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Black Craftspeople Digital Archive

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Black Craftspeople Digital Archive

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Exhibits

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Quiltmaking has been passed down through generatio

Quiltmaking has been passed down through generations of women of Gee's Bend, Alabama. Offically named Boykin, the community is considered isolated because of a sharp bend in the Alabama River. Gee's Bend is named after white enslaver Joseph Gee, who started a cotton plantation on the north side of the river. His nephews later sold the plantation to white enslaver Mark H. Pettway. The Pettway surname remains common in Gee's Bend because families stayed around the plantation after Emancipation. Generations of women in Gee's Bend crafted quilts, a practice still occurring today. Stories of enslaved women carefully piecing together scraps of cloth in order to make blankets date the practice back to the 1800s. Many families became tenant farmers after Emancipation. In the 1930s, the widow of a businessman who loaned money to community members demanded an immediate repayment. During the Civil Rights movement, county officials ended ferry service over the river, effectively cutting off Gee's Bend residents and preventing them from voting. The long history of Gee's Bend is represented in the many quilts Gee's Bend women have crafted. Art collector William Arnett found a photograph of a quilt when researching African American vernacular art. In 1998, he drove to Gee's Bend and offered thousands of dollars to Annie Mae Young, the woman who created the quilt. From then on, the quilts of Gee's Bend have been collected and exhibited at fine arts institutions. Women in the community continue quilting, especially through their Gee's Bend Quilting Collective, and even inspired new generations of Gee's Bend women and descendants to begin the practice. According to the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, the quilts can be divided into five types: abstraction/improvisation, housetop/bricklayer, patterns/geometry, Sears corduroy, and work clothes.
For more information see: John Beardsley, "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2002; Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Anatomy of a Quilt: The Gee's Bend Freedom Quilting Bee," Southern Cultures 10 (2004): 88-98; William Arnett, "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt," Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2006; (cont. in comments)

#ObjectOfTheDay Alison Saar, Harriet Tubman Memori

#ObjectOfTheDay
Alison Saar, Harriet Tubman Memorial, 2007. New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
#WomensHistoryMonth

Lois Mailou Jones was born in Boston, Massachusett

Lois Mailou Jones was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1905. During her high school years at the High School of Practical Arts in Boston, she also attended night classes at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Initially, Jones began crafting in costume design and African mask making. She received her degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Art with a focus on design. However, in 1928 she began attending Howard University where she began painting. Early in her career, Jones started teaching art at the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina. She later became a professor in the Art Department at Howard University where she focused on design and water colors, which she is best known for. In 1937, she traveled to Paris to complete a fellowship at the Académie Julian. Jones also traveled to Haiti, where she was a visiting professor at the Centre D'Art and Foyer des Artes Plastiques. Her career as an artist, designer, and teacher spanned seventy years. Her work included portraits of every day African Americans, landscapes from her travels in Europe, and social commentaries on the intersectionality of race and gender in the U.S. Many of her students went on to have impactful careers of their own, including Alma Thomas and Elizabeth Catlett.
For more information see: Rebecca VanDiver, "Designing a New Tradition: Lois Mailou Jones and the Aesthetics of Blackness," University Park: Penn State University Press, 2020; David C. Driskell, "A Tribute: Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998), American Art 12 (1998): 86-89; J. Tyson, "New Vistas: Lois Mailou Jones' and James Porter's American Modernisms," The International Review of African American Art 27 (2017): 17-24.
Image 1: Lois Mailou Jones, "Les Fétiches," 1938, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1990.56; Image 2: Lois Mailou Jones, "Self Portrait," 1940, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006.24.2; Image 3: Lois Mailou Jones, "Arreau, Hautes-Pyrénées", 1949, National Museum of Women in the Arts; Image 4: Lois Mailou Jones, "Ubi Girl from Tai Region," 1972, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1974.410.

#FromTheArchive As we get ready to launch the Tenn

#FromTheArchive
As we get ready to launch the Tennessee portion of the archive, we are putting the final touches on the digital map to include craftspeople from across the state. Part of our research process included reading through the 1870 United States Federal Census for the city of Nashville. Thankfully, we found this great map at the Tennessee State Library and Archives that breaks down where each census ward was located for that census year so we can see where craftspeople lived throughout the city. We are so excited to share our Tennessee research, both through the archive and through the interactive digital map. Stay tuned the next coming weeks for more sneak peaks and our official launch date!

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The contents of The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive are available for research, educational purposes, and private study only. Images used are either in the public domain or used with permission.

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