Vertical Quilting Curve

Maybe you haven’t heard about it yet but there is a phenomenal legal battle just beginning over quilts made by simple but proud people, good hearted people. Women who made simple but awe striking quilts and who would have given away a quilt to someone because it was the neighborly thing to do are being bamboozled into selling their hard work for a pittance compared to what they are being sold for.

Last week, Anna Mae Young filed suit against major corporations and those who discovered the artistic treasure in rural Alabama. According to the article, Gee’s Bend quilters claim big rip-off on the al.com website, the quilters had no knowledge of how their quilts were really being used. “Used” is exactly what was and is being done to these impressive folk artists. Many of the women cannot read and the Internet is not even accessible to the majority of them, so how on earth are they going to know what is being done? To them their art was their art. They would have been happy to keep making it without being in the national spotlight. Many quilters who have access to all kinds of technology and supplies are exactly the same way. Any artist creates art for art’s sake. It is just an added bonus when somebody wants to buy it.

But when somebody buys your art, does that mean they have exclusive rights to do whatever they want with the image? Is it legal for someone to purchase a vase from an artist then take it to China to be mass produced to sell in the local department store? Don’t artists have rights? I believe they do but since I’m not an attorney I can’t state exactly what they are but it seems to me that the women of Gee’s Bend are being shortchanged.

While Anna Mae is the outspoken one some of the others are content with their arrangement with the businessmen. In the article, one member is quoted

“I feel that I’ve gotten a fair deal,” Pettway said. “The others I’ve talked to, they don’t feel like Annie Mae. From what I understand, they feel that they have been treated fairly because until (Tinwood) came along, it seemed like nobody else cared. They came and let us know that we were creating artwork. Nobody cared before that.”

It is nice that people care now. It is nice that someone was able to have the vision of what could be. It is nice that some feel they have been treated fairly. But those are not reasons to not compensate these artists. Just because if no one came around and didn’t see the exceptional value of the art doesn’t make it worth any less. These women should be compensated for current value minus a reasonable commission for their work.

Question of the day: What do you think?

quilting, Gee’s Bend, quilts, quilt art, Anna Mae Young, copyrights, artists rights