From Gee’s Bend to the Mennonites

It makes sense that Zrebiec started with the work-clothes quilts; because they don't reflect the architectonic character referred to in the exhibit's subtitle, The Architecture of the Quilt, she needed to get them out of the way. The most important pieced forms for the Gee's Bend quilters are called "house tops," essentially a square within squares that is a simplified version of the common "log cabin" piecing seen in many quilts. In truth, though, the shapes aren't actual squares, since the Gee's Bend quilters didn't use measurement devices, and the quilts are sometimes barely rectangular at all.

The huge gallery that unfolds beyond features the bold abstraction that comes from the house-tops pattern and its many variations. A very interesting group of quilts, done in corduroy, represents a link from the outside world to Gee's Bend back in the '70s. A civil rights project called the Freedom Quilting Bee had Sears supply bolts of fabric to African-American women in the South who would make pillows and other hand-sewn items out of them, which were then sold through the store. The colors — mustard yellow, avocado green and orange-y red, are right off the set of That '70s Show — yet these quilts resemble African textiles more than any of the others. Three of them, Nettie Jane Kennedy's "Basket Weave," Geraldine Westbrook's "Housetop variation," and "Roman Stripes variation," by Ma Willie Abrams, underscore the graphic power of the architectonic approach to fabric piecing, with the strong retro colors bolstering their boldness.

The final phase of the show has some of the weirdest and most theatrical quilts, including one made from worn out basketball uniforms laid next to one another, with the neck, leg and arm holes filled with fabric. They were done outside Gee's Bend, in an even smaller nearby settlement.

Exhibition-goers exit in the elevator lobby, making it super-convenient to zip up to the Neusteter Gallery on the sixth floor to catch Amish & Mennonite Quilts, which Zrebiec put together herself. These quilts, originally assembled by Henry and Jill Barber and now in the DAM's collection, were also created in ethnically homogenous towns that were isolated culturally, if not physically, from their neighbors. But the quilts couldn't be more different from the Gee's Bend ones. Technically, they are precise, with rigidly straight lines and fanatically even stitching, characteristics not seen at all in the Gee's Bend quilts. And the fabrics used by the Amish and the Mennonite quilters are finer and were new when they were cut, sewn and pieced.

An even more emphatic difference is the deep, rich colors used, even in one intended for a child, such as "Nine Patch in Diamond," an anonymously made Black Top Amish crib cover that's done in green, sky blue, rose, purple and other shades. It's like a pattern painting, and yet it was done in the 1930s, before the first of those were even thought up.

The painting-ness of quilts is especially profoundly felt when they are assembled for exhibits, making the art-ness of them undeniable. I dare you to walk into either of these DAM quilt exhibits and come to any other conclusion.