J. Janice Coleman

Dr. J. Janice Coleman sews quilts, cotton sacks, and other items that tell stories about her family and community by using scraps and remnants that reflect the past and present life and culture of the Mississippi Delta. Raised on a family farm in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, she was surrounded by seamstresses: her mother, grandmother, and aunt all sewed using scraps of fabric salvaged from old sheets or clothing. Her mother taught her hand sewing as a child, relying on these readily available fabrics cut into squares and rectangles, geometric forms that characterize Coleman's work to this day. She believes that these recycled or re-purposed items are priceless when they are recognized as threads that run through a family’s history. “I tell the stories that these items hold,” she says, “choosing pieces for each event that are most relevant to the occasion and that will inspire engagement or interaction with the audience.”

Coleman earned a master’s degree in popular culture from Bowling Green State University and a doctorate in English from the University of Mississippi. She has spent most of her career as an English professor at Alcorn State. Throughout her busy academic life, she has continued to work with fabric. Her “Beloved” quilt, based on Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, was on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art in the exhibition, Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South. A recent solo exhibition, The Cotton Sack: Reimagined, Repurposed, and Revolutionized, featured her cotton sacks in the Cullis Wade Depot Art Gallery at Mississippi State University. Coleman's collection at the 82nd National Folk Festival includes quilts she completed in remembrance of Fannie Lou Hamer and B.B. King.