The Mississippi State Department of Art Galleries is proud to present an exhibition of revolutionized cotton sacks from Dr. J. Janice Coleman.  

The works are on display in the Depot Art Gallery above the Welcome Center, adjacent to Barnes and Noble. 

By reimagining this seemingly mundane object, Coleman's works transform the cotton sack into stories, histories, and things of beauty and celebration and education. 

Dr. Coleman will give an Artist Talk at 2pm on Thursday, February 6th in Old Main 3320 and a reception will be held that evening from 5-6pm in the Depot Gallery.

Artist Statement:

Ralph Ellison once said, “Now mind, I recognize no dichotomy between art and protest.” I agree with Ellison, so considering my cotton sack, which is an art form, I have asked myself, “What am I protesting, what am I railing against when I make a cotton sack? Whatever it is, I have not always been conscious of it. I thought that I was simply experimenting with the re-creation of a familiar textile object from my past, the cotton sack that I know all too well. It was my first bag; I had a cotton sack before I ever had a purse or pocketbook.

After much thought, it finally dawned on me that, in re-creating the traditional cotton sack, the one that a cotton picker would wear in the field, I am mainly opposing its functional design. This sack was a long, drab-colored coarse bag of fabric designed to withstand the harsh, natural elements of its environment for repeated use. However, the main thing that it had to withstand was the 200 or 300 pounds of fluffy white cotton that dry and bruised hands had stuffed into it to make the bale, the main unit of measurement.    

In crafting the cotton sack, I am also opposing its functionality, the labor-intensive reason for its existence. In my mind, I have retired it. That is why my cotton sack does not go to the fields; instead, it visits the hallowed halls of colleges and universities. It follows me to a conference where I speak on “Cotton Sack Wisdom from Grandma Alice and Other African American Women in the Mississippi Delta.” It goes to a community center where I unveil another cotton sack, one grander than any other cotton sack that anyone else has ever seen. It has even been to church, where former cotton pickers have sung “We’ve Come This Far by Faith,” perhaps without realizing that they were singing about the differences in their glorious days of the present and the days of their toil and labor in the cotton fields.

Just as Ellison sees art and protest as one, so do I now. With needle and thread, with remnants and scraps of fabric, I have turned the ugly duckling into a swan. I have reimagined the cotton sack, I have repurposed the cotton sack, I have revolutionized the cotton sack.