Textile artist and historian Allyson Allen speaks to the Fine Arts Foundation on April 17, 2019 about Traditional and Modern: Quilts of Gee’s Bend and Civil Rights Movement.
The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River. The quilts of Gee's Bend are considered to be unique, and one of the most important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the history of art within the United States. Arlonzia Pettway, Annie Mae Young and Mary Lee Bendolph are among some of the most notable quilters from Gee’s Bend.
Allyson Allen, who first learned to sew as a child from her mother and an older sister, has taught quilting in many settings including women’s shelters, public and private schools, and in as many as three different prison institutions for the California Youth Authority. Allyson has continued the family tradition by teaching her nieces, Krysta and Madison Wright, to quilt while imparting important lessons in family and African American history.
Learn more about the Fine Arts Foundation at www.scripps-faf.org.