Florine Smith

American, 1948 - 2022

Biography“In 1972 the Freedom Quilting Bee, a sewing cooperative based in Alberta, Alabama, near Gee's Bend, secured a contract with Sears, Roebubck to produce corduroy pillow covers. Made of a wide-wale cotton corduroy, the covers came in a variety of colors including "gold," "avocado leaf," "tangerine," and "cherry red." Production of the Sears pillow covers left little room for personal creativity, as labor at the Freedom Quilting Bee was divided to maximize daily output. Yet, despite the standardized and repetitive process involved in producing the pillow covers, the availability of corduroy, a fabric seldom used before by the Gee's Bend quiltmakers, stimulated a profound creative response. Leftover lengths and scraps of corduroy were taken home by workers at the Bee. Given to friends and family or bundled for sale within the community, the scraps were then transformed from standardized remnants into vibrant and individualized works of art.”

"Florine Smith is one of the few Gee’s Bend quilt makers who work with paper sketches at the beginning of a quilting project, but she moves away from the planned design toward expressive improvisation once she begins handling her materials. Her patterns are frequently dictated in part by the physical limitations of her fabrics—since corduroy is prone to raveling and fraying, her quilts typically are made with large, simple rectangular pieces.

Since the Gee’s Bend quilters rose to national prominence after the major national touring exhibition The Quilts of Gees Bend (2002-2008), Smith has actively participated in quilt shows and quilting workshops around the country as a representative from the community. In these workshops, she has instructed quilters to rely on simple tools and techniques, suggesting minimal cutting and lots of tearing of fabric."

Smith's work has been collected by institutions like the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Her work was included in the landmark exhibition, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002.

-Souls Grown Deep Foundation website

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