Born in the White’s Quarters area of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, Martha Pettway was deeply influenced by close relationships with her large extended family, as well as stylistic exchange and collaboration with her fellow quilters. White’s Quarters was the most rural neighborhood in Gee’s Bend, and there she fostered close relationships among its inhabitants. She deliberately preserved some of her earliest quilts—a rarity at the time. Her most prolific period of quilt-making coincided with her childbearing years—she had eleven children between the late 1920s and 1940s.i For her, and for many other Gee’s Bend quilters, quilting was an artistic practice born out of the necessity to clothe and warm her family. She sewed most of her work with her hands, but also occasionally used a sewing machine.

Many of Pettway’s quilts feature the “Housetop” pattern, a design of concentric squares common to Gee’s Bend. Her fabrics included vibrantly colored cotton—much of which came from old clothes—as well as pieces of rice, sugar, and fertilizer bags. She spent time quilting with Pearlie Kennedy Pettway and Clementine Kennedy, whose work contains elements of Pettway’s, such as the “Housetop” pattern. This relationship indicates the collaborative exchange the quilters offered to each other within their practices.

Pettway passed away in 2005. Her work is in the collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Toledo Museum of Art; and National Gallery of Victoria.

i “Martha Pettway,” Souls Grown Deep, accessed July 5, 2023, soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/martha-pettway