December 12, 2006
Quilts Of Gee's Bend
Timber heard about the Quilt's of Gee's Bend being on display at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and decided that we were going to go check it out at some point this month. The "at some point" ended up being Sunday. Luckily we watched a PBS documentary on Gee's Bend on Saturday and did a little online research and were armed with enough information to actually process the information and the actual quilts that were hanging on the wall. By the way the Quilts of Gee's Bend are on display only until the end of December. So if you want to see them your time is running out. When we got to the display at the De Young Museum we caught a group that was being led through the display by a docent. We quietly attached ourselves to the back of the group and slowly worked our way through, looking at the quilts and taking in the excellent information our docent was handing out like candy. The quilts really are beautifully made and coupled with the history of the people at Gee's Bend it definitely qualifies as art of the highest order. I would highly recommend checking it out. Here is a good web site to check out if you want to find out more about the quilts of Gee's Bend. After we finished with the quilts we grabbed a snack in the cafe and then continued to work our way through the museum. We got the audio tour, so we were busy punching in numbers and learning about the different pieces we came across. I don't feel like we spent enough time there and I could easily go back and spend a full day there again. On our way out we checked out the tower which had a great view of Golden Gate Park and the city. Overall I would have to rate the De Young Museum as my favorite art museum (nothing beats the Air and Space Museum in DC). I like the architecture of the building, I think it was well made and maintained, and the pieces of art on display are excellent. That coupled with extremely welcoming staff and volunteers makes this a museum you should not miss.