Gee’s Bend: Get Ready

A magnificent 1000-piece puzzle featuring a colorful, intricately patterned quilt by artist Mary Lee Bendolph, matriarch of the historic quilting community in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and published by Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California.

This is the first jigsaw puzzle to feature a print of one of the fabled Gee’s Bend quilts, practical works of art created by the descendants of formerly enslaved people who settled in the rural Alabama community of Gee’s Bend. The quilters developed a distinctive geometric aesthetic that results in quilts looking much like abstract expressionist paintings while retaining the hominess, comfort, and country flavor of the traditional quilt. The inventive, improvisational patterns of these quilts and the stories about their makers have enthralled a wide audience of contemporary art lovers, quilters, folk art enthusiasts, and American history buffs.

Get Ready was created by matriarch quilt maker Mary Lee Bendolph, who descends from generations of quilt makers in Gee’s Bend, Alabama.