John Biggers, Sharecropper Mural

When I have even just ten minutes to spare, sometimes I pop into the Palmer Museum on campus and go look at some art. I try to visit every new exhibit soon after it opens so I can select my favorite works and see them often.

There is an exhibit at the Palmer right now, just a small one, on the works of John Biggers, an American artist. He received three degrees from Penn State, including a doctorate in 1954. He was the artist for several murals on campus, including two in Burrowes Building.

This is a work that usually appears in the Robeson Cultural Center. It is called Sharecropper Mural and it was painted from 1946-47. The composition is almost like a Medieval triptych, with a central image and one each to left and right.

The central image is of a family - one with six kids, not unlike my own family. To the left is a baptism. To the right are people dancing. The images are very stylized and wavy, with a strong sense of line and motion.

Something in me resonates to the colors and shapes in this work of art. I sat on a bench in front of it and marveled at it the first time I saw it, and took many pictures. Two days this week, I visited the art work again, just looking at and documenting it.

John Biggers' work is rich with symbolism. While I am no art expert, let me share a quick quote about the meanings of some visual elements frequently included in his works.

"Biggers' central symbols are woman as a cosmic, creative force; the shotgun houses or shacks, poor Southern dwellings with long, narrow, hallway shapes and triangular roofs; and railroad tracks, his blues- soaked metaphor for flight, freedom and the mass migration of African Americans to the North early in the century."

Since I photographed this work from every possible angle two days in a row, I thought it might be time to immortalize it on blip. So here you go. And yes, next week, I'll probably go back and visit it again!

My soundtrack song is Dire Straits, with a blend of blues and rock. Yes, it's a song about the place I've been spending my time: In the Gallery.