Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt
Winner of the 2023 Horowitz Prize by the Bard Graduate Center

Winner of the 2025 James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Award in African American Art History from the Driskell Center at the University of Maryland

Shortlisted for the 2024 Charles C. Eldredge Prize by the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Finalist for the 2024 Sterling Stuckey Book Prize by the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora

A meditation on suffering, resilience, creativity, and grace

In 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering the loss of her husband, pieced together a quilt out of his old, worn work clothes. Nearly six decades later her daughter Arlonzia Pettway, approaching eighty at the time and a seasoned quiltmaker herself, readily recalled the cover made by her grieving mother within the small African American farming community of Gee's Bend, Alabama.

At once a story of grief, a quilt, and a community, Stitching Love and Loss connects Missouri Pettway's cotton covering to the history of a place, its residents, and the work of mourning. Interpreting varied sources of history and memory, Lisa Gail Collins engages crucial and enduring questions, simultaneously singular and shared: What are the languages, practices, and processes of mourning? How is loss expressed and remembered? What are the roles for creativity in grief? And how might a closely crafted material object, in its conception, construction, use, and memory, serve the work of grieving a loved one? Placing this singular quilt within its historical and cultural context, Collins illuminates the perseverance and creativity of the African American women quilters in this rural Black Belt community.

1142522511
Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt
Winner of the 2023 Horowitz Prize by the Bard Graduate Center

Winner of the 2025 James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Award in African American Art History from the Driskell Center at the University of Maryland

Shortlisted for the 2024 Charles C. Eldredge Prize by the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Finalist for the 2024 Sterling Stuckey Book Prize by the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora

A meditation on suffering, resilience, creativity, and grace

In 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering the loss of her husband, pieced together a quilt out of his old, worn work clothes. Nearly six decades later her daughter Arlonzia Pettway, approaching eighty at the time and a seasoned quiltmaker herself, readily recalled the cover made by her grieving mother within the small African American farming community of Gee's Bend, Alabama.

At once a story of grief, a quilt, and a community, Stitching Love and Loss connects Missouri Pettway's cotton covering to the history of a place, its residents, and the work of mourning. Interpreting varied sources of history and memory, Lisa Gail Collins engages crucial and enduring questions, simultaneously singular and shared: What are the languages, practices, and processes of mourning? How is loss expressed and remembered? What are the roles for creativity in grief? And how might a closely crafted material object, in its conception, construction, use, and memory, serve the work of grieving a loved one? Placing this singular quilt within its historical and cultural context, Collins illuminates the perseverance and creativity of the African American women quilters in this rural Black Belt community.

29.95 In Stock
Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt

Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt

by Lisa Gail Collins
Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt

Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee's Bend Quilt

by Lisa Gail Collins

eBook

$29.95 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Winner of the 2023 Horowitz Prize by the Bard Graduate Center

Winner of the 2025 James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Award in African American Art History from the Driskell Center at the University of Maryland

Shortlisted for the 2024 Charles C. Eldredge Prize by the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Finalist for the 2024 Sterling Stuckey Book Prize by the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora

A meditation on suffering, resilience, creativity, and grace

In 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering the loss of her husband, pieced together a quilt out of his old, worn work clothes. Nearly six decades later her daughter Arlonzia Pettway, approaching eighty at the time and a seasoned quiltmaker herself, readily recalled the cover made by her grieving mother within the small African American farming community of Gee's Bend, Alabama.

At once a story of grief, a quilt, and a community, Stitching Love and Loss connects Missouri Pettway's cotton covering to the history of a place, its residents, and the work of mourning. Interpreting varied sources of history and memory, Lisa Gail Collins engages crucial and enduring questions, simultaneously singular and shared: What are the languages, practices, and processes of mourning? How is loss expressed and remembered? What are the roles for creativity in grief? And how might a closely crafted material object, in its conception, construction, use, and memory, serve the work of grieving a loved one? Placing this singular quilt within its historical and cultural context, Collins illuminates the perseverance and creativity of the African American women quilters in this rural Black Belt community.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780295751627
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Publication date: 06/06/2023
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 200
File size: 43 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Lisa Gail Collins is Professor of Art and Director of American Studies on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair at Vassar College. Her books include The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past and New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (coedited with Margo Natalie Crawford).

What People are Saying About This

Beverly Guy-Sheftall

"A brilliant, moving, meticulously researched, beautifully written book that captures the long history of African American quilt making. The book is a praisesong for the artistry, resilience, and resistance of Black women in Alabama's rural Black Belt."

Tiya Miles

"In Stitching Love and Loss, the gifted art historian Lisa Gail Collins wraps an achingly beautiful story of artistry, family, community, and place around the form and function of one stunning Gee’s Bend 'utility quilt.'"

Riché Richardson

"Well crafted, richly developed, and deeply engaging. It will be of interest to a range of readers, including quilters, researchers of quilting practices, historians, artists and art historians, folklorists, southern studies scholars, and Black/Africana studies scholars."

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews