GEE'S BEND, or, the ALABAMABLOG
- quentinberoud
- May 11
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 26
The first thing to know about Gee’s Bend is, it’s rural. Not like quaint little English village with a tea shop rural. Rural-rural. Get to Alberta, a tiny hamlet on Country Road 29, turn off, and keep driving another 15 miles, and you’re there. It’s surrounded on 3 sides by the Mississippi river, and there’s only one road in and out. There’s a boat across the river to Camden (no leather market here), which runs several times a day, taking some of the fewer-than-five-hundred to work, but still… it's out of the way. The road kinda has to be seen to be believed:
Small Alabama towns have an impenetrability about them. No door is open, the gas stations look closed, there are no shops or bars. It takes a few days to realise that doors are only closed to keep in the air-con, the gas station serves delicious home-cooked food, and there is a bar, it’s just not called that. It’s a Juke Joint, and the way to tell which one it is: it’s the only house surrounded by cars, with a gaggle of men hanging round outside. One thing I’ve noticed about really small communities across the world is that there are two things about being so rural that they love more than anything else:
No police
Being able to drive as fast as they want
I was told this by a bloke on a Scottish Island where it was too windy for trees. It was literally the only thing he said about living on the island. In Gee’s Bend, I’m told this by Jade, as she’s driving me round the bend (literally) in her pick-up truck. We’re on a mission to find wild garlic, which takes on Mission Impossible proportions as we get to 80 miles an hour. Jade, for the record, is an excellent driver, having been behind the wheel since she was nine – which makes sense, given that the nearest shop is a three hour walk away. Later, when we’re talking on the porch, I mention that someone else had told us about the drug problems in the community. Jade shrugs. “The local crackheads? They’re alright. I’d give ’em a seven outta ten.”
Inside, Leyla is getting a masterclass in quilting from Jade’s mum. As they sew, I ask her about a brick house – not common around here - we’d noticed on the drive “up-road”:
“Was that the principle’s house?”
“Nah, that belongs to this woman. She bought it, and then a few years back, a gang broke in, mistaken identity, shot her in the leg so bad she had to get it cut off. Now she’s only got one leg.”
Moments after this, Jade’s mum tells us another thing that very rural communities all love about living there: “There’s no crime here.”
The other thing to know is about Gee’s Bend… it’s world famous. At least if you’re in the art world, or know about textiles. I’m not, and don’t, so I didn’t, but spending five days there made me start to see what was so special about it. The village became famous in the 60s when a priest (Side note- boy are there a lot of churches in Alabama. On that 15-mile road serving 3 tiny communities we counted at least 4 churches. Sorry long side note…), anyway, the priest notices these quilts hanging outside people’s houses, and sees their beauty and their striking resemblance to modern abstract art. The women who made them had never seen any modern abstract art, but they had created these beautiful pieces, using techniques handed down from generation to generation from the time their great or great-great- grand parents were first slaves on Joseph Gee’s plantation. Gee’s Bend is a remote place, surrounded by river, steeped in a long and often painful history; it’s also a place that makes you think about what makes art.
This priest bought up the quilts and brought them to art dealers, to try and raise money for the community. They were quickly recognised as masterpieces, and these quilts are now in museums across the world, including the MoMA. They have had exhibitions around the world; some of the women we talked to remembered seeing Buckingham Palace on their visit there. When we’re there, some of the quilters have just finished a job for Adidas, and the designer Chloé in Paris. Perhaps the dichotomy I’m implying here is problematic; there is something fascinating and a bit uncomfortable about a place so remote and so deprived also being a hub of world renowned artists.
In the case of these quilts, the women of Gee’s Bend quilted for practical reasons, but also developed a unique artistic vision over 150 years. It took an external eye to notice this, and people to start asking the right questions, for them to be recognised as art. Questions like “Where do your ideas come from?” allowed the quilts to be framed in a new way, and the quilters to express themselves verbally as artists. They were often inspired by the patterns they saw in the world around them, which is sometimes obvious from the names. For me it’s this abstract expression of the world that makes them works of artistic genius, more than just fine craftsmanship. I’m not sure if it’s a helpful distinction to make, really, but it does strike you seeing the quilts (some hanging out people’s balconies for sale as you drive past) that some are art and some are not. Some you could see having on your bed or sofa, and some you’d hang on your wall – if you’re lucky. These are the ones that somehow draw you in despite just being shapes arranged by hand, that you find yourself staring at and trying to see into. And just like with modern art, the ones with writing on are rarely good.
The fact of them being quilts also somehow simultaneously grounds and elevates them more than a lot of contemporary art (again, why this need to compare? Oh well, here I am). There’s something about the fact that the quilts are a canvas of necessity; the skill of sewing was passed down because slaves were allowed and expected to sew in a way that they were obviously not allowed to paint, so that this skill, its passing down and development into an artform, is also a triumph of will and the imagination. When you paint, the artistic expression is everything, but for a quilter it’s not strictly necessary, and traditionally designs are symmetrical and have often developed into cutesy, floral patterns. In Gee’s Bend, they have evolved into expressionistic art that is anchored in this long tradition, where the quilters – the artists - have developed the form in some inexpressible way from craft to art.
It was truly special to spend time in their company.
ALABAMABITS & ALABAMABOBS
Selma is a strange place. We stopped there on our way to Montgomery to walk over the famous bridge where Martin Luther King, John Lewis and so many others marched for Civil Rights. It felt like a ghost town, not helped by it being a Sunday, I suppose but still, it had an eerie, boarded up feel that had us hurrying on our way after we’d walked the bridge and back. The most chilling thing? Despite the murals and signs and memorial park that have been put up on one side of it to honour the Civil Rights Activists, the bridge itself still bears the name of Edmund J. Pettus, the local KKK leader it was named after. Something about the blackness of the paint, the fact those letters must been repainted many times since 1965, remind you that though for us Selma is famous only because of its role Civil Rights Movement, there’s a reason Martin Luther King had to come here in the first place.
In other parts of Alabama we only caught glimpses of the unresolved history and ongoing racism; a casual mention by one of the Quilters about a previous Mayor – “his granddaughter just wrote a book about how great he was, but he killed a lotta black folk” – and this sticker and bits of paper sellotaped to a window in Camden:
The dissonance of the South was best summed up in a small museum in Camden, where this sign was proudly perched high on an antique dresser:
On the wall next to it hung these two front pages from the 60s:
Nicknames of Gee’s Bend:
On a slightly different note, here are some of my favourite nicknames of people in the community I heard while I was there:
Snake
Rabbit
Sugar-Bay
Speedy
Boozy
Napkin
Buddha Momma
Big Boy
Hog Boy
That's all folks, though before I go, I'd like to recommend porches as places to hang out. Definitely one of the best things about being in the South.
As usual, here are some more of Leyla’s pictures for your delectation:
Comments