The Quilts of Gee's Bend.

by John Beardsley, William Arnett, Paul Arnett, Jane Livingston introduction by Alvia Wordlow; forward by peter Marzio Tinwood Books, December 2002 $45.00, ISBN 0-965-37664-8

It isn't the first book about quilts, but it may be the most important one. Gee's Bend, Alabama, a community of about 700 people, has existed as a tiny hamlet virtually cut off from modern society for much of this century. In this isolated township, the women of Gee's Bend have created some incredibly artistic and unique quilts. Though many of the quilt-makers worked their entire lives as sharecroppers, their designs are individualistic and experimental in composition, in a quilting tradition that is distinctively African-American.

The Quilts of Gee's Bend doesn't give you patterns or tell you how to replicate quilts. This coffee-table book does an excellent job of framing these unusual pieces of art against photos of the quilter; thus giving a detailed history of Gee's Bend against the backdrop of America's history. The book explores the lives of more than 40 quilters, and their stories of survival and independence dating back to slavery.

During FDR's administration, the nation first cast its gaze toward Gee's Bend as part of a program to chronicle poverty in rural America. Roy Stryker, who would become the head of the Farm Security Administration (FSA)--the agency nurtured what would become some of the country's best-known photographers, including Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange and John Vachon--sent documentary photographers to the Alabama town. What they found were people living in primitive cabins in which no two rooms shared a common wall, yet the families residing inside were intact and self-sufficient. The black-and-white photographs taken by the FSA photographers are paired with more recent color images of the community and its people.

Gee's Bend became known for quilting during the mid-1960s when the women set up the Freedom Quilting Bee to help out the town when it fell on hard times.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Gee's Bend before his march to Selma and spoke to the townspeople; some of the residents even joined him in the march. When King was assassinated, mules from Gee's Bend were used to pull King's casket in the procession through the streets of Atlanta.

Through decades of social and political turmoil, the women quilted--as many as four generations in some families maintained the tradition, creating their own characteristic styles. Their isolation contributed to the distinctiveness of the quilts, which were often made of old clothes.

Missouri Pettway (1902-1981) is one of the women profiled in the book. She made a colorful quilt from the work-clothes of her late husband and used the quilt to surround herself with his essence after he died. Another quilter, Annie Mae Young, who was born in 1928, created a starkly different tapestry of wildly colorful, tiny rosettes individually made, then pieced together.

About 70 quilts made by the women of Gee's Bend from the 1930s to 1990s are part of a traveling exhibit, which was recently displayed at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

"These quilts are outstanding examples of a great American art form," notes Debra Singer, the Whitney's associate curator of contemporary art, in a press release. "Reflecting an extraordinarily painterly approach to working with textiles, the quilts are of unique historical importance as they trace quilting traditions and innovations handed down for four generations. The work transcends the outdated, residual boundaries between art and craft."

--Anita Womack is a writer and film-maker based in Brooklyn, New York.