By Rhonda Dunaway
Enterprise-Journal
The Charles Crossley and Healing Hearts foundations have teamed up to offer art classes for the next two weeks, including all of the art supplies, at no charge to anyone who is interested in the fine arts.
“The supplies are being donated by the Healing Hearts Foundation,” said art teacher Mickalena Crossley Dukes, daughter of the late painter Charles Crossley.
Dukes is donating her talents as painter and teacher, and her mother, Fern Crossley, is offering her late husband’s McComb studio and art gallery at 325 N. Front St., as a space for Dukes to teach.
The classes are10 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week and July 28-30.
Participants may come to the gallery ready to work, or call Dukes at 551-4033 for more information.
“We are looking for students who are ready to look at things from a whole new perspective,” Dukes said.
“We are focusing on collages in the workshops this year. And, drawing, of course, that will complement their collage work.”
Dukes teaches high school art in Plano, Texas, and said she comes home to Mississippi to be with family and to share and promote the fine arts in the Pike County area.
“One of my purposes in doing this is to promote the arts in the community and also share the legacy of Charles Crossley,” she said.
She explained that she will help inspire students with some of Crossley’s master collages.
Dukes said she plans to return to McComb each year.
“This is something I want to return to do every summer,” she said. “I want to begin a youth art program here — the Charles Crossley Memorial Summer Camp.”
