Rachel Carey George (1908–2011), "Housetop"—sixteen-block "Half-Log Cabin" variation sashed with feed sacks, c. 1935
Cotton sacking material and dress fabric, 86 x 86 in.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
The most popular pattern in Gee’s Bend, the “Housetop," begins with a central solid medallion of cloth around which rectangular strips are joined, long end to short, creating a frame around the center motif, a square within a square. Here, Rachel Carey George quarters the squares, adding a lyrical whimsy to this otherwise traditional quilt. Made in the midst of the Great Depression, a time in history when Gee’s Bend's Wilcox County was one of the poorest in the country, the practical employment of pieces of any fabric handy becomes particularly poignant when those scraps come from empty feed sacks. Created on the cusp of Alabama's transition from a predominantly agricultural society to an industrialized one, this quilt materially and metaphorically maps the declining agricultural lifestyle of which George was once a part.
These images show the entirety of the quilts, including their handmade edges, against a white background.
