"Housetop" work-clothes quilt
"Housetop" work-clothes quilt
Artist
Rita Mae Pettway
(American, born 1941)
Place of OriginGee's Bend Quilting Community, Boykin, Alabama, United States
Date2005
Dimensions88 × 73 1/4 in. (223.5 × 186.1 cm)
MediumDenim and cotton
ClassificationTextiles and Fiber
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Object number
2021.24
Not on View
Description"The 'Housetop,' from the composite block down to its constituent pieces, echoes the right angles of the quilt's borders, initiating visual exchanges between the work's edges and what is inside. Traditional African American "call and response," a ritual technique of music and religious worship, is intrinsic to the target-like push and pull among elements. The feedback effects have mesmerized and inspired generations of Gee's Bend quiltmakers. Conceived broadly, the "Housetop" is an attitude, an approach toward form and construction. It begins with a medallion of solid cloth, or one of an endless number of pieced motifs, to anchor the quilt. After that, "Housetops" share the technique of joining rectangular strips of cloth so that the end of a strip's long side connects to one short side of a neighboring strip, eventually forming a kind of frame surrounding the central patch; increasingly larger frames or borders are added until a
block is declared complete."
19th or 20th century
3rd Century
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Third to first century BCE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
![Riscos y oro, 2 [Crags and gold, 2]](/internal/media/dispatcher/58668/thumbnail)
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Membership
Become a TMA member today
Support TMA
Help support the TMA mission