The quilts of Gee’s Bend

Gee’s Bend quilts

The quilts of Gee’s Bend

Transcript

NARRATOR: Gee’s Bend, a small, poor town in Alabama, is making big news in the art world. The big news is quilts- beautiful covers for the bed to keep people warm at night. Now these quilts are in museums; these quilts are works of art. They look like paintings by modern artists. The women in Gee’s Bend didn’t think their quilts were art. They just made the quilts to stay warm. But these women work just like artists. They decide how to put all the pieces together, always in new and different ways. The quilts are really beautiful-and unusual. Why? Because the people in Gee’s Bend don’t have much money. They can’t buy expensive material. So they make their quilts with material from old clothes, like old jeans and shirts.

ELDERLY WOMAN 1: In Gee’s Bend, we don’t throw any clothes away-oh no! We use everything in our quilts.

NARRATOR: One woman made a quilt with her husband’s old work clothes. They were the only things she had to remember him.

ELDERLY WOMAN 2: After he died, I took all his shirts and pants, and I made a quilt with them to keep him near me. I can’t believe that quilt’s in a museum now. A museum! Those clothes were old. My husband wore them outside, working on the farm, our potato farm.

MIDDLE – AGED WOMAN: I was 17 when my father died, and my Mama said, “Come here and help me cut up all your Daddy’s old clothes:’ I remember they had all these different blue and brown colors: dark colors from inside the pockets, and light colors from the outside. Those clothes were so old, but she made them look beautiful in that quilt.

ELDERLY WOMAN 1: To make a quilt, you cut the material into pieces, and then you put them all on the floor. You put the pieces this way and that. You see how the colors look together. Then you take another piece, and another. You don’t have a plan, really. That’s why we call some of these “Crazy Quilts.” (laughs) You just keep adding and changing the pieces until they all look good
together. Then, the women-your sisters, daughters, granddaughters-we all help to put the pieces together and make the quilt. Most evenings, we sit together and sew the quilt and we sing, and we talk …

NARRATOR: In Gee’s Bend, the older women teach the younger women to make quilts, and they teach them about their families.

ELDERLY WOMAN 2: My great-grandmother came from Africa. She made a quilt with all the colors of Africa. And when I was very little, every day she said, “Come on now, sit down and eat your lunch on this quilt. Let me tell you my story. Listen to the story of my life:’

NARRATOR: Grandmothers teaching granddaughters, mothers teaching daughters- working together for years. In Gee’s Bend, a very poor town, the art is rich.

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