Everything And Nothing

Prospect.1 New Orleans opens on Saturday

Lori Waselchuk for The New York Times/ Rachel Lucas, a design consultant from New York, working on a house created by the artist Wangechi Mutu as an art installation for the Prospect.1 biennial.

Prospect.1 New Orleans, a new contemporary art biennial, is set to open in New Orleans on Saturday and continue through Jan. 18. With 81 artists on the roster, it is being billed as the largest exhibition of contemporary art ever held on American soil. (Nine of the 81 artists taking part in the biennial live in Louisiana.) There are more than 20 biennial sites, which include the Edgar Degas Foundation; the New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture and History; the Battle Ground Church; and the Ideal Auto repair shop.

Dan Cameron, the driving force behind Prospect.1 and a former senior curator at the New Museum in New York, said that as he was planning the biennial, a friend frequently reminded him of a quotation from Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: “Everything in New Orleans is a good idea.”

[ via Shaila Dewan, New York Times ]

MSH art exhibit now at ARTichoke in Jackson

Artwork created by individuals who participate in Mississippi State Hospital’s (MSH) Community Services art workshops will be on display at ARTichoke art gallery in Jackson from July 17 until July 30. A reception will be held at ARTichoke, located at 1012 E. Fortification Street, on Thursday, June 24, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

MSH Art Instructor Anthony DiFatta said the exhibit demonstrates to the public what his students are capable of doing.

For more information about the exhibit or the reception, call DiFatta at 601-351-8000, ext. 4696.

Walter Anderson Museum Looking for Artists for Holiday Card Contest

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art recently announced the WAMA Coastal Holiday Card Contest 2008. All artists throughout the Southeast are invited and encouraged to participate.

Walter Inglis Anderson had a love for nature that was not only apparent in his day to day life but most certainly in his art. Anderson referred to himself as an artist "more in love with nature than art," and easily portrays his ideals in all of his work.

Do you have a favorite memory of holidays on the coast? Perhaps a favorite coastal retreat you call home, joyfully decorated for the season. They want to see your ideas and share them with everyone that walks through the Walter Anderson Museum of Art.

All drawings, paintings (water color, oil, pastels, acrylics, etc.) must be two-dimensional and represent a Coastal Holiday. Photographs will not be accepted. The winning entries of four artists will be selected. The four designs chosen will be sold at the Walter Anderson Museum Store as a collector’s set and a percentage of sales will be shared with each artist.

The deadline for entry is July 15, 2008. Artists can get an application online at www.walterandersonmuseum.org or by calling the museum at (228) 872-3164 or by mail to: ATTN: Betsy Myers, The Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 510 Washington Avenue, Ocean Springs, MS 39564.

All mail-in entries must include a disc of artist’s work along with completed form. The collectors set will be printed and ready for the Peter Anderson Festival. For more information please contact Betsy Myers at (228) 872-3164.

James Bond films inspire competition

Bond's Beauty - All Wrapped Up by Mary Pat Smith

The Greater Jackson Arts Council has issued a call for entries for their August Live and Let Draw Competition: James Bond Invitational. The top prize will win $1,000, with up to $2,100 available for all places. Juried entries will go on display in an exhibition at the Mississippi Arts Center in August and serve as decor for the arts council's annual Storytellers Ball on Aug. 21.

The deadline is June 30 for two-dimensional works in the spirit of the James Bond theme. (Entries may have three-dimensional qualities but must hang on the wall for display.) Artists can submit photos, digital prints or digital files (no slides or original artwork). There is a $10 entry fee per piece.

The exhibition will be on display Aug. 4-30. An artists reception for the show, 2-4 p.m. Aug. 7, will be open to the public. Awards will be presented then.

Art not for sale

Ed Moberly has created a kind of folk art museum at his home in the Florida panhandle - but his intricate and fun carvings are not for sale, he says. He's a retired insurance adjuster with no art training who just started carving 10 years ago when he moved to Apalachicola.

Paris comes to Peachtree

You don't have to fly to Paris to see the masterpieces of the Louvre this summer. Just plan a trip to Atlanta's High Museum of Art for "The Louvre of the Ancient World" and "The Eye of Josephine" (closes May 18). The exhibits are a result of the High's Louvre Atlanta Partnership. Many of the works have never been seen in the U.S. before.

Tickets are timed (from $11 to $18) and reservations are suggested. To make a reservation, visit www.high.org or call          (403) 733-5000       or          (404) 733-4444       .

Edible Art

Dan Ross with his butter cow at the Ohio State Fair

According to Shane Mitchell in Saveur magazine, butter art reached its baroque phase in 1876, when the American sculptor Caroline Brooks caused a sensation at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition with a lifelike bust of a maiden that she had sculpted from butter. Ever since, butter sculptures have been a standard exhibit at many county and state fairs in America.

At the Iowa State Fair, Norma "Duffy" Lyon, also known as the Butter Cow Lady, and her recent successor, Sarah Pratt, are famous for their renditions of true-to-scale cows. During her 38-year-career, she also carved Smokey the Bear, Elvis - and even a 3-D rendition of The Last Supper in butter. (She also did a bust of Obama in butter this past December.)

Art in Mississippi: Alan Flattmann

William Faulkner's Typewriter

In conjunction with the publication of the book, Alan Flattmann’s French Quarter Impressions, the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, officially proclaimed September 28, 2002, as Alan Flattmann Day in recognition of 25 years of success painting in the French Quarter. But Flattmann also often turned his pastel colors to Mississippi. He has a long association with Bryant Galleries, which is located in both New Orleans and Jackson.

Art in Mississippi: Mary Katharine Loyacono McCravey

Mary Katharine Knoblock Loyacono McCravey was born on April 1, 1910, in Forest, Mississippi. She first studied Art in her junior year of high school, 1926-1927, and later graduated from Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1932 with majors in Art and Spanish. However, the desperate times of the Great Depression afforded no opportunities for any career, especially in Art or Spanish. After college, McCravey worked with the W.P.A., establishing libraries in Scott County, Mississippi.

McCravey's painting career began while she was teaching at Central High School and was invited by Richard McRae to exhibit and sell her work, along with other local artists at his newly built department store in the Meadowbrook area of Jackson. She signed those early paintings "Loyacono" and, after the exhibit, went on to create paintings that were admired and sought after locally and nationally.

Art in Mississippi: Mildred Wolfe

Eudora Welty (in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery)

Mildred Wolfe was one of the artists who began the Mississippi Art Colony. She and her husband, Karl, were both very active in the art community in Mississippi. Her daughter, Elizabeth, later followed in the family tradition. Mildred painted well into her 90s.