The Quilters of Gee's Bend Art Ideas

hey friends if you know me you probably already know that i like to sew and that i like any kind of art that involves fabric or thread or yarn so today i'm very excited to talk to you about quilts quilts are warm and cozy and some of us might already have quilts in our homes but did you know that there are quilts in museums too quilts are a kind of art takes a lot of skill and a long time to make for this assignment we're learning about some of the most famous quilts in the art world and the artists who made them the quilters of jeez bend keys bend is a small community in alabama it was settled by african-american people who had been forced into slavery and then freed after the civil war they began to build new lives for themselves but often did not own very much they used all of their old clothes and fabric scraps to sew warm quilts they were very careful not to waste anything carefully picking apart clothes to use every inch of fabric some quilts are made from mostly denim work clothes the quilters had to be very creative to use whatever fabric they had on hand and over time they developed their own special style of quilting while making sure to never waste any fabric they created quilts with crazy patterns and colors the art of quilting was handed down from one generation to the next for a long time not many people knew about cheese bend and their amazing quilts in 1965 martin luther king jr visited cheese bend he said to them i came over here to g's ben to tell you you are somebody he encouraged them to protest and stand up for their right to vote he inspired many people from g's bend to register to vote and march with him more and more people began to notice and learn about the quilts from jesus bend art collectors and art historians saw these quilts and were amazed by how exciting and beautiful the quilts were now the quilts of g's bend are famous all around the world builds from g's bend sometimes sell for twenty thousand dollars while many people in the community have worked together on quilts one of the most famous quilters is mary lee bendolf she marched with martin luther king in camden alabama i could look at these quilts all day i love the colors and the patterns and the fact that they recycled materials to use in their quilts there is a lot of stuff to inspire us here so let's look at some ways we can make our own art inspired by the g-spend quilts you can use fabric or paper or both to create your own quilt collage last year kindergarten created their own individual quilts and then we put some of them together to make this big quilt collage for my quilt collage i gathered old calendar pages old art the paper that's inside junk mail envelopes it has really cool patterns and some old art that i didn't like very much anymore oh and wrapping paper a great way to start a quilt is to put one shape like a square for example on part of your quilt and then build around it i put a square in the corner and now i'm building around it with rectangles i'm trying to use up even my littlest scraps of paper i noticed my first square wasn't sticking so i made a new one the quilters of g's bend don't usually plan their quilts they make them up as they go along this is called being improvisational once i've covered my whole paper i have some fun by adding smaller pieces on top of the pieces i've already glued down i am very happy with my fun and colorful paper quilt you could also create a drawing or painting inspired by these improvisational quilts some of the quilters have created prints based on their quilts marylee bendolf made these prints i was inspired to use my watercolors but you could make a quilt using crayons markers colored pencils anything i started with one shape and then i improvised adding more rectangles and triangles of different sizes i like the quilt set of super bright colors but you could choose any color scheme you want when i filled in all my white space i have a beautiful quilt-inspired painting another thing you can do is ask a grown-up to share a tradition with you it doesn't have to be an art tradition like a quilt it could be a food or a game something that someone in their life passed down to them and they can pass down to you i learned a quilt from my friend cassandra and she learned a quilt from one of her friends since she passed down quilting to me i decided to gather up some fabric scraps and make a tiny little improvisational quilt all of the scraps have a story some of them are left over from clothing that i made or clothing that i hemmed the blue fabric is from pants that i hemmed for my sister before she went on a trip to peru the flowered scraps are from fabric that is 80 years old and was given to me by a friend so here's a little bit of improvisational quilting i hope you enjoyed getting to know the quilters of cheese bend and i'm excited to see how they will inspire you

Channel: Rosemary Aquilina

Views: 173

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: WyuH1BeQ-mA

Length: 4min 53sec (293 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021