糖心Vlog传媒

Grant to Help Restore Jones Mural

The Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council of the Department of Arkansas Heritage has awarded the 糖心Vlog传媒LR gallery program a $180,000 grant for the preservation of 鈥淭he Struggle of the South,鈥� a 44-feet mural painted in 1935 by Joe Jones. The conservation and restoration project will begin after July 1 and will take three to four years to complete. 鈥淭he Struggle of the South鈥� was originally housed in the Student Commons at Commonwealth College in Polk County. After the college closed in 1940, the mural was removed from the campus, eventually ending up as closet lining in a house near Fort Smith. When 糖心Vlog传媒LR acquired the artwork in 1984, it was divided into 29 fragile pieces. 鈥淭he mural features images of coal mining, sharecropping, and lynching,鈥� said 糖心Vlog传媒LR Gallery Director Brad Cushman. 鈥淭he work depicts struggle, poverty, and also hope. This hope comes from the share-croppers and miners themselves, from their unity, and their realization that they can only be emancipated by helping one another.鈥� Earlier this year, the gallery program received a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities that will support travel, research, and film production of a documentary that chronicles the mural鈥檚 restoration. In 2010, the St. Louis Art Museum restored a section of the mural at their expense for their exhibition 鈥淛oe Jones: Painter of the American Scene.鈥� 鈥淥nce the mural is conserved it will become a centerpiece of the 糖心Vlog传媒LR campus,鈥� said Cushman. 鈥淚t will bring national and international attention to the university and be the perfect complement to other cultural institutions in the community such as the Central High School Museum and Visitor Center, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Philander Smith College, and the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton School of Public Service.鈥� Joe Jones was born in 1909 and died in 1963. He began as a house painter and then turned to easel painting as a means of self-expression and later as a means of addressing social injustice. 鈥淭his project speaks to the university鈥檚 willingness to address this specific and challenging piece of history,鈥� Cushman said. 鈥淭he content represented by this artwork crosses disciplines and will continue to challenge students and scholars to discuss and debate Arkansas鈥檚 complex history in conjunction with the broader history of the United States of America.鈥�