Greg Lauren and Gee’s Bend Quilters Take Aim at Cultural Appropriation

Greg Lauren and Gee’s Bend Quilters Take Aim at Cultural Appropriation

Ralph Lauren may have built an apparel empire out of romantic interpretations of Americana, but his nephew Greg Lauren is giving credit to authentic American creators with a new collaboration with the quilters of Gee’s Bend. Debuting at Bergdorf Goodman today, the textiles for the pieces were created by 14 quilters from the rural Alabama community of Black artists who trace their history — and craft — back to the enslaved people of Pettway Plantation.

Saving the Artwork of the South: Deep Investment, and a Drone

Saving the Artwork of the South: Deep Investment, and a Drone

“I’m the conjurer of all my ancestors, 400 years of African people in America,” said Joe Minter, surveying the dense outdoor environment of artworks he has forged from refuse over the past 32 years across his half-acre yard, facing two of the largest African-American cemeteries in the south. Nodding to the tombstones, he added, “they have given me the privilege of being their spokesman.”

How the Quilts of Gee's Bend Became Seminal Works of Modern Art

How the Quilts of Gee's Bend Became Seminal Works of Modern Art

One of the potential hazards of loving art is the tendency to see it as something separate from everyday life—a thing apart, with no ability to function practically beyond what it stirs in us emotionally or intellectually. Sometimes that can be true, but often our most inspired works are the ones inspired by a practical need, like the patterned rugs of the Middle East and Central Asia. The African American quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, fall into this category. Now hailed as pivotal works of modern art in museum exhibitions around the country, the quilts were inspired by the simple need to stay warm.

Souls Grown Deep: In pursuit of impact

Souls Grown Deep: In pursuit of impact

The art world is at times hermetic and self-referential. Museums, artist-endowed foundations, commercial galleries and art fairs can resemble a never-ending carousel of party-going collectors, curators and dealers. Behind the glamorous facade of the art world are newly urgent challenges. Decades-long resentments about the privileged classes dominating the creative sector have boiled over. And today there is no hiding the fact that the art market – the largest unregulated legal market in the global economy – is a preserve of wealth, speculative investment and vanity.

Museum adds group of exceptional works to renowned holdings

Museum adds group of exceptional works to renowned holdings

The Toledo Museum of Art added more than 30 outstanding and diverse works of art to its collection in June through purchase and gifts. Among the many highlights of the new acquisitions are photographer Imogen Cunningham’s pioneering botanical study “False Hellebore (Glacial Lily)” (1926), Lonnie Holley’s incisive assemblage “Cutting Up Old Film (Don’t Edit the Wrong Thing Out)” (circa 1984), meditative still lifes by the 17th-century French painter Louyse Moillon and an anonymous 19th-century Mexican artist, and “Head of Charlie Parker” (circa 1955), a remarkable sculpture – never before exhibited publicly – by Los Angeles artist Julie Macdonald.

Alabama Quilting Collective Using $250,000 Grant for New Museum Dedicated to a Forgotten Legacy

Alabama Quilting Collective Using $250,000 Grant for New Museum Dedicated to a Forgotten Legacy

Just a few miles away from the famous Gee's Bend Quilters in Boykin, Alabama, lies another Wilcox County community with a rich history of making magic with fabric and thread-though few know its story. The original Freedom Quilting Bee Collective ("The Bee") was established in the rural town of Alberta by Civil Rights activists Francis X Walter and Estelle Witherspoon in 1966. At a time when Black people were being evicted from their homes and losing their jobs for registering to vote, Walter, an Episcopal priest, saw the beautiful quilts hanging on clotheslines as a way for local women to make some much-needed money for their families.

 Souls Grown Deep Funds Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy Efforts to Renovate Historic Building in Alberta, AL

Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership has made a $250,000 grant to the Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy, a historical women’s quilting cooperative in Alberta, Alabama. The Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy will use the funds to revitalize the Freedom Quilting Bee’s historic building—which was established in the 1960s and aligned with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights movements—and create the Freedom Quilting Bee Heritage Center and Museum.

Souls Grown Deep Receives $2 Million Grant from MacKenzie Scott

MacKenzie Scott today announced a $2 million grant to Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership as part of her commitment to the Giving Pledge. Souls Grown Deep will put the funds towards its mission to promote Black artists from the American South and to foster economic empowerment and racial and social justice in these artists’ communities.

MacKenzie Scott Just Gave Out $2.7 Billion in Grants, Including Millions to Some of America’s Most Progressive Arts Organizations

MacKenzie Scott Just Gave Out $2.7 Billion in Grants, Including Millions to Some of America’s Most Progressive Arts Organizations

Souls Grown Deep, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and United States Artists were among the recipients of the major donation.

There’s a major new arts philanthropist on the scene. MacKenzie Scott, a novelist who also happens to be the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced today that she has donated a staggering $2.7 billion to 286 organizations across the country—including many affiliated with the arts, such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and United States Artists. 

Souls Grown Deep Appoints Artist Diedrick Brackens to its Board of Directors

Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership today announced the appointment of contemporary artist Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, TX; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) to its board of directors. Best known for his woven tapestries exploring African American and queer identity, American history, and his own life experiences, Brackens employs techniques from West African weaving, quilting from the American South, and European tapestry-making to create both abstract and figurative works. His appointment continues the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to advocating for the historical and contemporary importance of work created by African American artists from the South and to fostering economic empowerment, racial and social justice, and educational advancement in the communities that gave rise to these artists.