Communities LinkUp! Concert at USM

On Wednesday May 19, students from the Hattiesburg area attended a concert in USM's Bennett Auditorium featuring the USM Symphony Orchestra. Through Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, the participating schools were provided with the curriculum and recorders so they would be able to perform along with the orchestra. The Mississippi Arts Commission is proud to be a partner with Carnegie to bring this outstanding program to Mississippi.

On the road....

Elayne Goodman of Columbus, MS

It has been my pleasure to be out and about this week visiting artists around the state with a my co-workers here at MAC. Doing this makes me realize how much I truly love this work. To see these artists in their own environments, creating their beautiful work is so inspiring. To be able to assist them in some small way is a true gift to me.

First we traveled to Louisville, MS where we met Katrina Estes-Hill, a folk/pop artist and storyteller. She has a wonderful, creative spirit and draws her work from her life in rural Mississippi. Our next stop was Columbus, MS where we visited the studio and home of folk artist, Elayne Goodman. We were all astounded by this amazing woman's work and story. She is a true gift to this state. Finally, we visited the home of basketweaver/painter Charles Jenkins of Hazelhurst. He actually goes into the woods, cuts down a small tree, brings it back to his home and begins the process of creating a basket....needless to say it is an amazing process. He also creates beautiful paintings using mud and clay.

The talent in this state never ceases to amaze me! A week like this makes me love my job even more!

Susan Dobbs, Public Relations Director

While traveling down the road in the Mississippi Delta, I stopped to take a look off the beaten path and found the House of Khafre in Indianola. They were unpacking and moving into their new location at 103-105 Main Street. House of Khafre is a multi-use facility with a museum/gift shop, performance space, event space and much, much more. There's even a really cool bayou in the back.

Jazzy Debut

MAC Whole Schools Institute director Judi Holifield takes a minute to share some acting tips with the students at Nora Davis Magnet School in Laurel, Miss. on April 28. Students from the third, fourth and fifth grades were chosen to perform the debut production of "Nora's Ark," a jazz musical written by Eli Yamin, a veteran instructor at the annual Whole Schools Summer Institute.

This post was lost for a bit....but has found it's way back to the blog....



It snowed today in Mississippi, more on the coast than in Jackson. I saw my brother at lunch and he reminded me of a similar weather pattern that moved through south Mississippi in about 1954. We have a photo on the wall of Hal & Mal's of a snowman erected in our yard in Perkinston and all the melting, icy mess all around. Like today, it got cold and rainy, then sleet and alas, big fat snow flakes that stayed around just long enough to let school out and for us kids to quickly build a snowman and take a photo. My grandfather, M.R. Stewart took the shot, and I found the undeveloped film in this camera after his death. I developed the images myself in the darkroom at the old Journalism building at Ole Miss while I was taking a News Photography class in 1973. The film, and the snowman, had been in the camera all that time. Now we have this scratchy black and white image of my brother Hal, my first cousin Larry Allen Krohn and myself by the humble and crooked snowman taken on a day much like today. No doubt, within an hour or two after the shutter clicked, the snow had stopped and by nightfall, the temperature was hovering around 55 with a clear, colorful sunset in the west.
Today, as the melting snow and rain gather and run off to the storm drains and on to the Pearl
River and then, into the Gulf of Mexico, I reflect on that idyllic past, forever frozen now by the art of photography and the love of my patient and thoughtful grandfather.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I attended a great new program at the Mississippi Museum of Art last night known as Music In The City.  It is a series of free concerts one Tuesday a month at St. Andrew's Cathedral and the Mississippi Museum of Art.  Last night was a cheerful evening of Chamber Music for violin and piano featuring Marta and Danuta Szlubowska.  Marta, a native of Warsaw, Poland is the Concertmaster of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and Danuta is her mother, both teach music at Millsaps College as well.  The event was held in the Trustmark Grand Hall at MMA and the program consisted of the Sonatina in G Major, Op. 100 by Antonin Dvorak, Mediation from "Thais" by Jules Massenet and concluded with a rousing Zigeunerweisen (Gipsy Airs) Op. 20 by Pable de Sarasate.  This piece brought back a recent memory of Marta's performance at Bravo Two, when MSO took on Astor Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires with great flare and success!  This Music In The City program was delightfully conceived by John Paul and finely delivered by the Szlubowska women. 

The next performance will be Tuesday, January 13, 2008 at MMA featuring John Paul and Sibyl Child visiting songs of Claude Debussy.  For more information call the Museum at 601 354-1535 or go online at www.msmuseumart.org

Sophia's Restaurant at the Fairview Inn furnished lite snacks that were tasty and seasonal. MAC Commissioner David Trigiani and I were partial to the holiday cheese straws that came with a nice zing and a nutty sesame flavor.  

It was a wonderful way to spend a Tuesday evening in the fading light of winter's sunset and support the vast artful offering of our capital city.  

Bravo!

Christmas in Bude

Yesterday, I was most honored to be the Grand Marshal of the Franklin County Christmas Parade -- not Santa, but the Grand Marshal. According to Franklin County native and former Chair of the Mississippi Arts Commission, Melody Maxey and Editor of the Franklin County Advocate, Mary Lou Webb, I was the first ever GM of the parade that was not a politician. Some would argue that point, but I was, nevertheless, the GM. I was typically under dressed and had to borrow a pair of green gloves from Melody and an overcoat from the Superintendent of Education. I walked the two blocks of downtown Bude well-clothed and confidently waving and wishing the residents a Merry Christmas. The local children called from the curb, "Who are you?, Where is Santa? and Why don't you have any candy?"! I kept a positive outlook in spite of these distractions.
The best news is that we made many good contacts with school, community and local business leaders. We have long worked to get an arts foothold in SW Mississippi and this outing was a great start. The Holiday Luncheon that preceded the parade was an amazing spread of good, homemade foods prepared by the locals and stretched across three rooms of Melody's gracious old home just a stone's toss from the shore of the Homochitto River. There were two dessert tables, one full length dinning room table just for relishes and two roaring fireplaces. Talk about good. There was pork roast, dressing, green beans and FOUR different styles of devilled eggs. The hundreds of folks who attended the gathering ranged from High Schools kids to State Senators. And then there we were.
Malcolm