Growing up in Itawamba County, Mississippi, Victoria Cummings-Bobo learned from her Granny the value of making beautiful objects out of repurposed materials. Cummings-Bobo recalls that her Granny built small pieces of furniture, like stools: “She built them herself, with little pieces of wood that she would find outside that someone might have thrown away. She […]
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Sign painter and muralist Paul Gore received his first set of paintbrushes from his father when he was 14 years old. His father was an artist and a college art professor, who painted signs for extra money. He drove Paul to his first job, hand-lettering the logo on the window of the New York Life
Saul Haymond, Sr. of Pickens, Mississippi is a self-taught painter who has been documenting life in the African American community in Holmes County for over forty years. Born in 1947 on a plantation near Ebenezer, Haymond’s first exposure to painting and the art world came through a mail-order book he received that featured the paintings
Anyone who has traveled on Highway 49 West through the Mississippi Delta has seen Larry Grimes’ work. His home is on the east side of the road, about halfway between Parchman Penitentiary and Rome, Mississippi. Grimes’ home is the only house for miles each way, and the place beckons like a neon sign. You notice
Bob Coleman was born in Doddsville, Miss. in 1928. The youngest of five children, Coleman grew up working on a farm alongside his brothers. As a child, Coleman stuttered which kept him in the background at school and church. In 1946 he started college and played football for Sunflower Junior College in Moorehead (now Mississippi
Brian Willis brings a deep knowledge of Choctaw tradition to his job of Communications Editor for the monthly Choctaw Community News, the office of which is in the Pearl River neighborhood of Philadelphia. He was born in 1974 to Huey and Nancy Willis of the nearby Tucker community (there are eight Choctaw communities in Mississippi,
Young Bobby Walters would comb the monthly magazines along with the Hattiesburg American for those ads that said: “Draw Me!” He would reproduce the published silhouette, send it off, and receive a letter proclaiming his extraordinary talent. But his mother would say that the correspondence courses cost too much—$150 was a lot of money in
I arrive at Mr. Gipson’s place of residence at approximately 4 pm. Canterbury Crest is an assisted living facility; when I arrive, I notice two elderly African American gentlemen sitting outside, one of whom is in a wheelchair. As I approach them, I ask the man in the wheelchair if he is Mr. Gipson because