Lucy T. Pettway

Lucy T. Pettway (1921–2004), "Bricklayer" (detail), 1960s

Denim, corduroy, cotton, 81 x 73 in.; The Phillips Collection, Museum purchase and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation

Mining the creative potential of discarded materials, Lucy T. Pettway’s use of disused and recycled cloth, characteristic of many Gee’s Bend quilts, is a bricolage of sorts, composed of clothing worn laboring in fields and factories and the remnants of ragged shirts and dresses. Mary Margaret Pettway, the artist’s daughter, and a fourth-generation quiltmaker recalled receiving parcels of clothing from relatives in New York, noting that the pink material came from a childhood dress. The blue strips were cut from the jeans of her cousin; the quilt itself covered his bed for many years.

Here the focus is on the inherent design elements and abstract imagery in the quilts rather than as finished objects.