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CHAPTER SIX: Mature Years, 1984–2001
- University of North Texas Press
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I Mature Years 1984–2001 Quilting: Finishing the Quilt Chapter Six n the following decades, the bold designs of John Biggers’s quilt grew full and rich. Biggers received more of the wider recognition that had eluded him for most of his career. Freed from the responsibility of the academic world, Biggers was able to work in his studio, travel, research his expanding ideas, and evolve new works. In an interview with Thad Martin for Ebony magazine in 1984 he said, “Now I want to paint murals and draw … I want to be an artist. I’m in love with art, with the spiritual aspirations of people, of African Americans. My job now is to reach the universal through the black art experience.”1 It was a tall order indeed. Following his official retirement, Biggers accepted commissions for two more murals. The first was Song of the Drinking Gourds (1987) in Houston’s Tom Bass Park. That gave Biggers an opportunity to give form to his idea of the transformation and ascension of the human spirit. The second, East Texas Patchwork (1987), was commissioned by the Arts Council for the Public Library in Paris, Texas. In this mural, Biggers expanded his theme of cleansing and transformation. The working drawing (fig. 69) shows Biggers’s meticulous planning for value, pattern , and color. A significant feature of this mural was the interweaving of the ALife.indb 89 7/24/06 2:18:40 PM 90 Mature Years 1984–2001 cleansing ritual with the interlocking shotgun motif. The figures, facing inwards, were simplified to geometric shapes. For those in the local community who were not aware of Biggers’s transition from figurative form to geometric abstraction, the piece caused some controversy, which soon settled. In a neighboring county in northeast Texas, a flurry of excitement erupted when an early mural of Biggers’s, presumed destroyed, was found in some disrepair , in a public school storeroom near Daingerfield, Texas (Chapter 3, fig. 34). John Biggers had visited local Houston schools decades earlier, recruiting teachers for an art education class at the new college. In parallel circumstances, while looking for a projector to use, I came across that missing work, stored forlornly behind the overhead projectors and map carts. Biggers’s distinctive style of using a paintbrush like a drawing pencil, in tiny hatching and crosshatching strokes, made it immediately recognizable. An opportunity to meet John and Hazel Biggers soon followed. The mural had been originally installed in March 1955, commissioned to celebrate the opening of Carver High School, the first high school for Negroes in Morris County, and to honor the well-loved founder and principal, Mr. P. Y. Gray.2 On October 27, 1989, the community rededicated and re-installed the newly framed mural, The History of Negro Education in Morris County (1955), with John Biggers as the honored speaker. Before the rededication ceremony, Biggers noticed some damaged areas on the mural and offered to repaint what he could. Paint and brushes were hastily supplied, and the artist stepped over the protective rail and restored his “lost child.” Biggers’s enjoyment of the lithographic process brought him to the further development of powerful images derived from his mural, Family Unity (1974–1978). He began the lithograph Upper Room (1974) as he was working on the mural. In the fall of 1983, he completed this four-color edition in deep blues (fig. 70). The title recalled an African American spiritual of the same title, which spoke of the spiritual peace of waiting in prayer. Though he had once described himself as ALife.indb 90 7/24/06 2:18:45 PM [35.175.174.36] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:06 GMT) 91 Mature Years 1984–2001 figure 69 East Texas Patchwork Preparatory drawing 1987 “irreligious,” he often referred to biblical events and places, using African American spirituals as the titles for his works. The years of reading the Bible as a child with his family and listening to and singing Gospel hymns had become an integral part of his being, even as he discovered African mythologies and beliefs. During these decades, Biggers drew from the rich depository of images that his earlier murals and drawings provided. Epitomizing the haptic artist, the person who works from feelings first, he commented, “In my work, I reach back and grab things again. As you’re conceiving, you never explore everything you feel. There are other things that can come out of it. ALife.indb 91...