Activity: Quilt Windows

Quilts are more than blankets that keep you warm. They are beautiful works of art that can teach us about family history, commemorate a moment in time, and carry on family traditions.  

This is an aquatint (or print) of a quilt that was made by Loretta Pettway Bennett, who is descended from a long line of quiltmakers in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Gee’s Bend is a close-knit Black community on the Alabama river that is home to multiple generations of Black women who are artists and community builders.

In 2002, about 40 Gee’s Bend quilt makers took center stage in the art world thanks to an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Their original art making, with no intentional connection to modernist abstraction—though often compared to it—received rave reviews from art critics and charmed the nation as news and films that highlighted their unique work spread. In 2005, Paulson Fontaine Press, a fine art print studio in Berkeley, California, invited Mary Lee Bendolph, her daughter in-law Louisiana Bendolph, Loretta Bennett, Loretta Pettway, and two additional artists from Gee’s Bend, Alabama to collaborate on a print series. After conversation with the printers at the press, the artists landed on a soft-ground etching technique in which small quilts were pressed onto a wax-coated plate. This captured the seams, fabric weave, and the wear typical of Gee’s Bend quilts.

Quilt Windows

If you don’t have fabric scraps at home, experiment with making a paper “quilt.” You can use newspaper, or any scraps of paper you have around your home. 

1. Find a hard, flat surface to do this project. Gather your paper scrap materials, scissors and glue.  
2. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on your surface and glue down scraps of paper or bits of tissue paper to create your quilt design.  
3. Experiment with laying out different colors and shapes together, and layering paper to create different effects. 
4. When you’ve created a design you love, cover the glued paper pieces with another layer of plastic wrap and find a window to display your window “quilt” in.