ANNA LUCIA GEE’S BEND QUILTERS
Generations
GEE’S BEND
The residents of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, are direct descendants of the enslaved people who worked the cotton plantation established in 1816 by Joseph Gee.
Cultural traditions like quiltmaking were nourished by the communities from generation to generation.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, many Gee's Bend residents asserted their right to vote. In retaliation, authorities cut off the ferry that connected Gee's Bend to the nearest town across the Alabama River.
This isolation led, in part, to their participation in the Freedom Quilting Bee, a women-led workers' cooperative that brought in money and strengthened the community.
Every quilt sold by the Gee's Bend Quilt Collective is unique and individually produced.
In 2015, Gee's Bend quilters were recipients of a National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Their quilts have appears in countless museums and institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Their quilts often appear as a top fashion choice for celebrities and musicians.
Loretta Pettway, Blocks and Strips, 2005
Essie Bendolph Pettway, Lazy Gal, 1980
Lucy T. Pettway, Birds In The Air, 1975
Louisiana P. Bendolph, Housetop Variation, 2003
For Generations, Arsnl Art partnered with Refraction and Seed Club DAOs, who were instrumental at bringing this project to fruition.
Artist
Anna Lucia (1991) is a Dutch generative artist whose preferred medium is computer programming.
She writes algorithms to generate artwork, often combining mathematics and computer science concepts and systems with traditional crafts such as textile work. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Art Basel Miami (2021), Vellum LA (2022), Art Basel (2022), and the Decentral Art Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2022), among others.
Mary Margaret Pettway
Born and raised in Gee’s Bend (Boykin), Alabama, Mary Margaret Pettway is a fourth-generation quilter, and daughter of Lucy T. Pettway. She is a member of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective, founded in 2003 to promote and market quilts from the community of Gee’s Bend. She has taught quilting workshops throughout the southeast, and is a regular instructor at Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center in Camden, Alabama. In 2018 she was named an Alabama Humanities Fellow by the Alabama Humanities Foundation.
Image: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, 2020
Louisiana P. Bendolph
Louisiana P. Bendolph (1960) was twelve years old when she made her first quilt, a “Housetop,” fashioned from children’s clothing scraps. In 2002, she went to Houston for the opening of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibit. She was shocked to see her quilt in the museum and deeply affected by seeing the works of her mother, grandmother, and aunts. Although she had previously given up quilting, she began having visions of quilts which kept coming until she could no longer ignore them.
Image: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, 2020
Loretta Pettway Bennett
Loretta Pettway Bennett (1956), like most girls in Gee’s Bend, learned to quilt from the women around her. Bennett frequently draws her patterns first on paper and colors them with crayons. She then pieces the patterns into quilts with old clothes she gathers from family, friends, and thrift stores, continuing the Gee’s Bend ethos of creative reuse. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Legacy Museum.
Image: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, 2020
Lucy T. Pettway
Lucy T. Pettway (1921-2004), known as “Lunky,” made quilts for seven decades. As she walked to and from the fields each workday, she carried a pencil and paper in her pocket to sketch ideas and would often take cloth scraps to the fields to create quilt blocks during her break. Pettway rarely repeated herself. She conspicuously sought to explore almost every pattern known to her and personalized it with her precise interpretation. She is represented by her daughter, quiltmaker Mary Margaret Pettway.
Image: David Raccuglia, 2000
Essie Bendolph Pettway
Essie Bendolph Pettway (1956) is a quilter who works as a seamstress. When she comes home, she continues to sew, but with the pleasure of creativity. Essie says that sewing at home gives her peace of mind and a challenge. She makes quilts, pillows, curtains, bedspreads, dresses, and clothes for her children.
Image: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, 2020
IN THE PRESS
FAQ
Both Anna Lucia and the quilters are accomplished artists in each of their respective fields. When they decided to come together, the quilters began by teaching Anna their seed patterns, which then informed how Anna create her random seed patterns. Anna and the quilters refined this algorithm via Zoom calls and emails over the course of a year to create the perfect artistic outputs. Over a hundred thousands digital outputs were generated. At the end of this process, the quilters hand-selected and curated their favorite digital works, which were limited to 300 unique outputs (75 from each quilter) and 40 sets of 5 (4 of each quilter and a special album quilt that depicts the sets).
Part of our agreement with the quilters is that they were able to quilt the NFTs, returning the project full circle: from physical to digital and digital back to physical.
The quilters also asked Arsnl to represent the sales of the physical source quilts — aka, the physical quilts that were used to help generate these generations.
The Gee's Bend organization negotiated the final business and charitable elements for each of the digital and physical quilts. The IP rights of Gee's Bend are represented by Artist Rights Society, of which ARSNL is the exclusive digital platform.
If you are interested in acquiring a set or a physical quilt, please email hello@arsnl.art.
Like the Stella Geometries, sets are more limited. They are specially curated thematic works. Each set contains 4 artworks inspired from each of the 4 quilters, as well as a special "album" quilt that ties together the thematic aspect of the set. Thus, a set is 5 total artworks - all unique. No two sets or albums are alike. Sets can be acquired now, before our sale date. They cost $1800 (1 eth). Please email us at hello@arsnl.art if you are interested.
An album quilt is a special digital artwork that represents a collection of quilts. They have a different type of pattern, containing quilts within quilts. They tie together the thematic aspect of a set. Each is unique.
Album quilts can only be acquired with the purchase of a set.
Yes! We are offering physical legacy quilts that were used as inspiration for the NFTs, as well as a digital/physical quilt hybrid. Please email hello@arsnl.art for pricing.
Yes! Mary Margaret has offered to hand-quilt your unique NFT. Please see the Onesheet with further pricing details.
Yes! Each digital artwork grants you rights to print and quilt the artwork for personal use.
Yes. Arsnl Collectors are those who hold a Frank Stella Geometry or a Siebren Versteeg For a Limited Time artwork. Holders will be automatically added to our allowlist and given priority treatment over other allowlist methods. Please visit the following OpenSea links to purchase a Geometry or For a Limited Time canvas. The cut off period to be a holder is May 14th.
If your Stella or Versteeg collection is in your cold wallet and you plan to use a different wallet to participate in the current sale, you can link your cold wallet on this website.
Just click the index link, connect via your hot wallet that you will use to buy the Generations artwork, then go to your user profile page and under “Alternative Wallet” enter your cold wallet. This creates the association between your hot wallet and cold wallet. You will need to do this before the cut off on May 14th.