Mary Margaret Pettway

Mary Margaret Pettway is a third-generation quilter born and raised in Gee’s Bend (Boykin), Alabama, and a member of the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective, founded in 2003 to promote and market quilts from this historic community. Pettway carries forward a rich family legacy deeply rooted in the expressive and unstructured approach to quilting that has defined Gee’s Bend since the early 19th century. This distinctive tradition gained new meaning during the Great Depression and the Civil Rights Movement, when community members faced economic hardship and political isolation, leading local women to form quilting cooperatives like the Freedom Quilting Bee as a source of income and solidarity.

In 2015, Gee’s Bend quilters were honored with a National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, recognizing their significant cultural contributions. Pettway regularly leads quilting workshops across the Southeastern U.S. and teaches at the Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center in Camden, Alabama. In 2018, she was honored as an Alabama Humanities Fellow. Today, she chairs the board of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which is committed to uplifting and preserving the work of African American artists from the South.

The quilts of Gee’s Bend have earned global recognition and are featured in the permanent collections of more than 30 major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Their impact goes beyond traditional craft, influencing runway shows and fashion collections while supporting the community through workshops, online sales, and the annual Gee’s Bend Airing of the Quilts Festival. Every quilt created by the Collective is a distinct work that reflects heritage, creativity, and resilience. These quilts carry the weight of history and the spirit of a community that transforms hardship into art.