Loretta Pettway Bennett

Loretta Pettway Bennett (born December 29, 1960) is an American artist. She is associated with the Freedom Quilting Bee, where her mother, Qunnie Pettway, worked, and with the Gee's Bend quiltmakers. She is a prolific artist and culture-bearer, dedicated to propagating her community's traditions for future generations.

Early life Loretta Pettway Bennett was born on a farm in Gee's Bend, Alabama, to Qunnie Pettway and Tom O. Pettway. She and her siblings frequently worked on her grandfather, Tank Pettway's, farm growing cotton, corn, peanuts, and sweet potatoes, among other crops. Bennett remarks on the naming traditions of Gee's Bend using her family as an example: "Aunt Lucy was the sister of my father, Tom O. Pettway, Jr. An interesting thing is that Aunt Lucy's middle name was Tomo. Because so many people in Gee's Bend have the name of Pettway, people get middle names that let others know who their fathers are, so nobody marries a close cousin by mistake. My father and his father carry the middle initial O. for Ottaway, a name that goes back to an original Pettway slave called Ottaway." In order to continue her education, Bennett was required to take a crowded school bus two hours each morning and night to reach schools in neighboring counties. This arduous trek made participating in extracurricular activities nearly impossible. Nonetheless, Bennett graduated and married her high school sweetheart, Lovett "Bennett" Bennett on July 7, 1979.

Career Throughout her travels in Europe and the American Southwest, Bennett marveled at each culture's distinct use of color. In regards to Germany, she noted that "The Germans were not big on having a lot of different colors, especially not on their houses, cars, and clothing, compared to Americans. But in the springtime things were different. I got to see another side of Germany, as many houses were decorated with flower boxes of red geraniums and pansies sitting on the window ledges, with white and black-trimmed houses in the background." She describes that moment as, "There my eyes were opened, and it touched me in a way as to question myself: Can I make a quilt that someday might hang on the wall of a museum?"

Bennett's work is in the permanent collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Legacy Museum and the Binghamton University Art Museum

Artwork Bennett has worked on countless of quilts throughout her career. Her first quilt, which she made at age 13, was a flower garden pattern. Bennett completed about 25 quilts between 2003 and 2006. Bennett usually designs her patterns on paper first, then colors them with crayons. She then pieces the patterns into quilts using old garments she collects from family and friends or scavenges at thrift shops, upholding the Gee Bend's concept of creative reuse. She builds them at home, using various rooms for different parts of the process.

Some of Bennett's notable quilts are:

Two-Sided Geometric Quilt (2003) Work Clothes Strips (2003) Strips (2005) Medallion (2002)