“What if your baby is cold?”

Louisiana Bendolph stood quietly just outside the eighty-first street entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday morning waiting for the Museum to open. A few of us were there to spend the day participating in a Studio Workshop entitled, “Design and Construction: A Quilting Workshop.” It was suggested we bring fabric and those of us carrying totes bulging with material could be clearly identified as participants. Louisiana, a member of the Gee Bend Quilters Collective had traveled to New York from Mobile, Alabama to lead the workshop.
History Refused to Die, Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift* is an exhibition currently on view at the Met (through September 23, 2018) that includes paintings, sculptures, drawings and quilts by self-taught contemporary African American artists from the American South. The quilts in the exhibition were created by members of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective in Alabama.
My interest in spending the day with Louisiana came from my appreciation for the art in the exhibition. I had found myself drawn to History Refused to Die over the last several weeks and returned several times. Thornton Dial’s sculptures are as riveting as Rauschenberg’s combines. In fact, one of Rauschenberg’s well-known pieces includes a patchwork quilt given to him by the artist Dorothea Rockburne. The subtle colors in the Gee Bend’s quilts on display remind one of Rothko’s paintings.
Yet the artists in this exhibition were, and many still are, working in the rural South in small economically challenged communities and hamlets. Their art isn’t influenced by trends, or travels to galleries in Europe or New York. These sculptures are constructed in backyards, behind cabins and mostly hidden from view. The tires, scraps of carpet, rocks, metal and other materials used in the constructions are all found objects. The quilts were made for warmth and comfort.
The Gee Bend quilts are stitched from worn fabric and designed without the repeating patterns found in more traditional and what might be considered precious quilts. Gee Bend quilts are made from faded indigo denim, colorful pieces of corduroy remaining from a commercial project for Sears, Roebuck and Company or the clothes of a deceased family member. The designs are improvisations and bring to mind the riff coming from a trumpet in a small jazz club. If there is a narrative it is intentionally not pictorial. In Louisiana’s words, “I don’t do things straight. … there is respect for worn things.” In one of the curator’s descriptions of a quilt it is suggested that one of the squares represents the main house and the others the smaller cabins of the workers on what might have been a plantation. A subtle thought that would be apparent to only a few people.

In the rural south quilts were made to be used. Often the lining might be a quilt that is worn out. Women, who made a living by picking cotton, would stay at home when it rained and if they weren’t at school they might be quilting.
With most sewing projects, one begins with a grid and plan: fabric, color, design and size are factored in. Working under Louisiana’s watchful eye we were told to focus on experimentation and creativity. As this was my first attempt at quilting I began by overthinking the process. Louisiana noticed my frustration. “Just sew.”
My Soul Has Grown Deep, Black Art from the American South, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2018) with essays by Cheryl Finley, Randall R. Griffey, Amelia Peck and Darryl Pinckney, was published to accompany History Refused to Die. Daryl Pinckney’s essay ends with the thought: “But the history still tells us that the sheer existence of this art was not predicted, and maybe that is the most important thing history can tell us about it.”
As the workshop was ending, Louisiana walked around the studio to look at our work. Studying mine with her quiet eyes she asked, in a gentle voice, “What’s next?” I wasn’t sure, and told her I was out of fabric that seemed to work with the direction my piece was taking.
“What if your child was cold and you didn’t have any money. Then how would you finish the quilt?” She took a few pieces of fabric piled on the floor and framed it around what I had made.
Thinking of the many refugees struggling across the world, and the individuals who are homeless, her words will remain in my mind.
“What if your baby was cold and you didn’t have any money. Then what would you do?”

*Souls Grown Deep Foundation is dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting the contributions of artists from the African American South, and the cultural traditions in which they are rooted. The mission is advanced by advocating for the contributions of these artists in the canon of American art history, accomplished through collection transfers, scholarship, exhibitions, education, public programs, and publications.