Lucy T. Pettway’s colorful squares nestled inside each other mirror the wooden ceiling rafters—the housetop— of a typical Gee’s Bend bedroom. The quilt wraps its owner under a second covering made from well-loved solid and floral household linens. Pettway, or “Lunky”, was one of the most respected quilters in Gee’s Bend. An expert in almost every local pattern, she was known to carry a pen and paper to sketch new designs from passing fenceposts and surrounding nature. When Gee’s Bend quilts first arrived in New York, art critics compared the patterns to modern paintings, but this work is rooted in the artist’s experience of Alabama’s architecture and landscape.