Quilts
Lucy Mingo (b. 1931), Blocks and strips work-clothes quilt (detail), 1959
Cotton and denim, 79 x 69 in.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Lucy Mingo likes to work with discarded clothes, preferring the feeling of their softer hues and textures. She envisions her transformations of old clothing into quilts as a metaphor for surviving hard times. In her words, “You know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields, we picked cotton, and sometimes we had it and sometimes we didn’t. And so you look at your quilt and you say, “This is some of the old clothes that I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they’re still doing good.”
In 1959, Mingo sewed this nearly monochromatic quilt using old pants, shirt tops, and material scraps from a nearby shirt factory. An irregular scaffolding of blocks and strips laid out in several tones of blue, the bedcover also includes a stroke of brown and a daub of rich navy whose unexpected presence enlivens the design. The introduction of such sudden incongruities within a dominant pattern is a common and powerful formal tactic among many of the improvisational quiltmakers from Gee's Bend.
Born in 1931, Lucy Mingo descends from several generations of quiltmakers, including her mother, Ethel Young, and grandmother, Nellie Pettway. Like many Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, she likes to work with discarded clothes, preferring the feeling of their softer hues and textures. Mingo envisions her transformations of old clothing into quilts as a metaphor for surviving hard times. In her words,
You know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields, we picked cotton, and sometimes we had it, and sometimes we didn’t. And so you look at your quilt, and you say, “This is some of the old clothes that I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they’re still doing good.”
During the civil rights era, Mingo became one of Gee’s Bend’s leading spokespersons, marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. across the river in Camden and the march from Selma to Montgomery. “No white man gonna tell me not to march,” she declared. “Only make me march harder.”
Lucy Mingo’s work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Currier Museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Learn more about Lucy Mingo here.
Quality
Souls Grown Deep Custom Prints offers custom reproductions of artworks by Souls Grown Deep artists. Hand-made in the USA using gallery-quality materials, we create prints as true to the original work as possible, using strict color management protocols and state-of-the-art printing technology.Selection
Many of the works offered through this store are exclusive and not available anywhere else. We are continually adding new artworks to our offering, so be sure to check back regularly as you build your own gallery.