The McComb Lions Club heard from a local arts administrator at its Tuesday meeting, along with two artists spending time in McComb as part of an art residency program.
Calvin Phelps, a McComb native who lived for many years in Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles, explained that he founded Pike School of Art last year after moving back to Mississippi.
The nonprofit’s mission is twofold — to engage the community with art through a range of public programs and to invite artists from elsewhere to visit McComb for a brief immersion in the Deep South.
Phelps said that in putting his organization together — it’s “PSA” for short — he drew on his long experience as an artist and gallery manager. He also worked for the Armory Center for the Arts, a Pasadena, Calif., nonprofit that conducted public art programs, including in parks, schools and jails.
Phelps explained that he wanted to recreate the Armory Center’s approach.
In the public realm, Phelps conducted free after-school art workshops at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center for three months earlier this year. In a pilot program in partnership with the City of McComb and McComb School District, kids aged 6 to 13 attended classes three afternoons a week.
Phelps said he is looking into resuming the workshops, either in a school district facility or at the Boys & Girls Club.
Accompanying Phelps at the Lions Club were two artists who came to McComb for PSA’s residency program.
Residencies allow artists to stay and work temporarily in places that encourage creativity and provide new context for their work.
Arden Cone, a South Carolinian currently in graduate school in Boston, is a painter. And Millicent Kennedy, a Mendenhall native who lives in Chicago, works with textiles and other media.
Cone and Kennedy are in McComb for the better part of two weeks, housed in a cabin at Percy Quin State Park. They have visited with students from Jubilee Performing Arts Center and made side trips to museums and historical sites in Jackson, Natchez and Biloxi. They also gave interviews on local radio.
Cone told the Lions Club that her work focuses on a range of social issues in the South and uses imagery from the colonial antebellum era.
Kennedy said that she attended Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven before heading to the Chicago area for college. She has worked in painting and sculpture in addition to fiber and other materials.
The artists have created work while in McComb. Studios were arranged for them in offices at the McComb Business Mill on South Broadway, which St. Andrew’s Mission operates as a business incubator.
The art residency ends with two days in New Orleans.
Phelps is also a board member of the McComb Creative Economy Partnership. He pointed out that the PSA residents pay a fee to come here, which contributes to the region’s economy.
