Souls Grown Deep promotes exclusive prints of Gee's Bend quilts and other Black art

The Gee’s Bend community’s artwork is more accessible than ever before.

The nonprofit Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership launched a new partnership with direct-to-consumer printing service Imagelab to sell art prints and reproductions of 20 quilters in the area and other Black Southern artists. Many of these works have never been available as archival reproductions before.

The Gee’s Bend community sits inside a bend in the Alabama River in Wilcox County, and through its isolation over the years, the women there have found economic freedom and artistry in selling their uniquely styled quilts. Quilters whose work will be sold as prints include Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta Pettway, and Lucy T. Pettway.

Souls Grown Deep prides itself in being an advocate for the inclusion of Black artists from the South in American art history. Thus, it worked carefully on the licensing and revenue-sharing model for the printing program so that all artists, or their estates if they are dead, will receive 50% of the revenue from sales of prints and frames.

The foundation will take the other half to cover production costs and support “its range of programs designed to foster artistic recognition, economic empowerment, racial and social justice and educational advancement in the communities that gave rise to the artists represented in its collection.”

The prints range in price from $30 to $85 on paper or canvas, and with framing, they range from $135 to $295.

Until now, the ways in which people could display the art of a Gee’s Bend quilt in their own homes have been limited.

After happening upon one of the unique patchworks hanging in the Whitney or the Smithsonian or the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, patrons had one option if they wanted one: drive down to Wilcox County and find the isolated community.

This restriction and other factors led Gee’s Bend to see little economic advancement — even as the area and the women who lived there became internationally recognized for their art.

Since 2021, though, the options to purchase the quilts have expanded, prioritizing the benefit of the women who made them. Souls Grown Deep partnered with the e-commerce platform Etsy to create online shops for nine quilters based in Gee’s Bend that year, and brands like Macy’s, Chloe and Greg Lauren have since partnered with the quilters as well.

Even as they become more accessible, the quilts from Gee’s Bend can be pricey. On Etsy, the quilts are listed for anywhere between $300 and $15,000, though most of them go for around $5,000 each.

For hundreds of online buyers, the quilts’ roots in history, civil rights and the economic empowerment of Black women make them well worth the cost.

Other Black Southern artists’ work that will be featured in the Souls Grown Deep print shop include Thornton Dial from Emelle and Ronald Lockett from Bessemer. The foundation also plans to add new prints and artists throughout 2023.

Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser or donate to Report for America. 

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Web shop sells prints from Gee's Bend quilters and other Black artists