This documentary film by Rita Mae Pettway and Louisiana P. Bendolph, Making a Gee’s Bend Quilt the Old Way, 2024, is screened as part of Living Canvas at IMMA to link with and mark the closing of the exhibition Kith & Kin, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, which runs in the Courtyard Galleries until 27 October 2025. Kith & Kin features the work of African American women from a small Alabama community whose textile works have become symbols of Black empowerment and cultural pride, celebrating African American culture and heritage.
The screening is also programmed to coincide with Black History Month. Black History Month is an annual celebration of the history, lives and culture of the African diaspora, celebrated in Ireland and UK throughout the month of October.
About the work
Rita Mae Pettway & Louisiana P. Bendolph
Making a Gee’s Bend Quilt the Old Way, 2024
39:35 minutes
Commissioned by Souls Grown Deep
In Gee’s Bend, Alabama, USA, a community that directly descends from those enslaved on the cotton plantation established there, the rich quiltmaking tradition was originally born out of a need to keep warm in unheated homes during the winter months. Due to the scarcity of resources, the majority of quilts well into the twentieth century were made out of old work-clothes and other used materials such as fertilizer and flour sacks. Even as a wider variety of cheap fabric became available in the second half of the twentieth century, the recycling of old materials continues to be a central tenet of quiltmaking in Gee’s Bend.
Still, Rita Mae Pettway notes, ‘The way we used to quilt them, it ain’t the way we do it now.’ Making a Gee’s Bend Quilt the Old Way marks the first time the process of creating a Gee’s Bend quilt using traditional methods from the early to mid-twentieth century has been fully documented – from beating the cotton to stitching the quilt top by hand. In this film, mother and daughter Rita Mae Pettway and Louisiana P. Bendolph share their family and community’s story, demonstrate and explain their artistic approach in detail, and reflect on how their methods differ from those commonly used today. Working together side-by-side, their collaboration illustrates the strength of a matrilineal tradition, one in which the passing down of aesthetic knowledge and skills across generations has been essential to the continued vitality of the Gee’s Bend tradition to this day.
About the artists
Rita Mae Pettway (b. 1941) was raised in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, by her grandmother, Annie E. Pettway,who taught her how to quilt as a child. Now in her eighties, she has been quiltmaking ever since she completed the first quilt of her own at the age of fourteen. Like her grandmother, she embraces an improvisational approach, avoiding patterns in favour of her own artistic vision and intuition—resulting in highly original and colourful pieces. As Pettway puts it, “I want to come up with what I want to make.” Her work is held in permanent collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, and the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH.
Louisiana P. Bendolph (b. 1960) is the daughter of Rita Mae Pettway and the great granddaughter of Annie E. Pettway, both notable quiltmakers. Having completed her first quilt at the age of twelve, Bendolph was inspired to return to quiltmaking in adulthood after being deeply moved by seeing quilts made by her relatives and community in the landmark 2002 exhibition The Quilts of Gee’s Bend at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. With a preference for new, store-bought fabrics over recycled materials, colour is the most important aspect of Bendolph’s artistic process, much like her mother. Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.
