Akron, OH, Dec. 28--Since slavery days, generations of women in tiny Gee's Bend, Ala., have stitched the flavor of their isolated community into quilts remarkable for their bold, improvisational designs, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
The quilts are so unlike others made in America that they've been recognized as fine art, the subject of an exhibition that is touring the country.
Now eight of those quilts have been translated into hand-crafted rugs by New York company Classic Rug Collection Inc., which introduced the designs in October at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.
Royalties from rug sales will go back to the Gee's Bend quilters to build a community center and museum, company President Barbara Barran said by phone from High Point. She declined to say what percentage of the proceeds quilters will receive, but said it's about double a typical royalty.
The unique Gee's Bend quilts reflect their creators' circumstances. For years their rural hamlet was practically cut off from the rest of the country by the Alabama River, which curves around it to create almost an island. Many of its residents are descendants of slaves who had worked on one of two cotton plantations in the town and had stayed on as sharecroppers after they were freed.
Because they were so isolated, the Gee's Bend quilters weren't influenced by others who practiced their craft. Their designs are vibrant and geometric without being precise, surprisingly similar to 20th century modern art.
The simple yet inventive designs reflect African influences and the values of the community, which until the 1930s had no electricity, running water or motorized farm equipment. Gee's Bend was thrust into national attention during the Depression, when the federal government made it an example for its New Deal social policies. The government bought land from the white landlords, started an agricultural cooperative and built houses, schools and clinics.
The benefits were short-lived, however. By the 1960s the New Deal programs and facilities were gone, and Gee's Bend's best farmland had been submerged by a dam. Today the community of 750 is close-knit but poor, part of one of the most economically disadvantaged counties in the country.
In 1996 art scholar William Arnette bought dozens of Gee's Bend quilts after reading about them in a book on African-American quilters. The quilts are now owned by the Tinwood Alliance, a foundation he started with Jane Fonda to support African-American vernacular arts.
When rug designer Barran first saw a photo of one of the quilts in the New York Times, "I just couldn't believe it," she said. "I thought it was one of the most gorgeous things I'd seen in my life."
Barran had already been creating rugs based on quilt patterns, and she was determined to get the rights to reproduce the Gee's Bend quilts as rugs. She tracked down Arnette and kept after him until he gave her permission.
Barran chose eight of the quilt designs to reproduce initially and plans to introduce eight more each year. The company can also make custom rugs based on any Gee's Bend quilt owned by Tinwood Alliance, she said.
Each of the designs is available in two forms, a hand-knotted rug made in Nepal of wool and silk, and a hand-tufted rug made in the United States of New Zealand wool. The fibers in the knotted rugs are colored with vegetable dyes for a muted, heirloom appearance, while the tufted rugs are made with modern dyes to produce vivid colors. "It's really just to give people a choice," she said.
Barran and her production managers spent days studying the quilts when they were on display at the Whitney Museum in New York, noting such nuances as the fabrics' worn qualities and details of how the quilts were constructed.
The goal was to reproduce the quilts as faithfully as possible.
Barran believes there's a market for the rugs among the public in general, but she's especially excited about appealin
