Visiting quilter shares regional history

Mary Lee Bendolph (right), a celebrated quilter from Gee’s Bend, Ala., and Matt Arnett, a documentary filmmaker from the Tinwood Foundation, discussed Bendolph’s quilts at a presentation Nov. 17 at Old College.

4:04 p.m., Nov. 21, 2005--Mary Lee Bendolph, a celebrated quilter from Gee’s Bend, Ala., and Matt Arnett, a documentary filmmaker from the Tinwood Foundation, discussed Bendolph’s quilts at a presentation Thursday afternoon, Nov. 17, at Old College.

Speaking to an audience of approximately 20 UD students, staff and quilters from the Newark community, Bendolph showed some of her quilts, including one that she pieced together as a 12-year-old in 1947.

“When I started quilting at 12,” Bendolph said, “I just put pieces together, sewing that piece there to that piece there. I didn’t know what I was doing; I was just trying to keep warm.”

Bendolph, who grew up in Gee’s Bend, a small, rural, all-black community in southern Alabama, said that she learned the craft of quilting from her mother, who, like all the women of Gee’s Bend at the time, made quilts strictly for utilitarian purposes, from utilitarian materials.

“We didn’t have anything, and that’s still the way it is,” Bendolph said. “My mama sat in the yard sewing pieces together without a pattern, using worn-out clothes and things given to us.”

Even well-loved quilts long past their prime got recycled, Bendolph said, giving rise to the adage, “Every quilt remembers the quilt that was made before it.”

Bendolph, who is a member of the recently formed Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective, an organization of more than 50 Gee’s Bend Quilters that sells and markets the regional quilts, said that even in the wake of the recent publicity for the Gee’s Bend quilts, they are still made to be functional rather than decorative.

“I’ve probably made more than 100 quilts, and I’m just happy to make things people can use and enjoy,” she said. “Every time I sew a piece together, if it looks good, I leave it, and if it doesn’t, I turn it around. I’m not making any art; I just want to keep people warm.”

What does make the quilts of Gee’s Bend so special, Bendolph said, is the spirit that goes into their making.

“Some [quilts] are beautiful and some are warm,” Bendolph said, “and we put praise in them all. When we make a quilt, we pray and read the Bible, and sometimes we sing hymns. And when I sew alone, I talk to the Lord and I know the Lord is in the quilt. I know love is in our quilts.”

Because of marketing strides made by the collective, every quilt sold now bears the quilter’s signature and is labeled with a serial number, ensuring that a traditional art form is preserved while the skilled artisans get compensated fairly for their craftsmanship.

In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston held an exhibition of 70 quilt masterpieces from Gee’s Bend, which subsequently received international acclaim and media coverage on National Public Radio, Newsweek and several other mainstream media outlets.

A second major exhibition and tour of Gee’s Bend quilts will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in 2006.

Bendolph and Arnett’s visit coincided with the current quilt exhibition, Quilt Voices, at Old College, as part of the show’s programming.

Quilt Voices, which showcases contemporary quilts from different regions and cultures, will run through Friday, Dec. 9, in the University Gallery at Old College.

For more information, call (302) 831-8003.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photo by Sarah Simon, AS ‘06

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