San Diego People of Color QUILT GUILD

Photo Credit By: Monique Martin

On February 23, 2019, I went to a quilt show at the Malcolm X Library, called the "The San Diego People of Color Quilt Guild". Every quilt was sew unique, sew beautiful, and sew well put together. I was amazed at the amazing talents. The women were so creative with their designs you can see all the love and beautiful details in each quilt.

There were several quilts that stood out but there was one in particular that I couldn't take me eyes off. “The Underground Railroad Quilt “.  This quilt is called “The Underground Railroad because it was a unique way to helped slaves escape. Each block had a unique shape that was a secret code. The blocks were put together to map out the way to freedom. Here’s the background story about it...

Photo Credit By: Google

Although most slaves did not know how to read, this quilt was design so they can understand exactly what to do and not get caught; and we all know what the repercussions of that was. But, the quilt was so secretively designed the slave masters did not know what was going on, the codes were hidden in plain view. 

I think this was an AMAZING idea to help the slaves escape to freedom. I had no clue about this AMAZING quilt until I attended this quilt show. I just might put one together myself. What a great part of Black History! I am looking forward to what I will discover at the next quilt show this year 😊. 

These pix are just a few I've taken at the show. 

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

"The Underground Railroad Quilt"Quilted By: Mrs. Rosemae Dyer

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

Photo Credit by: Monique Martin

Here are some books you can read about The Underground Railroad Quilt:

• The Secret to Freedom By: Marcia Vaughan, Illustrated by: Larry Johnson 
• Under The Quilt of Night By: Deborah Hopkinson 
• The Underground Railroad Quilt Code with activities for the Patchwork Path By: Blue Ridge Second Grade Days

You can also visit your local Museum of African American Culture for any other unknown and interesting Black History Exhibits.

Hope you enjoyed this blog.😊

The History of Gee's Bend Quilting

Collective History

Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850. After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.

The "Quilts of Gee’s Bend" exhibition has received tremendous international acclaim, beginning at its showing in Houston, then at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the other museums on its twelve-city American tour. Newsweek, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, Art in America, CBS News Sunday Morning, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the Martha Stewart Living television show, House and Garden, Oprah’s O magazine, and Country Home magazine are among the hundreds of print and broadcast media organizations that have celebrated the quilts and the history of this unique town. Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works of important artists such as Henri Matisse and Paul Klee. The New York Times called the quilts "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced." The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is currently preparing a second major museum exhibition and tour of Gee’s Bend quilts, to premiere in 2006.

In 2003, with assistance from the Tinwood organizations, all the living quilters of Gee’s Bend — more than fifty women — founded the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective to serve as the exclusive means of selling and marketing the quilts being produced by the women of the Bend. The Collective is owned and operated by the women of Gee’s Bend. Every quilt sold by the Gee’s Bend Quilt Collective is unique, individually produced, and authentic — each quilt is signed by the quilter and labeled with a serial number. Rennie Young Miller of Gee’s Bend is the Collective’s president.

Allie Pettway

Housetop, 1970-1975

Lola Pettway

Housetop Variation, 2002

Lucy Witherspoon

Housetop, 1985p

Reference

www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/history.html

http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/quilts/index.html