"Quilts of Gee's Bend" Exhibited in Vanadzor, Gyumri and Yerevan"Quilts of Gee's Bend" Exhibited in Vanadzor, Gyumri and Yerevan

March 18, 2005

March 18, Ambassador Evans opened an exhibit of "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" at the Academia Gallery in Yerevan, the last stop on a tour that brought these examples of the renowned artistry of a community of African-American women in Gee's Bend, Alabama, to Gyumri and Vanadzor over the past two weeks. The exhibition has been shown with international acclaim at major art museums across the United States, but is appearing overseas for the first time.

"The craftsmanship on display from this small community is just one example of the huge contribution that women and African Americans have made to America's cultural heritage," Ambassador Evans said at the opening.

March 12 and 13, the "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," were exhibited at the Gyumri Museum of National Architecture and Urban Life, March 15 & 16, they moved to the Fine Arts Museum in Vanadzor, and March 18-20, they were displayed in Yerevan. Entrance was free to the general public.

Karen Musgrave, a professional quilt maker, curator and lecturer, gave a presentation at the official opening in Yerevan, and has given several talks over the past week to groups of local students, community members, and Armenian artists in Gyumri, Vanadzor, and Yerevan.

Gee's Bend is a small rural community located in southwest Alabama on a sliver of land five miles long and eight miles wide, an island surrounded by a bend in the Alabama River. Gee's Bend was the site of cotton plantations, owned by the families of Joseph Gee and Mark Pettway, and were worked by slave labor. Most of the approximately 750 people who live in Gee's Bend today are descendants of slaves. After the Civil War, when slavery was abolished, the freed slaves rented the land from the Pettways, took their family name, and founded an all-black community that was very isolated from the surrounding world.

Throughout American history, quilting has provided generations of women with an outlet to express their creativity and skill. A quilt is a layered blanket, with a front and a back, and stuffing in the middle for extra warmth. Though traditions of quilting span many centuries, civilizations and cultures, "pieced" quilts, which have tops decorated with strips of cloth in a range of colors and fabrics, originated in colonial America.

In 2002, the first exhibition of these quilt masterpieces was organized at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The "Quilts of Gee's Bend" also traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as other museums in a twelve-city U.S. tour. The exhibition achieved tremendous international acclaim. Hundreds of print and broadcast media organizations that have celebrated the quilts and the history of Gee's Bend. Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.

In 2003, with assistance from Tinwood organizations, all the living quilters of Gee's Bend - more than fifty women - founded the Gee's Bend Quilters Collective to exhibit, market and sell the quilts being produced by the women of the Bend.

In 2005 the Quilts of Gee's Bend will travel overseas for the first time, to be exhibited in Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan.