Recycling old fabrics in to intricate design quilts

16 Apr '08

2 min read

Artists from a small community in America are from generations recycling old clothes and sheets in to quilts with intricate designs and geometrical prints.

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.

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 artists of the community had adopted recycling methods even before the word became fashionable for environmentalists. These artists used old clothes, denims, corduroys and discarded fabrics to design quilts.

It is a work of art that has passed down since six generations and is kept alive by a few spirited women of the community.

The quilts are designed in strong geometric forms giving looks of Housetops, Log Cabins and Bricklayer styles, with patterns similar to the way roofs and walls are constructed.

Examples of less free-form patterns includes a quilt comparable to a map of a homestead, from big house to cabins, the river to one side and fields to another.

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.

qiults of geebend

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