"Housetop" variation

Viewing the quiltmaking tradition of Gee's Bend as a kind of artistic “inheritance,” Louisiana Bendolph has created a new generation of patchworks that explore and reshape the aesthetic practices of her community. As if rethinking the very structures of standard quilt designs, her patterns often break apart into fields of fractured forms that, both literally and figuratively, end up off the grid. In this “Housetop” variation from 2003, squared bands of color disintegrate into random dashes of light on a black backdrop, like blinking circuits on a computer board. —Joanne Cubbs