Bay Artists Co-op - Twenty Years of Creating
The oldest artists' co-op in Mississippi will celebrating twenty years of providing studio space to some of the state's most creative people during its annual Open House in November.
- story and photos by Karen Fineran
The 20th Annual Open House/Studio Sale of the Bay Artists Co-Op (415 South Necaise Ave.) takes place November 21-22 (Saturday from 10am - 4pm and Sunday 11am - 3pm). The studio, not normally open to the public except by appointment, opens its doors one weekend each fall for an up-close look at the works of the artists inside. A wide array of striking art will be on display, including pottery and clay sculptures, paintings, and jewelry. You will have the opportunity to speak with the artists about their inspirations and techniques, and learn from live demonstrations throughout the weekend.
A cooperative simply is a business or organization that is owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its services. Started in 1994, the Bay Artists Co-Op is the oldest artists’ cooperative in the state of Mississippi. Manager and founder Regan Carney began this one, shortly after she moved to Bay St. Louis from Los Angeles in 1992. (A native New Orleanian, Carney was then working from an artist’s cooperative in L.A.’s Artist District.) Like many others before her, she was enraptured by the natural beauty, serenity, and safety of the Gulf Coast.
Now that she had found her home, she tackled the project of organizing an artists’ cooperative in this town that would help foster the growing arts community here. She hunted through town until she found the perfect building to rent, and a small group of other artists eager to share the space and form a cooperative. Other founding members included other award-winning artists like Vicki Niolet.
The artists share the monthly rent and utilities of the building (based upon the square footage of their studios inside) and may also share use of the large electric kilns inside. Over the years, the size of the co-op has ranged from as few as three artists to as many as twelve at a time, and has included clay artists, sculptors, painters, jewelry artists, and metal artists. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina’s formidable storm surge partially destroyed the building and completely destroyed the equipment, supplies and art works inside, Carney stepped up to the task of rebuilding the co-op. Along with some of the volunteer groups staying in town at the time, and with the assistance of grant money from the Mississippi Arts Commission, Carney and her friends and family scoured and repainted the building, and repaired the extensive structural damage to the walls and roof. (Her husband, fellow co-op artist Mark Buszkiewicz, was nearly killed when he fell from the roof rafters to the cement floor twenty feet below). About eight months later electricity was restored to the building, some of the artists whose lives had been so disrupted returned to work in their studios there, and the co-op went on.
The 4,000 square foot building surprises and welcomes on the inside with its high, open-raftered ceiling, cinder block walls, and large windows and open doorways that allow for generous sea breezes. It has an open and flowing layout, with common facilities down a wide central aisle (electric kilns, clay recycling station, storage shelves) and is sectioned off into separate work studios for each of the resident artists (including a sizeable “clean room” for painting and other mediums that may require a dust-free environment). Studio resident Sadie, a gentle-natured black cat who survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in the same studios, lounges about on the cool concrete floors and greets visitors.
Currently, the artists at the co-op number eight, including Carney. The other studio artists are clay artists Barney Adams, Gayle Andersson, Mark Buskiewicz, Lynne Harris and Jeanne Pertuit, and painters Janet Densmore and Kathleen Higgins. Carney’s work has been shown at numerous galleries in Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, Biloxi and Ocean Springs, and can currently be seen and purchased here in town at Gallery 220 and Lawson’s Studio. Carney offers pottery classes (both throwing and hand building) four days per week. She recently offered a clay wind chime workshop, and is looking forward to offering her Christmas clay ornament workshop in December. Other co-op artists also offer workshops and classes; the best way to learn about these opportunities is to speak to the artists during the open house about their work and their instructional techniques. The open house is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday at 415 S. Necaise Avenue, across the street from the St. Stanislaus football field. Refreshments will be on hand, as will live blues and folk music by Ivory Bill, featuring Billy Ray Hammons and David Sallis. For more information, contact Regan Carney at (228) 216-0210 or Regancar@bellsouth.net. Mural Brought Back to Life
A beloved Bay St. Louis landmark will be undergoing restoration in the next year, thanks to a concerted effort by community leaders and support from the Pati Bannister Foundation
- story by Lisa Monti
Hancock County Chancery Clerk Tim Kellar is working with the foundation on the project. “Recently, I met with the artist’s representative and the Pati Bannister Foundation and we are moving forward toward renovating this wonderful piece of Bay St. Louis/ Hancock County art,” Kellar said. “This is a private venture. The Pati Bannister Foundation has agreed to pay a national mural restoration group to determine how to restore the mural and provide a cost analysis.
Bannister, a well known artist and Hancock County resident, died in 2013.
The mural was conceived and painted by well-know coast artist John McDonald. For nearly 16 years, his painters’ studio in the back of Serenity Gallery (now the Shops of Serenity, 126 Main Street), faced a parking lot and a blank brick wall. The empty space fired the artist’s imagination.
In the mid-90s, McDonald drew a mock-up of the mural and later a larger scale drawing. Then he and a group of supporters presented the idea to the Mississippi Arts Commission. The organization provided a grant to cover the costs of painting it. According to McDonald, two people were pivotal in facilitating the creation of the public artwork: Elizabeth Veglia (mosaic artist with dozens of large public projects around the state), and Betsy Pincus (then owner of Bay Crafts on Beach Blvd.). The actual painting of the mural took months of work by both McDonald and his assistants. Much of the work had to be done from a bucket lift. Bad weather could hold up progress for days. Worst of all, remembers McDonald, were the gnats. “Absolutely the most challenging part of the entire process,” says McDonald laughing. “They can drive you insane.” Several town residents donated to the project to have impressionistic likenesses of themselves painted into the mural. Perhaps the easiest to pick out, even today, is folk artist Alice Moseley, shown wearing her distinctive red beret. Part of the grant funding including the costs for making 1000 prints of the mural. Unfortunately, those that hadn’t been sold before Hurricane Katrina were destroyed when McDonald’s climate-controlled storage unit in Waveland flooded to the rafters. Only a handful he happened to have with him in his car survived. However, the print owned by Gulfport attorney Tom Teel, survived and was a treasured part of his office decor. Teel was disturbed that the mural itself, which had sustained major damage in Katrina, had been deteriorating further each year. He eventually contacted Dan Burton, head of the Pati Bannister Foundation to see if they’d be willing to help in the restoration process. Bannister, a well-known artist and Hancock County resident, died in 2013. The process was set into motion. Tim Kellar said that when the report is done, the Pati Bannister Foundation and artist John D. McDonald will then seek partners to fully fund a restoration. “People like Tom Teel, Dan Burton and Tim Kellar have been indispensible in the process,” says McDonald. “It takes that kind of interested, enthused support to pull a project like this together.” Only 80 limited edition prints, signed by the artist, remain. The prints are 24" x 10.5" S/N, titled, $75 each. Contact the artist to purchase. Panels of the mural from left to rightYoung at HeART
It turns out that some of the most vibrant artists in the community can be found at the Hancock County Senior Center, where "expressing yourself" is a daily event.
- story and photos by Karen Fineran
The Hancock County Senior Center, established in 1972, provides companionship for Hancock County’s active seniors in a comfortable, informal and fun social setting. The Senior Center contains a dining area, a recreational TV and reading lounge, and several arts and crafts studios. The Center provides nutritious hot breakfasts and lunches and daily transportation for seniors from their homes to the Center and back, as well as to daily or weekly errands like the grocery store, pharmacy, bank, post office, bill paying, doctors’ offices, and even group field trips to casino buffets or other restaurants.
Since the first year of its existence, the Senior Center has operated an arts program for its seniors, providing instruction and materials for a variety of arts and crafts, including oil and acrylic painting, ceramics, quilt-making, crocheting, and various seasonal crafts. The program is run with county funds, funds from Bay St. Louis and Waveland, donations of supplies and materials from private donors, and typically a small donation (usually $1 per month per class) from participating seniors. The class instructors are Senior Center staff members and outside volunteers.
The majority of the seniors at the Center – approximately 40 to 50 persons spend most of their days there – actively participate in the arts program, and many of them like to come every day. Typically, they have had little or no art training or education prior to beginning classes at the Center. That hasn’t hindered their creativity.
At least one long-time program participant has been involved in the Senior Center since its inception. Artist Theresa James, a Galveston native, moved from New Orleans to Bay St. Louis shortly after Hurricane Camille, and fell hard for the Gulf Coast. From 1972 to 1985, she was the Director of the Center’s RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program). After her retirement from that position, she had the time to begin taking the Center’s art classes herself – the first art classes of her life. She dove into the oil painting classes given by her mentor, instructor Carl Baldenhofer (now deceased). Looking up at a painting of Baldenhofer in the studio, James spoke appreciatively of his talent, winsomely recalling how he had inspired her in her painting and taught her the oil techniques that became part of her distinctive style. James paints colorful folk art depictions of jazz funerals, shrimp boats, cotton fields, and other iconic southern and New Orleans images. In earlier years, as a member of ARTS, Hancock County, James sold her paintings throughout Bay St. Louis galleries and sometimes in New Orleans. While James says that she no longer paints (as of the last several months), items of her work are displayed at Maggie May’s Gallery in Bay St. Louis. James’ favorite painting (sold long ago) is her “Blue Roofs,” which she painted of the tableau of vivid blue-tarped roofs in Bay St. Louis just after Hurricane Katrina.
Another favorite at the Center, artist Lorraine Keyser has only been painting for about three years, and had no art training or experience prior to beginning classes at the Center. She said that the Center has made a huge difference in her life and that it allowed her to come out of her shell. “Now I know everyone. It’s like a family.”
Today, her beautiful oil paintings of the natural wildlife of the Gulf Coast, such as the heron and pelican shown below, are incredible in their likeness to life and their intricate attention to detail. Though her paintings are not currently for sale, some of them have been displayed at the Mandeville Craft Show, and two more of them will be displayed there in October. Other seniors at the Center can be found chatting amiably around tables, amid piles of cloth squares, bent over their quilts and crocheting, or pouring clay slip into molds, or painting whimsical green-ware forms for ceramic firing. Arlene Johnson, the Hancock County Senior Center Director since 2001, has been with the Center since 1983, when she started as Program Specialist and ceramics instructor. A certified ceramics teacher, airbrush artist and porcelain doll instructor, and an avid painter herself, Johnson has been involved in the arts most of her life. The arts program at the Center, Johnson explained, is important to the seniors because it is the fulcrum of their social life and gives them the quality of life and companionship that they may not necessarily enjoy at home. The seniors enjoy seeing their friends at the Center every day, working on projects together, dining together, and often giving the art pieces that they make as gifts to their family, friends and caregivers.
In August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina tore up Bay St. Louis and most of the Gulf Coast, the Center’s arts program was not interrupted for long, though the Center did (inadvertently) become an emergency shelter for Hancock County.
In a breathtaking story, Johnson described the days and weeks after she had decided to ride out the storm at the Center so that she could be on hand if anyone needed her. Though the seniors themselves were evacuated before the storm arrived, a large number of people from the surrounding neighborhoods swarmed into the Center as the flood waters rose. The flood waters rose to the top of the back door step but did not infiltrate the building. In the following days, police cars and school buses began dropping more and more people off at the Center to seek shelter. For weeks, more than 170 people from all over the county, including very aged seniors, other adults, children, teenagers and babies, crowded into the small hallways and rooms of 601 Bookter Street, sleeping on the bare floors, and waiting in desperation for food, ice, blankets, clothing, Pedialite and other supplies that were dropped off sporadically by volunteers. Soaked and frightened survivors who had been rescued from the flood waters were dropped off at the center wearing only rags, and sometimes still the ropes that had saved them. The building had electricity because of its generator, but the toilets could only be flushed by occupants with bags and buckets of the flood water from outside. The Center’s van was taken out periodically to drive around town foraging for food, supplies and other survivors.
Johnson’s voice was thick with emotion, and she was visibly shaken, as she described how she slept upright for days in a chair near the doors so that she could keep a watch out for confused residents trying to leave or possible intruders trying to enter. Though her own home in town had been flooded and undeniably required her attention, she stayed at the Center because “with so many people under my care, this was where I needed to be.” She still is overwhelmed with gratitude for the volunteers who poured into the community after the hurricane, eventually permitting coast residents to surmount the ordeal and rebuild the community. She shows me an American flag that was hanging outside the Center during the storm, finding a message of hope in its blue field of stars, which remained completely intact, despite the red and white stripes incredibly having formed a solid braided coil from the punishing winds.
For eighty-eight days, the Senior Center served as a makeshift shelter in this fashion, until other places were found for the exhausted inhabitants. Within that timeframe, within the first three months after the storm and before the refugees had moved out, the Center resumed its function of providing hot meals, art classes, transportation, recreation, and shelter to the seniors during the daytime hours. The staff simply was not going to let the seniors go without the encouragement and support they needed during what must have been for many the hardest time of their lives. The Hancock County Senior Center is located at 601 Bookter Street, at the corner of Old Spanish Trail and Bookter, and is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The program is open to all residents of Hancock County who are 60 or over and who are self-sufficient. (Johnson pointed out that even temporary residents in Hancock County, such as those who may be staying with family or friends here for a few months, are welcomed.) Volunteers are also welcomed if they are interested in teaching classes or otherwise assisting the program. For more information, call the Senior Center at 228-467-9292 or pop in at 601 Bookter to ask about signing up. Thanks, Y'all Art Exhibit
An extraordinary art exhibit opening in Waveland on the 10th anniversary of Katrina embraces - and thanks - those from across the country who came to the aid of local artists after the monster storm.
- by Vicki Niolet
After Katrina, however, the artists of the county were literally stranded in a void with limited opportunities for creating, and no local venues for selling their art.
The Light In Her Wake
An artistic sendoff for Mary Kay Deen, a beloved teacher who made creative "Bellringers" of us all.
- by Molly Fitzpatrick, Mary Kay Deen, Kat Fitzpatrick and Ellis Anderson, photos and video by Ellis Anderson
"If we remember that we teach individuals, each with his or her own “bell,” we will cease to honor schooling that stands between the child and that child’s potential. We will chisel away anything that discourages thinking. We will insist that learning occurs when children have choices, when they are taught to assess their own work, when they build community with others, and when they stretch themselves, believing they can do the impossible."
Kat Fitzpatrick, artist and educator, watched her own daughter Molly began to beam with Mary Kay’s guidance. “She invited them [her students] into her enthusiasm, so they caught fire. It was her special gift. She would hand the baton to them and make them experts and authorities." "She could see the children and recognize something in them that she admired. And then she’d turn it, so the child could see herself with Mary Kay’s eyes. So many things are invisible to us until someone shares that way of being."
It’s been more than 20 years since Kat's daughter Molly Fitzpatrick Martin sat in Mary Kay’s class, yet those early lessons have helped shape her life. And now, Molly also believes that her teacher understood the light she carried and the gifts of love it could impart:
Mary Kay Deen was the first person (other than my mother, who I believed was legally obligated to make me feel special) to tell me I was an artist. Even in a wounded, smart ass little kid, she saw it. She never condescended, never patted my head -- she believed I had something important to communicate, and eventually I started to believe it too. Other students of hers have echoed that sentiment over the years. She took the time to find what was innate and powerful about each of her students, hold it up to the light, and patiently reveal it to them. Before her memorial service, I thought this was something that just flowed out of her, something beautiful and saintly that maybe she didn't even realize about herself. But upon hearing the excerpts from the teaching book she contributed to, I saw that it was, in fact, a time-honored commitment - something she had made her life's mission and worked hard for every single day. I felt so intensely grateful and proud of her in that moment, because I realized that at the end of her life, she had achieved everything she set out to do. She loved easily and joyfully, without compromise, and the effects of that are visibly imprinted on our community. I will hold her in my heart always. Thank you, Mary Kay, for making Bellringers of all who knew you. 4th Sunday at Four
A celebration of the arts in a striking venue - Christ Episcopal Church. Find out how why this free series of concerts and fine art shows is growing in popularity each year.
- photos and story by Ellis Anderson
Yet some of the artists who had helped found the festivals found themselves out in the cold as the competition for booth spaces became fierce. The Dawsons and several church volunteers launched 4th Sundays to give venues to local artists and performers.
Flash forward to 2011. The new Christ Church building, replacing the one destroyed by Katrina, had been sanctified. Yet the church vestry wanted the spacious facility to be used for community events, as well as congregational ones. The Dawsons, who had been attending the church for several years, shared their Kansas City 4th Sunday experience. The concept was met with enthusiasm. The first event took place in January 2011, making 2015 the fifth year of the series.
The concerts and art shows offered at the 4th Sunday at Four series are free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome.
The event begins with a musical performance in the sanctuary starting at 4pm. Favorite past performers include Coast Chorale (a Christmas tradition), Laura Leigh Dobson, J.T. Anglin, Walter Chamberlin’s jazz ensemble, and Father Ron & Friends (who just performed in May). Other much appreciated performers have been the N.O. Quarter Shanty Krewe (who performed Irish Sea Chanties) and Heather and the Monkey King. The musical programs range from classical to folk to jazz. The performers are paid only what the audience donates as they’re leaving. But Margene says that people are generous, so it works out well for both performers and the audience. She also says performers love the venue – the building is lovely and uplifting, while the audiences are quiet, attentive and appreciative. After the one-hour performance, the crowds stream across to the community hall next door. The large room is set up like a gallery each month, to showcase everything from photography to paintings to pottery. All the artwork is for sale and since refreshments and hors d’oeuvres are served, the affair takes on the feel of a swank big city gallery opening. The artists keep all the proceeds from the sales – the church doesn’t collect any commission. Artists with coast-wide reputations that have shown at the series include Tazewell, Kat Fitzpatrick, Lori Gordon and Neil Untersaher. Watercolorist John McDonald was the featured artist for the May event. As the reputation of the series spreads, attendances have been building. Margene says they're at least double what they were five years ago. 4th Sunday at Four take place nine months a year. April is skipped because of Easter activities, while school openings and the heat in August and September combine to make the events difficult to coordinate. “The only way I’d do it in August is if we could get Neil Diamond,” Margene says, laughing. |
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