Quilt tops are designed and pieced community where they preserved by individuals, whereas groups of and passed down traditions and women often come together to philosophical approaches particular “quilt,” the process that marries to African American artmaking, together the quilt top, the backing, Dial and Holley began making art and the batting in the center on their own, with no community (Batting could be excess cotton Thornton Dial (b. 1928). Mrs. support. Mary Lee would spend her Bendolph. 2002. Clothing, “lint” from the gin floor, old bedding, carpet, enamel, and spring seasons going from house to “raggly” blankets, or cloth scraps). spray paint on canvas on house like a New York City gallery- While quiltmakers may pay homage wood. 84 X 50 X 4 in. hopper, looking at all her neighbors' to those they admire or even to quilts airing out on the clotheslines, specific quilts, a new quilt is always more of a gathering ideas for future quilts of her own, response than a direct quotation; quilts and singing the praises of quilts she admired. reinterpret the styles and designs as a product Dial, on the other hand, felt compelled to bury of the maker’s personal his art in his backyard for fear aesthetic preferences. Whereas that it might invite violence from the European American the white community. Holley quilting tradition often lauds actually suffered the loss of his the craftsperson that can art environment in 1997 when the faithfully duplicate a quilt Birmingham government declared pattern, African American imminent domain over his quiltmakers often esteem the property and then bulldozed it for woman who diverges from the an airport expansion (which, as of pattern or model in the most this writing, has not taken place), dynamic, original, and offering him minimal financial expressive way. recompense that paid no heed to the value the property held as the These aesthetic predilections art environment of a noted are linked to those of recycling, sculptor, nor to its value to the asymmetry, syncopation, bold Holley family, who had occupied geometric forms, abstract the land for generations. design, and divergence from Lonnie Holley (b. 1950). The Gold at Grandmother's Post. 1988. Washboard, perfect patterns. While these bedpost, quilt, wood, spray paint, house paint. 76 X 23 1/2 X 9 1/2 in. 4

Since their first encounter with Mary Lee incorporate fabric materials alluding to the Bendolph in 2001, Dial and Holley have process of quilting. Dial and Bendolph have created several artworks inspired by and even exchanges materials: Dial’s family would honoring Mary Lee and the send her old clothes; she quiltmakers. Both artists were would use sections of the already influenced by the fabric for her quilts and then quiltmaking tradition because send him the leftover scraps, the women who raised them which he would use in his quilted: Dial and Holley often paintings. In 2005, when Mary made art from discarded cloth, Lee went with her daughter-in- and worked in ways similar to law Louisiana P. Bendolph to the processes of African create intaglio prints at Paulsen American quilters. Holley Press, in Berkeley, California, eloquently expresses this idea in she titled one of them To describing his piece, The Gold at Honor Mr. Dial and another Grandmother's Post: “When I find Lonnie Holley's Freedom. material that has been thrown away, having no more value to Dial and the elder women nobody, I try to understand from Mary Lee's life aren't the what its first values were to the only artists to have influenced person that made it or used it.”iii her art. Bendolph's daughter- When they met Mary Lee and in-law has played an enormous learned about the community role in her art career, most Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935) tradition in Gee’s Bend, they had To Honor Mr. Dial. 2005. notably in the past two years. a renewed interest in exploring Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint and Louisiana made a few quilts in this concept further. softground etching her youth, but says she didn't Image size: 48 X 28 in. continue the tradition into adulthood because quilts were no longer Holley often seems as if he is on a mission to household essentials, and as a working wife discover and help other black vernacular artists and mother, she didn't have time for (which is how he found the previously unnecessary hobbies. However, after she went anonymous Dial). The recognition the quilters' with her family to see the first Gee's Bend have lately received brings quilt exhibition, in him joy. In fact, he has Houston, she began accompanied the Gee's having visions of quilt Bend quiltmakers on most designs. As her visions of their trips to museum persisted, her motivation exhibition openings, and to continue this tradition has created small-scale passed to her by her artworks from discarded predecessors grew, and materials he has found consequentially she along these trips. Many of became a leader of the these pieces honor woman: next generation of Gee's her roles, her strengths, her Bend quilters. She is beauty. inspired by her elders, like Mary Lee, venerating and Dial has also been inspired, Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935). Lonnie Holley's Freedom. saluting them in her creating several pieces that 2005. Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint and softground adoption of their patterns etching. Image size: 32 X 36 in. 5

(she says that her quilts all Gee's Bend, and are abstracted from there.) She is developing and exercising her own style and method of artistic interpretation that challenges and builds upon the fundamental techniques, patterns, motifs and aesthetics of her elders. Mary Lee and Louisiana always had a good relationship, but became even closer when they went to

California to make their first intaglio prints.

In an interview taken in 2006 by Matt Arnett, Mary Lee states: [Louisiana] gets the praise of her work and I get the praise of my work. But I praised her work and I got a little jealous. I said, She's young, and these patterns and ideas can fall in her mind because she is more willing and strong. That made me want to be Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935). Mama's Song. strong. It kept me going awhile. Then I told 2005. Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint and her I was going to stop, but she said, “No, you softground etching. Image size: 33 X 24 in. can't. You can't teach me by stopping. You have to go one encouraging me.” And that encouraged me. I thank her for it... 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.”

If it can be said that African American cultural practices such as quiltmaking and found-object sculpture have always coexisted, in Mary Lee Bendolph and her circle of peers that i Mary Lee Bendolph, taken from interviews by Matt coexistence has become a fully contemporary Arnett, 2006, quoted in Arnett, Cubbs, Metcalf Jr., art form, with a formal and thematic dialogue eds., Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt of its own. Practitioners of the sculpture and (Tinwood Books: Atlanta) 2006, p. 176. painting traditions—Dial and Holley—have ii Mary Lee Bendolph, interview by Joanne Cubbs, June 2006 begun to think openly and directly about their artistic cousins the quiltmakers—Mary Lee iii Lonnie Holley, quoted 1995, in Arnett, Metcalf Jr. and —who have returned eds., Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee's Bend Quilts, and the favor. What was once a nearly invisible, Beyond (Austin Museum of Art and Tinwood Books: Atlanta) 2006, p. 62 and substantially undocumented, cultural continuum has now attained a place of prominence in the creativity and philosophy of four leading exponents of these traditions. Stephanie Burak is the Manager of Art Collections and For these artists, their sense of tradition, the Director of Educational Initiatives at Tinwood Alliance. She was an Associate Editor for the Tinwood heritage, and common purpose has been Books publication, Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, immeasurably strengthened, as has their and is curator of the exhibition, A Survey of Gee’s Bend commitment to their art. Quilts.

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