I can’t imagine living without art. To me the process of creating art is stimulating, frustrating, satisfying, but mainly joyful. My studio is my happy place. I grew up in an environment where art was so important to my daily life.

I received my BFA and M. ED in art and art education at the University of Southern Mississippi and taught art for many years. Since retirement I have had the time to pursue further studies in painting in workshops and the Mississippi Art Colony. I love the freedom to spend hours experimenting with paint and various art materials.

I am a member of the South Mississippi Art League (SMAL), the Ocean Springs Art Association and the Mississippi Art Colony. I have participated in art exhibits at Hattiesburg Cultural Arts Center , The Keenan Art Gallery in Pass Christian, the Oxford Treehouse Gallery, Mississippi Art Colony Traveling Show and Behold Gallery In Bay St. Louis, Miss. and others. I have won numerous awards for my paintings in shows in several places. My work Hangs in many locations throughout the United States.

As I have emphasized my love of art has been with me throughout my life. I see the world as many paintings in my mind ready to be painted.

  Jimpsie is a Memphis native. Since her return to Memphis several years ago, she has been exhibiting her work around the region, both at commercial galleries and at independent venues. Most recently, her love of the Southern landscape has led her to the discipline of plein aire painting. Jimpsie began her career as a stained glass artist and muralist while living in California and Florida. Her later work as a painter of textiles earned her a listing in Who’s Who in California.  

Marlon Brewer studied art at Jones college in 1982. Afterward, he continued his education at Delta State University, where he studied under his now-mentor Sammy Britt, and completed a BFA in Painting and Sculpture in 1989. Brewer now resides in Jones County, Mississippi.

“I believe that true, pure beauty is found in the simplicity of nature and in all things. It is an origin from which we can slow down and see the creation of the Almighty Father. Mother Earth will embrace, nurture, and console us in our moment of need if we can only take the time. It is all much greater than we could ever be. Therefore, she carries on with her mission at her leisure and marches without a timepiece.

All of this and life itself can be witnessed in a cow pasture, a lot, or a field. Trees are mere actors and pieces placed in the production directed by a living God. I see this woven in the Mississippi landscape. Delta air or Coastal mist…even pastures set the stage.

I love Mississippi. It breathes life and atmosphere. I wish to paint this with the same intensity as painting a loved one. Mississippi is my forever mortal home. I wish to always show her in a good light.”

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mississippi Rebecca Browning began a thirty-year teaching career in the Mississippi public schools. Today, she works from her studio, Meadow Creek, in New Albany, Mississippi, where she is a printmaker and pastel artist. Considering herself to be a lifelong learner, Rebecca sketches, photos, and studies her natural environment which is the main source of inspiration for her original hand-carved linoleum prints and pastel paintings. The natural world; the creeks, country meadows, and stately gardens provide the element of storytelling that she desires to help the viewers of her works see the delicate balance and interconnection that all living species share! She feels that these connections with our natural environments are vital for our joy and wellbeing.

“When viewing the subjects in my works, I invite that viewer to recall a time of his or her own unique encounters with nature!”

Bourgeois was born in New Orleans, Louisiana during WWII., the oldest of six children, each of whom are musicians or artists. Growing up with stifling humidity, rich cuisine, and a strong experience of family created the unique environment for nurturing creative fluency. Her spiritual upbringing planted within her a sense of the sacred and mystical and provided fertile ground for an already natural instinct for art.

For Bourgeois there must be a relationship between form and content. She is always concerned with the composition and formal aspects of the work, balanced with subjects derived from nature and intuition. She is most at home with suggestions of gesture and strong personal mark making. Her goal is response to the subject, not so much representation.

Prices available on request

Stock at the gallery rotates often - please call or email for up-to-date stock availability and product dimensions.

The pursuit of an artistic identity began when I was a child. By growing up in an environment that embraced self-sufficiency and hand-made items, I unknowingly developed an acute sense for household objects and an appreciation for craftsmanship. In high school, I reconnected with this visual denominator and set a path for artistic discovery.

Although my endeavors in visual art are varied, my most consistent output fuses pottery, drawing, design, and surface texture on fired clay. The pots that I create are explorations of drawing and surface while hinting at voices of pottery making history. Artists such as Peter Voulkos, Ron Meyers, and Mary Barringer influence some of my methodologies since their work explores three-dimensional form while capturing tactile information. In addition to clay artists, the Swiss-born artist of the early to mid 20th century, Paul Klee, has provided inspiration to explore mark-making and symbolism mixed media such as oil paint, watercolor and pen.

I use cups, bowls, platters, and other pottery forms to convey thoughts through surface texture. I combine several construction techniques like throwing, slab construction, and coiling to build my work. Most of my surface embellishment occurs at the leather hard stage where I enjoy altering, carving, and applying iconic drawings. Since my glaze palette is simple, I rely heavily on textural variations and small color accents to adorn my work. Most of my pots are reduction fired to cone 10, but I do experiment with vapor firings such as soda, salt, and wood.

In 2006, I began teaching observational drawing and reflected upon drafting exercises from high school. Those lessons influenced my appreciation for isometric renderings and detailed studies of machine components. The residual effect of those mathematical drawings is currently incorporated into mixed media on paper that combine pen, watercolor, and collage. The drawings that I create are explorations of personal narratives through vernacular objects. For example, the fishing bobber, pliers, tack, and jack are small; common objects that I have adopted to offer a personal symbolic language. I find humor in using simple, ordinary objects but also try to think of these objects as having a duality in meaning and a personal significance.

Tammy Oliver Cook is a native Mississippian. Her passion for oil painting began over three decades ago.

Oil Painters with whom she has studied are Bob Tompkins, Shanna Kunz, Dawn Whitelaw, Roger Dale Brown, Daniel Gearhartz, Richard Kelso and Sammy Britt.

She draws inspiration from George Inness, John Singer Sargent, Richard Schmid, Gustav Klimt and CeciliaBeaux.

She is a member of the Mississippi Plein Air Painters, Mississippi Artists Guild, Oxford Artists Guild, Associate member of the Oil Painters’ of America, the Portrait Painters of America and of the American Impressionists Society.

Whether painting still life, landscape or figures, Tammy’s works have a distinct color harmony. She strives to capture the beauty of light with color and texture that pull the viewer’s eye along a chosen path to evoke a sense of wonder and excitement.

CM Cooper refers to herself as a “contemporary traditionalist.”  Her impressionistic paintings blend classic aesthetics with the modern figure.  Women, children, dancers and animals in contemporary settings come to life through her bold impressionistic brush strokes.  Cooper’s delicate color sensitivity and wonderful sense of light create images that are filled with emotion and feeling.

Born and raised in Southern California, Cooper was educated at Art Center College of Design where she earned her BFA.  A career in fashion advertising followed, along with freelance work in editorial illustration.  But her travels to Europe---including an opportunity to live and study in Paris---began to focus her interest towards a fine art career.  Her studies continued at the Associates in Arts Masters Program and 4 years of study with Joseph Mendez.  Rare opportunities to observe and study under the highly respected artists Howard Terpning and Raymond Everett Kinsler further enhanced her artistic abilities and vision.

Today she is a full time gallery painter and art instructor.  Cooper’s work is featured at several galleries across the nation, from South Carolina to Santa Barbara and Carmel, California. Most recently she was blessed by receiving an Award of Excellence /AIS National Juried Show 2022.  Other highlights before that was to be honored both a  Best of Show (2017)  and a Second Best in Show AIS (2018)  for their first and second "Small Works" Shows. Other awards include the Salon International’s 2010 Top Award, Third Place in Show and the Museum Director’s Choice Award at the California Art Club’s 92nd annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition in 2002 which were great  honors.  She is a member of both the Oil Painters of America (OPA) and the American Impressionist's Society (AIS).

Cooper has been a featured artist in Southwest Magazine’s Figurative Issue, November 2003, and was selected as an “Artist to Watch” in November 2002.  She was also recommended in their “Collector’s Choice” issue in October 2003.  Other publications include International Artist Magazine’s “100 Ways to Paint People and Your Favorite Subject” in 2003 – 2004, along with several other publications.

Art has always been my passion. Growing up in the rural south, I found art in the trees and the layering of the distant landscape- pastures, streams, and cloudy hills at the horizon. It is amazing to find beauty in things others pass up every day without notice.

I’ve always had a strong affinity to natural design, visual rhythm, and light. In life, I enjoy watching graceful dance, rhythmic ocean waves, swirling wind movements over fields, and graceful clouds. My goal in incorporating these natural design elements is to make viewing art as relaxing as hearing a lovely melody. But I take care to avoid emptying the painting of real substance by over-designing my works.

Some of my paintings are created on location working outside- feeling the very air I am painting into the scene. Some textures are smooth, and some are painted more thickly with a brush or palette knife. I take small paintings and photos inside to my studio to paint large works (some up to 72 inches and their visual depth is difficult to appreciate in a photograph).

My ongoing “Rural South Collection” consists of southern scenery- motifs that allows the viewer to create a visual story. I use a limited palette, refusing to have bright colors just for the sake of being “pretty”. I want my paintings to speak in a whisper prompting the viewer to lean in closer.

My subject matter tends to lean toward memories of the most unique and creatively rich patches of the earth that ever existed: the Mississippi Delta. I was greatly influenced by the area from my childhood summers there with my share-cropping grandparents.

Like characters in a Faulkner novel, my subject and focus changes from location to location. The Appalachian foothills create beautiful vistas, intimately painted trees and lush vegetation.

After years of trying to find “my own voice”, I found it by being passionate without any fuss or concern over my painting style.

Pauline is a needle felting artist inspired by wildlife and nature. With a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Sculpture) from the Manchester Metropolitan University, England, she creates animal portraits and landscapes by needle felting wool. She considers the process of needle felting a painting to be very sculptural; teasing, twisting, and layering the fibers to capture the essence of the subject. Pet portraits are also available! 

A native of Scotland with a Scottish mother and American father, Pauline has dual nationality. She moved to Columbus MS in 2013 having married her husband, an Associate Professor of Theatre at MUW.

As a member of the NMWA MS Chapter Pauline exhibited in their Annual Artist Showcase for the first time in Spring 2017.

She was also featured in the Commercial Dispatch, (Columbus MS) Lifestyles, Jan Swoope, January 22, 2017

The harmony and structure of a piece of sculpture begins in the mind of one who sees possibilities. Wood and stone may remain in their natural state as nature dictates, but there is the potential, when worked with by an artist, to become fully alive and timeless. 

Jackson, Mississippi sculptor Robert Crowell visualizes this harmony and structure in a variety of materials and brings them forward into actual space and time.  His work is balanced and finished - without being sterile.  It is consistent without being repetitious.  

The oil paintings I create are guided by my imagination and instinctive responses to the medium. Trained as a sculptor, ceramist and painter, I use palette knives to apply textured, bold strokes of pigment across the canvas. My abstract compositions reflect an abiding love of nature, and are my personal interpretations of various aspects of the natural world that inspire me: avian and piscine; aquatic and botanical; atmospheric and celestial. The vibrant colors to which I am drawn evoke both optimism, and solace.

Paulette Dove is a Biloxian that has been painting and exhibiting on the gulf coast for many years. Dove received her B.F.A. and MED. from MUW and William Carey. She prefers to work mostly in acrylic and pottery when working from her studio, the Side Door Studio.

A Memphis native, Frank Estrada is an artist, printmaker, illustrator, graphic designer, animator, and 3D artist living in Oxford, MS. He earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Printmaking and a Bachelor's of Arts in Sociology at the University of Mississippi. He is currently earning his Master's of Science in Integrated Marketing Communication.

He fell in love with Printmaking after taking his first-ever Introduction to Printmaking course at the University of Mississippi. His main focus in printmaking is the relief technique. Heavily involved in the community, Estrada enjoys sharing the process and techniques with others.

His relief prints are composed of imagery from his Mexican heritage and Southern upbringing. He carves images out of both linoleum and woodblocks. They vary in size from 4x6 inches to 8x4 feet! Estrada has displayed artwork throughout the country and currently has an exhibition at Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience (The MAX) in Meridian, MS, now through July 9, 2022, called "Family Legacy."

He has received several honors: Emerging Leaders of Color for South Arts (2022), former Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowship Grant recipient (2016), and Double Decker Arts Festival featured artist (2015).

Martha Ferris grew up on her family farm on the banks of the Big Black River in western Mississippi, and her early work reflects the rich variety and vivid colors of the flowers, trees and abundant wildlife that flourishes in the Big Black River Basin.

From the beginning Martha committed herself to a program of continuous experimentation and constant change, a process that took her work from small patches of fabric transformed by traditional techniques, particularly batik, to the large scale splash pools she designed for the Mississippi Museum of Art's public gardens, a project that covers more than 500 square feet and employs light, water, high powered pumps, brightly colored mosaics and advanced computer technology to create a sophisticated work of art that doubles as a children's play space. These are the McRae's Children's Fountains, and they have been widely written about and praised not only for their beauty but also for their civic value.

Martha continues to experiment across a growing range of media. In the past few years she has focused on a series of paintings, Cityscapes, that extends her sense of place far beyond her family farm. These recent paintings, which display Martha's long standing love of exacting geometry and brilliant coloring, detail her response to cities around the world to which she has traveled, cities as far away in time and space as Damascus, Los Angeles, New York, and Berlin.

Alan received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Washington State University in 1979. After completing his degree he was an assistant professor of psychology at Emory University.  In 1986 he joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi and is currently professor of psychology and director of clinical training for the clinical psychology graduate program.

Alan has been in love with the guitar and the blues since he was a teen. Like many of his generation he was introduced to the blues as a result of the music of British bands like the Rolling Stones and Cream. It is now his great fortune to be living in Mississippi, where the blues remains a vibrant force in music culture.  For a decade starting in 2002, he regularly gigged with Terry "Harmonica" Bean, a true original bluesman and great performer. This association resulted in gigs with Frank Vick (drummer for Willie Foster, Little Milton, Albert King, and Howlin’ Wolf), Lightnin’ Malcolm, Eric Deaton, Kenny Kimbrough, Calvin Jackson and R. L. Boyce (a mainstay of Otha Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum Band).  

In 2012, Alan teamed up with renowned blues harp player Adam Gussow and formed the Blues Doctors.  This 2 man band plays a mix of originals, Chicago and Delta blues standards, along with some funk and jazz tunes.  Their album “Roosters Blues” reached #10 on the Living Blues national radio airplay chart.  

Alan recently became interested in incorporating the cigar box guitar into his music and began building CBGs. The wood (red oak, cherry, walnut) used in these guitars comes from Carroll County Mississippi. The logs were rough cut into boards at a local sawmill in Montgomery County Mississippi, and air dried for 8 years in Lafayette County. With the help of noted woodworker Ken Sufka, each guitar neck and bridge are hand crafted.   

I grew up in Mississippi- the middle of three brothers and an 8th generation Mississippian. Our family has long had ties to the woods: my grandfather owned a lumber mill in the small town of Roxie, Mississippi, and he built his home from wood produced at his mill. My great-grandfather also owned a mill.

At the age of seven, I began teaching myself how to handcraft solid wood longbows, and at the age of sixteen, I was admitted as the youngest-ever member of the Mississippi Craftsman's Guild. I am now a fellow with the Guild granting me lifelong membership.

After working for the US forest service in Colorado and Montana during college, I moved to Seattle, WA and worked as a carpenter and a craftsman.

While working in Seattle I met and married my wife, Katey. Once married our hearts warmed to the idea of moving south and opening a small business doing what I love...building heirloom furniture from local trees otherwise relegated as firewood or, even worse, destined for a landfill. Oxford, Mississippi was a natural fit for Katey and me and upon moving the vision started to become a reality. Roxie Woodworks was born.

John is currently taking commissions.

Stacey Johnson Hardy ( b.1969) is a visual artist working primarily in clay. Her work is influenced by life in the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast, places rich in a myriad of cultures. Her figurative work embraces this gumbo of flamboyance, color, soulfulness, and storytelling. Hardy primarily works in red, gritty clay, which she discovered in her youth, dug from the earth. Working with this particular medium is both familiar and purposeful, serving as a beautiful surface upon which to build layers of color. She has an interest in diverse figure study without gender or race, and often thinks of pieces as self portraits. Gestural figures are adorned with layered, painterly surfaces filled with mark making, in essence creating an evolving cartography honoring constellations, plant and ocean life, and destinations. Hardy holds a BFA from Loyola University and an MFA from the University of Georgia. She is the recipient of multiple fellowships and awards, including the honor of 2020 Visual Artist award from The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. Recent residencies include Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and Penland School of Craft.

Many people have asked me, “from where does your inspiration come?” I would have to say without a doubt, that being born in the deep South, Jackson, MS, and spending many summers and holidays with my grandparents in Inverness, MS, gave me unlimited resources and remembrances of home and countryside. The many organic shapes of nature found in southern landscapes led me to an interest in painting them.

My art has been described as expressionistic and has been influenced by artists like Van Gogh, Freida Hamm and others that use stylized shapes. I have adopted a line and ink approach that blends large colorful shapes with heavy ink lines and marks. Trees, barns, old houses, and country roads take on my impression of their shape and style. My goal is to evoke in the viewer a remembrance of old familiar places.

Early in life, I had an interest in art. In third grade, I thought it would be great to illustrate children's books. However, life changes young dreams. After graduation from the University of Mississippi and a 45 -year career in accounting, I returned to my avocation - art! I began by taking a drawing class and continued with pastels and acrylics. My interest grew after taking additional lessons and workshops in oil. After admiring watercolor paintings by the wonderful artists in Fred Rawlinson’s Jackson critique class, I desired to learn the art of watercolor. Many classes later, with Fred as my teacher, watercolor became my preferred medium.

My wife and I now live in Somerville, TN. I am a member of Memphis/Germantown Art League, Tennessee Watercolor Society, and the Watercolor Society of Alabama. I enjoy participating in and supporting local art exhibitions in West Tennessee and national shows in the surrounding states.

Born and raised by the descendants of hillbillies, Jill Foote-Hutton is an artist following in the tradition of medicine woman and storytellers through her creative practice dubbed Whistlepig Studio. She has earned a living as a teacher, curator, writer, artist, and arts administrator since 2003. She has been graced with the opportunities to travel to Greece, Denmark, China, Japan, and glorious locales within the United States in the name of contemporary craft.

She was the Coordinator of Artist Services and Storytelling at Northern Clay Center where she managed fellowships, grants, and artists’ residencies. She was Curator of Exhibitions at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana from 2010-2014. She was Gallery Director and lead faculty for seven years at East Central College in Union, Missouri. Her MFA was earned at the University of Mississippi in 2003, and her BFA was earned at Webster University in 1994.

Whether she is spinning her own tales, chronicling observations from the world of clay and the world at large, or facilitating others’ voices through word and form, she has always been committed to the craft of storytelling. As of January 2020, she was appointed as the Editor of The Studio Potter, a non-profit periodical, centered on studio practice, promoting discussion of technology, criticism, aesthetics, and history within the ceramics community.

Guardian Monsters

Every Guardian Monster is an amalgamation of real experiences. Each Guardian Monster is a chimera, a combination of characteristics observed from our world’s flora and fauna, and sometimes machine, and sometimes the human condition – or at least their physical characteristics as a whole are manifestations of such. Every Guardian Monster figurehead is an artifact of a moment gone by and a moment yet to come. “Monster” as a spiritual tool is a tradition I willfully jumped into. I am engaging in a conversation about ritual and religion. I facilitate acts of spiritual reclamation through Guardian Monster workshops. I posit that totem, talisman, god, demon, angel, witch, hero, and spirit from any tradition can be equally used as devices of oppression. To counteract the misappropriation of the mystical, Guardian Monsters seize power from an authoritarian state and return power to the hearts and minds of the individual.

I learned to sew at a young age and have always been drawn to textiles. During Covid, I started taking online embroidery classes with well-known teachers from the UK. When I heard about eco-dyeing, I was fascinated and began experimenting with the process. I am a master gardener, so dyeing with natural materials fits perfectly with my passion for plants. Living in Lafayette County, I have access to all kinds of leaves, flowers, galls & nuts. My friends kindly share their rusty discards & I pick up rusted treasures wherever I go.

I love to make one of a kind home furnishings and clothes using natural materials such as leaves, onion skins, marigolds and rust. I often recycle clothing and linens to make something new from that which might otherwise be discarded.

Working in this way is a slow, methodical process.  It requires scouring the fabric, treating it with a mordant to give the color “teeth” to adhere to the material, collecting materials from the woods, applying them to the fabric, rolling and securing each piece and boiling it or steaming it. It is then washed and ironed. Some pieces are dyed multiple times. The best part is always unwrapping the bundle. It is exciting to see what nature and time will produce.

In employing this unique process of plant and rust dyeing, even decay can be a thing of beauty.  In this way, the napkin, pillow or clothing becomes a functional work of art.  

Richard Kelso was born and grew up in Cleveland Mississippi. After graduating Cleveland High School, he attended Delta State University, studying under Sammy Britt, and earning a degree in Art in 1970. During this time he also studied painting under Henry Hensche at the Cape School of Art in Provincetown Massachusetts.

After serving in the military, he attended the University of Mississippi, earning his MFA in painting in 1980. He taught at Millsaps College and Meridian Community College and then moved to Jackson in 1987 where he currently resides, and became a full time painter. He is represented in collections throughout the country.

Ellen Langford is a southern artist. Native to Mississippi, Langford has pursued academic studies in her craft in New York, San Francisco, DC and Italy, among other places. It was in returning to her Deep South home, however, that her work took on its recognizable narrative quality.

Though now a full-time artist, Langford worked for years as a paramedic in central Mississippi. She became heavily influenced by the often tender narratives of her patients’ stories, as well as the simple living structures, yards peopled with chickens and dogs of this mostly poor, rural world.

As a parent of a young boy, and owner of chickens and dogs, Langford also incorporates children and animals into her compositions as she finds even more tenderness and vulnerability in their movements, as well as joy and adventure.

Langford’s painting process involves layers of paint, often sanded away and then glazed over, searching for shape and pattern, color and texture, to build the story worlds her figures inhabit.

“I was a knitter of garments and then became a knitter of art. The difference was provoked by a gift of vinyl-coated polyester yarn which no one wanted as a garment. What could I do that would make this material interesting to hang on the wall? What can this material do that would make it worthy of viewing without being useful in the way that a piece of clothing is? I then began to look for non-garment things to do with all of my yarn.

I began knitting in college to stave off loneliness and, since 1977, have never been without at least one project on the needles. Knitting provides continuity and a source of comfort in my life. I was a member of the Craftsmen's Guild of Mississippi for many years, and received a BA in studio art from the University of Louisville in 2013.”

Matt received his MFA in Ceramics from Ohio University in 1997, and his BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1995. After receiving his MFA, Matt went on to become a Teaching Lab Specialist, Adjunct faculty, and Visiting assistant professor at The University of Florida in Gainesville for six and a half years. In 2005, Matt moved to Oxford Mississippi to join the art faculty at The University of Mississippi. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Art, and the Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Art at The University of Mississippi.

Matt has become a well-known workshop presenter, teaching workshops and lectures at over 40 universities, colleges and art centers both nationally and internationally.

His work earned him the NCECA emerging artist award in 2000 along with many juried awards and purchases into prestigious permanent collections. He has been featured in every serious ceramic art publication including Ceramics Monthly, Studio Potter, Art and Perception and Clay Times, including being featured on the cover of the worlds most widely read ceramics magazine in 2004, Ceramics Monthly.

His work can be seen in many national and international shows. Matt is represented by Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana.

We are happy to ship any of Matt’s pieces!

Stock at the gallery rotates often - please call or email for up-to-date stock availability and product dimensions.

Will McComb is a utilitarian potter currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with an emphasis in Ceramics from The University of Kentucky in 2010. His education was furthered through workshops at Penland School of Craft and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. In 2015 he began a two year residency at Lighthouse Art Center in Jupiter Florida, where he also assisted woodfire potter Justin Lambert. His work has been included in numerous national juried exhibitions. Outside of the studio, he loves spending time in the natural world and traveling with his beautiful wife, Stacy Haynes.

Regional Religion is an ongoing body of work that springs from the small rural life I share with my husband and young daughter in Water Valley, Mississippi. We’ve dug into this beautiful and strange land, where we’ve built studios for myself and my husband on the six acres we share. This work is inspired by our insular and often magical home, and I’ve collected images that embody the feelings our life distills in me.

Vanda McCormick is a native of Gulfport, MS, where she lives with her husband, Frank. Vanda received a BFA in Graphic Design, and M. Ed in Art Education from William Carey University and is a retired Art Teacher of 25 years in public schools as well as college.

Wildlife and nature are major inspirations for her paintings and artwork. “I love using texture, patterns and layering to achieve a tactile surface to my paintings. Having a background and degree in graphic design, I love the inherent beauty defined by simple monochromatic imagery, as well. I want to show beauty in my work, but I also want to allow the viewer to take their own journey through my work and hopefully come to an appreciation for the work shown.”

Vanda is a member of The Mississippi Chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Mississippi Art Colony and Ocean Springs Art Association. She has participated in art exhibits at The Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, MS, Meridian Museum of Art Bi-State Exhibition, Mississippi Art Colony Traveling Show, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, and a one woman exhibit at Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, AL, among others. Vanda has won numerous awards for her work, and her paintings hang in many locations around the United States.

Influenced by Indigenous and American Folk art, Clyde McDowell meshed animal teeth and bones, vintage barn wood and found objects in his sculptures. McDowell was best known for his goofy yet eerily reimagined creatures of nature. Although fun loving, his sculptures also contain an element of danger such as piercing teeth, a sharp hook, or a jagged edge. 

McDowell was a publicly engaged artist. His works can be seen along Union County roads, at the Union County Heritage Museum, Biscuit and Jam Farmers Market, and restaurants and small businesses in and around New Albany, Mississippi. McDowell made art off and on for all of his life, but he fine-tuned his unique style when he retired from product engineering and development with 6 US patents to his name.

Stock at the gallery rotates often - please call or email for up-to-date stock availability and product dimensions.

Andrew McIntyre (b. 1988) was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He started his ceramics career at the University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, with the guidance of Professor Matt Long. After graduating with a BFA degree in Ceramics in 2012 from The University of Mississippi, went on to received an MFA with an emphasis in Ceramics at Syracuse University in 2015. While in graduate school, he was a resident at The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China and at Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry, India. Andrew is currently working as the Ceramics Technician and Instructor at The University of Mississippi. 

We are happy to ship any of Andrew’s pieces!

Representational painter Rosanne Lillard Mckenney’s figures and interiors capture a simple moment of everyday life.  She balances between revealing too much detail, and leaving parts unsaid. Inspired by Renaissance painters and 19th century French, American and more recently Russian painters, she will incorporate elements and techniques that made these artists distinctive. A theme she lives by is; doing what it takes to learn from the masters who go before us. Working primarily in oil she tells a story with the elements of art (shape, value, color, line and rhythm).  Recently, she incorporates symbolism and abstract elements along with the figure. She chooses the figure as her principal subject, because human gestures and expressions can say so much.   The stories explore the essence of human experiences, often unresolved emotions, common through many cultures.     

Benny Melton’s earliest inspiration for art came from his mother’s sketches of characters from the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Sunday Comics, an aunt’s powerfully emotive collection of pastel portraits of her children by an artist from New Orleans and an aunt that was a professional artist based in Holmes County, Mississippi. The combined influence of these three women is demonstrated in Benny’s work ethic as well as his aesthetic.

When painting, Benny prefers oil paints and hard surface grounds of birch plywood or Masonite board. Frames and supports are hand built to add a more personal note to the overall presentation. The sturdy structure of the supports facilitates spontaneous application of pigments for starts and the occasional aggressive use of reductive techniques to establish lights and darks of the composition.

With a preference for narrative themes, Benny’s work frequently relies on painting from visual observation of his immediate surroundings. He received training in various approaches in drawing and painting with an emphasis on working from direct observation.

Benny enjoyed teaching Art at the University of Mississippi, Memphis College of Art, and a one-year stint teaching art at Yazoo City High School. While in graduate school Benny won several awards, including the University of Mississippi Art Department Outstanding Studio Artist award, First Place in Painting in the Mississippi Collegiate Art Competition, The Powerhouse Peoples’ Choice Award Oxford, MS and First Place at The Cedars Annual Invitational in Jackson, MS.

“I like listening to stories almost as much as telling them. My paintings are essentially loosely painted stories that begin somewhere in the middle of things.”

“I believe I see the world differently than a non-artist, with brighter, sharper shapes and colors. Therefore, I want to share my vision with the public through my art.

I am drawn to everyday objects or scenes with strong shadows and high-contrast colors. I am interested in painting birds and animals because of their likeness to the human expressions of people I know. I am a multi-media artist who gravitates toward painting and contemporary realism. I taught high school art for 30 years. Although I was the “teacher,” the students and I navigated material together, learning from one another. Creating or teaching art keeps me invigorated and complete.

Although I create in pen and ink and watercolor, my main medium is acrylic.

As a way to create depth and texture, I use my own carved patterned stamps on my paintings. I think the subtle patterns bleeding through the paint, entice the viewer to look closer. Most paintings have “bubbles/dots” stamped around my subjects. To me, these bubbles depict the energy of the subject in the surrounding air. You will see a variety of themes in my artwork. I hope viewing my paintings will inspire people to take a second look at the world around them and appreciate their own environment.”

Walter ran a successful plumbing company in Jackson, MS from the late 70's through the 90's . Throughout that period he pursued black and white photography as an art form before becoming interested in metal work and blacksmithing. He soon began a metal work business specializing in hand made furniture, and other useful hand forged architectural pieces and metal sculpture. He was a member of the MS Craftsman guild until moving to Oxford in 1999. In 2001 he built his current blacksmith shop in Lafayette County which is just down the lane from Oxford Treehouse Gallery. 

His move to Oxford provided the opportunity to study ceramics at the University of Mississippi where he was fortunate to be exposed to a rich world of great ceramicists. Walter also has a great love for woodwork and set up a wood shop in order to do all of the millwork and much of the furniture for his new house and for Oxford Treehouse Gallery. 

After finishing the gallery space and new home on the gallery property, he is back in the metal shop and wood shop making sculptural and functional ornamental ironwork and furniture.

Walter received a 2019 artist fellowship grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission.

Eric Pardue graduated with a BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1993. After graduation, he stayed in NY to apprentice with Jeff Shapiro. He currently resides in Milton, WV, where he maintains a studio practice and full-time work. His earthenware pots go through bisque, glaze, and finally decal firings in an electric kiln. The narratives that are built on the pots are from daily life. They may refer to a specific situation, a past experience, a song lyric, or a passage from a book. The pots immediately engage the viewer. It would be difficult not to associate personal or social history with the images Pardue presents.

Susan Patton is a professional artist residing in North Mississippi. She is a wife, a mother of two, and a daughter to Dot Courson whom she shares her love of painting with. They have won awards in Tupelo, Oxford, Tennessee, and many others.

Being an avid learner, Susan is known for her love of teaching. She is a highly sought after portrait artist known for her formal portraits as well as paintings that capture fleeting moments in the lives of children. She loves to paint images that depict special times in the past that people don’t want to forget. She describes her paintings as, “Memories to hold on to.”

I was born 4th generation in The Mississippi Delta into a family that encouraged me from childhood to pursue writing, music, and painting. I abandoned painting - for the most part - as a teen, only returning to it occasionally over most of my life.
Encouraged by Delta artist Duff Durrough, I returned to The Delta and painting some years ago to study with Duff, Sammy Britt, and Gerald Deloach.
All painting is experimentation to me, and I wouldn’t necessarily call my painting any style. I’ve had many influences, ranging from writers and poets to musicians and classical painters as well as more contemporary painters, photographers, and filmmakers.
The most important influence on me has been The South, Mississippi, The Delta - its places and people.

Laura Payne Pennebaker is an oil and watercolor artist from Birmingham, AL. Laura graduated from the University of Mississippi in 2001 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with her emphasis in painting. While at Ole Miss, Laura studied under Jere Allen and grew to love painting with lots of color and movement. She also spent two summers in Taos, NM and Cortona, Italy painting plein air with Southern Methodist University as well as the University of Georgia. Through all these experiences, Laura has developed a loose painterly style that is filled with color and lots of layers.

Laura and her husband Adam, lived in Hattiesburg 15 years where they loved raising their three children Payne, Nell, and Walt before moving to Birmingham 2020. Birmingham has been a wonderful and welcoming community with beautiful scenery that is the subject of many of her new paintings.

“I am drawn to Judeo-Christian archetypal imagery such as pilgrimage, lamentation, betrayal, and rebirth because I feel compelled by their mythic and consuming drama. I want to "bear witness" to the dispossessed and marginalized within our own midst. Through my imagery, I hope to disrupt complacency and bestir compassion.

Constance Pierce was awarded a Hoffberger Fellowship for MFA graduate study at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore. She has served on the fine art faculty of St. Bonaventure University (NY) and has exhibited regionally, nationally, and in Japan.

Her sketchbooks were twice exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (DC) and her art resides in their collection, as well as in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art (DC), the National Gallery of Art rare book collection (DC), the Yale Center for British Art prints and drawings archives (CT), and Spike Lee Filmworks Headquarters (NYC) among many others.

David’s stock changes often. Please call the gallery for an updated list of available pieces in his series.

After receiving a BFA in Advertising Design from Memphis College of Art, David worked as an Art Director for several advertising agencies in Memphis & Little Rock AR.

In 1987, David began his own Graphic Design company in Collierville, TN. For 30 years his company provided marketing & design services for various clients from agricultural chemical & seed companies, to the manufacturing and service industry.

“In the late 60’s I lived with my mother in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She was a portrait artist on Jackson Square. I began painting while attending high school in New Orleans, and working in a frame shop after school. While working in the frame shop, I got to know many different artists that lived in the French Quarter. That early art environment in such a unique place was a valuable asset to my art career”.

David is an avid fisherman and often incorporates that love into his art. His art studio is in his lake cabin in North Mississippi. 

Born and raised in Memphis, TN, Jared Rawlinson creates unique pen and ink perspectives inspired by landscapes of the American South.

He comes from an artistic legacy of painters and storytellers including watercolor artists like David Rawlinson (father) and Fred Rawlinson (uncle). After years focused on graphic design and music, he recently committed his efforts to a new medium. Inspired by his love of clean design, his pen and ink work seeks to make simple statements that evoke complex emotions.

You will find his themes sitting somewhere between dreamscapes of the mind and the reality of his experiences. Jared’s minimalist compositions capture the beauty and loneliness that haunt the horizons of rural Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

I love the outdoors. I love light. I love color. When all of the elements come together I can’t do anything but paint! As an artist, I am fascinated by the relationship between light and color and how one affects the other. Yes, you will see reoccurring elements in my work like horses, family and mostly my Mississippi landscape, but it all comes down to the light.

After receiving my BFA from Mississippi State, I studied extensively under Sammy Britt and focused on the techniques of Henry Hensche and the colorist movement. Sammy sees light and color unlike anyone I know and I am so thankful for the foundation he gave me. As I have evolved with my art, I see things a little differently than the colorists, but I still apply many of their techniques and incorporate them into my own style.

I love painting outdoors “en plein air” and have been painting on location long before the plein air movement became as popular as it is today. There is no substitute for the visual information that our eyes give us first hand and living on our horse farm at the edge of the Mississippi delta I have an unlimited supply of subject matter. When someone views my work, I want them to be drawn into the painting and FEEL it. Whether it is a crisp autumn day or a hot dusty back road, I want to transport the viewer to a time and place that I deemed magical.

Steven discovered at an early age that he had an aptitude and joy for the creative process. In the beginning, his attention focused mostly on drawing and painting, but later expanded to include mixed media and assemblages. He has continued to explore more effective ways to communicate visually by examining the laws of nature and how they affect our perception.

Steven pursued his art career in Lafayette, LA as a fine art painter, illustrator & graphic designer until moving to Donaldsonville, LA in 2004 where Schneider and his wife, Cynthia, owned and operated Schneider Art Gallery and Grapevine Café & Gallery.

The couple moved to Goshen, AR in 2014 where Steven, influenced by the beauty and purity of the Ozark wilderness, continued to develop his expressive style.

To be closer to family and reconnect with their southern roots, The Schneiders relocated to their new home in Tupelo, MS where they currently reside and continue to create.

Steven’s work is held in numerous public and private collections, including George’s Inc., Springdale, AR, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Lafayette, LA, Womans and Childrens Hospital, Baton Rouge, LA and Belle Alliance Plantation, Belle Rose, LA.

I speak with candor and a slight Southern accent, and my art reflects those same tendencies, whether capturing a building or a bee.

As a Mississippi native, I grew up surrounded by stories and music that often conveyed serious truths by way of circuitous routes.

As someone who was raised in a political family and who later obtained an undergraduate degree in religion, I have always been fascinated by the power of myth and imagery to both illuminate and inspire, obfuscate and oppress.

Influenced by both the Arts and Crafts movement and East Asian woodblock printing, my work often features Southern flora and fauna laced with subtle social commentary. After a little Maker’s Mark gets in my system, I like to think of my work as the love children of Walter Anderson and Flannery O’Conner.

Stock at the gallery rotates often - please call or email for up-to-date stock availability and product dimensions.

Sarah received her BFA from Delta State University (2006) and her MFA from The University of Mississippi (2010). In addition to a formal education, she worked as an Artist in Residence for Burns Pottery (2004) in Natchez, MS and completed two internships with sculptor Beth Cavener-Stichter (2008 & 2009).

Sarah exhibits her work nationally through juried competitions and gallery representation. She has also been published in 500 Figures in Clay Vol.2 by Lark Crafts. She currently lives in Raymond, MS where she teaches art full time at Hinds Community College.

When Sarah is not teaching, she works at her studio producing sculptures and functional pottery. Her current work encompasses a variety of hand-building techniques with surfaces that range from low-fire to high-fire and cold-finishes. For Sarah, animals serve as a metaphor for human character, allowing her to explore personalities and examine relationships. Layers of graffiti, glaze and wax add depth so that understanding only develops with examination and reflection.

We are happy to ship Sarah’s pieces!

Stephen Threlkeld received his B.S. in Oceanography and his Ph.D. in Zoology and worked as an aquatic ecologist and statistician, author and editor, for about 40 years, most recently as Professor of Biology at Ole Miss. Simultaneously, he was living a second life as a collector of the arts. 

After early forays into painting and graphic design, he took weaving classes in New Mexico and North Carolina, and now expresses himself artistically through this medium. His weavings are often inspired by features and colors of the American landscape, and sometimes include mathematical series or biological themes.

We have a large rotating selection of Tisch jewelry in the gallery, please call for updated stock!

Tisch Jewelry Werks is a mixture of Delta magic and Atlanta verve. The vibrant community festivals in the suburbs of Atlanta are the birthplace of many Georgia artisans. Mississipi born, Trapp Smith Tischner found her artistic voice this way in 2010. Today TJW is the busiest corner at many festivals and markets around town with her wearable art. 

Like her extensive folk art collection, her handmade jewelry is an eclectic blend of fine materials and styles integrating color, form, vintage and modern components. Her studio is a tangle of beads, pegboards, jars of semiprecious and precious stones, and her college son’s dorm room gear. As her popularity has grown, some plucky friends have joined her in the studio, and now there is collective creativity fueled by fashion mags, laughter and Starbucks. Adding to the energy, most days find TJW fans dashing by “justforaminutetopicksomethingup.” They go away happy because Trapp stays true to her mission to create something beautiful and true for women to wear every day.

Her designs have caught the eye of boutique owners and art galleries. TRAPP, a selection of high-end work, was optimally offered exclusively at dk Gallery in Marietta. Her everyday collection can also be found in boutiques in her hometown of Hattiesburg, MS; Nashville, TN; Alpharetta, GA; Marietta, GA; Smyrna, GA; Charlestown ,WV; and Oxford, MS

Trapp’s motto: “Adorn thyself and the world will adore thee.”

Jennifer Torres was born in Queens, NYC, studied at the Art Students League and then earned her BFA at the Cooper Union, also in NYC. Her focus was steel fabrication, casting, woodworking, and photography. After graduating from Cooper she trained as a fine cabinetmaker in New England, and then later earned her MFA in Sculpture at the University of Georgia in Athens. Ms. Torres has lived in Hattiesburg, MS for 22 years where she has her studio and teaches sculpture as a tenured professor at The University of Southern Mississippi. She has had many exhibits of her sculptures and installations around the country and has won a number of awards and commissions. Ms. Torres received a highly competitive 2020 MS Visual Arts Fellowship and was chosen as Creative Researcher of the Year at USM’s College of Arts and Letters. Recently she finished a large commission of her Garden Boats, located at Osage Park, in Bentonville, Arkansas. In 2022 she was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Visual Arts for her project, Garden Boats for Osage Park, in Bentonville, AR.

Mary VanLandingham is a traditional painter based out of South Georgia. With the use of oil paints, Mary specializes in creating lively and vivid imagery referencing the outside world. Her love and appreciation for the natural world is essential, and she strives to recreate scenes that embody a sense of both comfort and bewilderment. Mary was born and raised in South Georgia, and developed an interest for art at an early age. While pursing a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Valdosta State University, she took an immediate liking to oil paints. She then combined her admiration for nature with her passion of oil painting, and began expressing place and perspectives that provide peace and familiarity. She has participated in exhibitions across to the United States and enjoys showing her work in new places. Mary works full-time in her home studio located in Nashville, Georgia.  

Steven discovered his love for art at a very early age. With little interest in anything else, Steven took the next big step towards his pursuit of a career in art when he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. He would later earn his masters in fine arts from Marywood University, where he also met his wife/ fellow artist Evelyn.

Since going full time as an artist in 2008, Steven has been included in several local and national juried competitions including the Oil Painters of America Eastern Regional show (Award of Excellence), Richeson 75 Landscape Competition, Plein Air Salon, the International Salon Competition, the Oil Painters of America Salon (Award of Excellence), Oil Painters of America National (Honorable Mention) and the Art Renewal Center. Steven also had the privilege of being a part of a statewide traveling exhibition with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Steven continues to work hard on the advancement of his career, with the assistance of his lovely wife Evelyn and studio assistant/daughter Poppy. Currently, his work is represented in Kentucky, Washington State, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C and now Mississippi.

“ I didn’t come from a family of artists, I wasn’t top of my class or win a lot of awards but I’ve always had a strong work ethic and the passion to work on my craft.”

Ed Williford's artist statement is more or less summed up by this excerpt from a poem by Fernando Pessoa: ...

To me it seems so natural not to think that sometimes I start laughing to myself at what? I'm not quite sure, but something to do with the idea of people thinking...

What will my wall think of my shadow? that's what i sometimes wonder, till I notice i'm wondering

And then I feel annoyed and ill at ease, as if I found my foot had gone to sleep...

I live on a small farm located on Valley Road in north Mississippi. At one time it was a dirt road and has always been the exact point stretching out like a line marking where the beautiful rolling hills meet the vast flat delta lands.

I have horses, dogs, and cats, mostly all rescue, and an occasional coyote drifting through. We are located just outside a small farming community, Charleston, where my family has lived for generations. And, no matter where I have lived before, many metropolitan areas, or where I might live again, this is home. It is a place to relax and be creative.

I have a BFA, several law licenses, and a master's in information & library science. Mostly, I like to paint. I like to create original pieces in my own style from my own ideas. My work is colorful and creative, trying to capture a certain moment or feeling.

My paintings have found homes across this country and internationally. It has been part of gallery exhibits and featured on Daily Paintworks. It has become part of existing collections and I am particularly proud to say that my work has inspired others to begin collecting simply because they enjoy it.

Marvin Yates was born in Jackson, TN and later moved to Memphis. From childhood he was interested in art. He graduated from Memphis College of Art with a BFA and started painting. While working as Art Director at the Commercial Appeal he started seriously pursuing painting at a higher level.
He has always been intrigued with light and the contrasts that it causes. He tries to capture the depth and color it creates in his paintings. To start with a white surface and work through the process of drawing, composition and painting is a challenging adventure to Yates.
In contemplating on why he paints, Yates says, “We have glimpses of God’s glory all around us, all the time, everywhere we go, and we so often overlook the Creator. In attempting to capture the fullness of God’s creation, I fall short; but the journey of searching deepens my understanding of what a great God I serve.”