Quiet Room Painting, at the young age of 20, passed away last Sunday, March 17 in the Quiet Room.
The Quiet Room Painting was a project born out of love. It was painted by the participants of the Summer Community Learning Project in 1998. SCLP was an organization aimed toward bringing together “daughters and grand-daughters of faculty and staff at Swarthmore over the summer and during the school year,” said Erica Turner in the Daily Gazette in 2007. The aim of the program was to “[bring] together girls from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds to learn about science, drama and other assorted subjects, become familiar with the college environment, think about being a girl and about others, and have a college-aged female mentor.”
The painting left its impression on the Swarthmore community.
“I stared at it for hours and I still don’t understand it,” said an Avid Crumb Cafe Customer, who often came only to look at the painting itself.
“I didn’t even know that this painting existed,” said Athlete Who Only Sits In the Main Room.
The painting is survived by other iconic Sharples art like Man Eating Greasy Pizza and Man Eating Crispy Chicken, both by Maisie Luo ’19. The painting rests on the top floor, forever watching over the patrons of the Sharples Quiet room. It will be sorely missed.
Services will be held this Friday at the Crumb at 10 p.m.
Editor’s note: The Quiet Room Painting is not in fact dead, and has simply been moved upstairs. That being said, it might as well be dead, as it has lost its identity as the “Quiet Room Painting.”
