Blocks and Strips Medallion, 2003
A fourth-generation quilter, Louisiana Bendolph, has been deeply influenced by her predecessors, including her mother-in-law, Mary Lee Bendolph. However, as a young adult, Louisiana paused her quilting practice to focus on her job and care for her growing family, who had ample quilts and lived in homes equipped with central heating and air conditioning. In 2002, she traveled to Texas to view The Quilts of Gee’s Bend at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The inclusion of her grandmother, Annie E. Pettway, moved her to tears: “When she had died, she was just ‘Mama,’ but now she had been reborn as someone who people were respecting, and all of a sudden she was important to other people in a way she had only been to us. [. . .] She is now known all over the world. In a way, she’s alive in that quilt,” she reflected. This experience inspired Louisiana to resume her quilting practice soon after.
This particular quilt deviates from traditional Housetop compositions by introducing a distinctive element: an extended black border that frames the vibrant central arrangement of blocks and strips, enhancing the colors and giving it the appearance of a stained glass panel. Louisiana often creates pieces with the intention of deconstructing them later, redistributing their components into new quilts, as she did with this work.
Louisiana Bendolph
American, born 1960
Blocks and Strips Medallion, 2003
Cotton and polyester fabric
Purchase with funds from Peggy, Margaret, and Mary Rawson Foreman, and gift of the artist and the Tinwood Alliance in honor of Rawson Foreman, 2005.301
This exhibition is currently on display at The High Museum in Atlanta.
