Louisiana Bendolph, "Housetop"
Each time that the Gee’s Bend Quilters had an opening at a museum, Barbara Barran would have a trunk show of her rugs based on their designs. Barbara went to Gee’s Bend to present her ideas to the Quilt Collective, and to sign an agreement to use the designs under license. The quilters retain the copyright to all of their work.
Barbara Barran has been working with the Gee’s Bend Quilters since 2003. She has shown and sold their work at over 25 US museums, paying the quilters a royalty for the use of their designs. She has visited Gee’s Bend, AL, several times and stayed at the home of Ruth Kennedy and Lucy Mingo, shown standing in front of the Quilt Collective.. Working with the quilters has been the highlight of her design career.
Custom Gee’s Bend Quilt designs and sizes are available. For more information, please write to info@Classicrug.com or call us at 718-768-3338.
100 knot Hand-knotted New Zealand wool rug. Made in India.
About Gee’s Bend
The women of Gee’s Bend—a small, remote, Black community in Alabama—have created hundreds of quilt masterpieces dating from the early twentieth century to the present. Resembling an inland island, Gee’s Bend is surrounded on three sides by the Alabama River. Some seven hundred or so inhabitants of this small, rural community are mostly descendants of slaves, and for generations, they worked the fields belonging to the local Pettway plantation. Enlivened by a visual imagination that extends the expressive boundaries of the quilt genre, these astounding creations constitute a crucial chapter in the history of American art.