“Flower Garden” by Arlonzia Pettway

In 2003, quilts made by women working in Boykin, Alabama—known as Gee’s Bend—caused a sensation when they were exhibited across the country in major museums, including the High Museum of Art. The High began collecting the quilts of Gee’s Bend at that time, but in 2017, a milestone acquisition from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which included this vibrant Flower Garden quilt by Arlonzia Pettway (American, 1923–2008), quadrupled the Museum’s holdings of Gee’s Bend textiles.

In this video, Katherine Jentleson, Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art, discusses Pettway’s use of fabrics that were difficult to work with, including corduroy to make the patches and borders of the quilts. Corduroy became more widely available in Gee’s Bend after many quilters including Pettway participated in the Freedom Quilting Bee sponsored by Sears, Roebuck in nearby Alberta, Alabama, in 1972. Pettway preserved leftover corduroy to use in future quilts like this one, mastering the difficulty of working with this stiff fabric.

See Flower Garden on view on the Wieland Pavilion Skyway Level, Gallery 407, where a wide array of approaches to still life by artists both trained and untrained are presented. The work is one of over 18,000 in our rotating collection. They’re all here for you!

Visit the High Museum: https://high.org/