Wesson Public Library (WPL) showcased six contemporary artists throughout June in a new role as an art gallery and promote the arts in the community.
Friends of the Library (FOL) member Dr. Steven Liverman pulled together the exhibit for the “Art Corner,” which FOL plans to make an ongoing feature of WPL. The month-long show featured works in watercolor, oil and acrylic of artists whose style and education varied.
The six artists were:
Richard Dorris III, a Wesson resident since 1993, who prefers watercolor, but has used oils and acrylic as well in paintings inspired by Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, Leroy Neiman, Rembrandt and Picasso. A physical therapist until 2011, he started painting in 1987 after studying art at the University of New Orleans and Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi, where he was instructed by Sam Gore, and sometimes, Wyatt Waters.
Peggy Kraft Harkins, a Crystal Springs resident who aspired to become a portrait painter and art teacher, but pursued a career in advertising art after studying at Mississippi University for Women under Robert Johnson, Ann Parker, Larry Feeney, Tom Newrocki and Paul Fayard, and receiving a BFA in commercial art with a minor in printmaking. She works in all media to express something as beautiful or more beautiful than what you see, noting her career has allowed her “to develop her design abilities and learn to appreciate all beautiful design and creativities.” Her art, she says, is a way of showing the mood of a person, the time of day, or the atmosphere of a location or a special beauty. She is a member of local art organizations and the International Association of Pastel Societies.
Keith T. Jones, originally from Wesson, is a professional designer, illustrator and educator, currently head of graphic design at the University of Alabama at Huntsville where he has taught for 28 years. He exhibits throughout the South, nationally and internationally, is a signature member of the Alabama Watercolor Society and conducts watercolor seminars in Birmingham, Alabama. He is also known for his illustrations in children’s books, including Susan Larson’s There’s a Fly in My Ear. The son of Dot Jones and the late James “Buck” Jones, he and his wife Teri live in Athens, Alabama, outside Huntsville.
Pam Phillips Kelly, who now lives in Pickens, Mississippi, with her husband Mike, and is an office manager of Canton branch of Renasant Bank, graduated from Wesson High School and Co-Lin after moving with her parents, Freddie and Joy Phillips, to Wesson from Starkville, Mississippi, in the early 1970s. She has always love to paint, learning by painting with her family friends Ava Jane Newell and the late Peggy Smith.
Pastor Lillie Deleace Stanton from Byram, Mississippi, pastor of New Life Cathedral of Worship in Hazlehurst, which is under the leadership of Senior Pastor Bishop Dr. Arnold Stanton, her husband, says “being able to paint what I see in the natural and in my mind, birthing it on a blank canvas, is all God.” Inspired by artists Bob Ross and Wilson Bickford, she paints in acrylic. She is a graduate of the former Utica Junior College, now Hinds Community College – Utica, and Bellhaven University in Jackson.
Greg West, who is employed at the MAFES Truck Crops Branch Experiment Station Crystal Springs, started creating art “of a more personal nature” after coming to Copiah County 14 years ago following a 20-year career in graphic design, 15 years of which he spent as art director for Flatlanders Screen Printing in Cleveland, Mississippi. A 1989 Delta State University graduate with a BFA in graphic design, he studied art education in secondary school, and, on his own, spent many hours practicing perspective, human anatomy and cartooning.