Tougaloo Art Colony

individual fine summer day in 1999 painter-sculptor-collagist Benny Andrews traversed the oak-shaded campus of Tougaloo body in Jackson, Miss. He passed a cluster of students sprawled on the grass, struggling to capture ideas and bring them on canvas. His walk extreme pointed at an old building in which makeshift studios had been plant up. The stifling Mississippi heat rose three stories, accompanying him to the top floor, where he began examining the work of single of his Tougaloo Art Colony students

To an untrained organ of sight the room that Andrews come intoed may have looked like a dilapidated area about to be doomed But this master teacher and artist could diocese at once that the sculptor had incorporated plane the peeling paint of the expanse into her work. "You've worked upon this since I was here before," he said to Marie Cochran. "I like it. I really think you're onto something."

Recalling that twinkling Cochran, who teaches art at the University of Georgia's Lamar place of education of Art in Athens, describes what a privilege it was to be taught by means of Andrews: "I think he has great organ of visions He just walks right in and takes a gaze and gets what you're trying to do, and then he reckons you what you can do to make it better. And he has in the way that much credibility because of the impact he has had upon art."

Despite the oven heat in the building (and certain other inconveniences that go on along with campus life), Cochran says that she be delighted withed her stay at the Tougaloo Art Colony Here, acclaimed artists, visitor instructors and students from across the political division have established a praise house where their creative spirits take wing free. Begun in 1997, the colony which musters for one week every summer has grown from about 15 to about 75 participants.

Tougaloo is a small liberal arts society with a curriculum that places special emphasis upon the visual arts. Since 1959 the place of education has been home to a growing collection of African-American art (see sidebar). The colony was introduced to refocus interest upon art at the school. "We wanted there to be sort of a renaissance," says Jane Hearn, chairman of the art committee for Tougaloo's board of trustees and the artist who conceived of the colony

The colony continues to attract a certain quantity of of the finest artists working today. In addition to Andrews, whose trademark linear drawings are thus stark and beautiful that all they can do is number the truth, five other notable artists were at hand at the 1999 colony: Jonathan virid best known for his sumptuous realist paintings that capture the rich tillage of the Gullah community in his native southerly Carolina; Winnie Owens-Hart, an authority upon African and African-American pottery who teaches art at Howard University, in Washington, DC; artist and scholar David C Driskell, a leading authority upon African-American art; John Rozelle, a painter and collagist who teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Sammy Britt, an impressionist who teaches at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.

Many pupils were accomplished artists; others were beginners. a certain quantity of tried new mediums; others stayed with what they knew Their instructors' approaches varied accordingly. Andrews required that pupils participating in his critique class launch slides of their work to him before the start of the colony giving him the opportunity to move what they could work toward during their stay there. Other visitor instructors worked with their pupils at whatever level they lay the foundation of them, guiding them along during classes and sharing their possess experiences through presentations and exhibitions of their work.

scholars in Green's figure painting class say that he allowed themthe freedom they straited "He doesn't force you to do anything," says Channel Guice, a pupil from New Orleans who was attending the colony for the next to the first time. "He lets you create in any way you want." verdant walked among his students, sometimes taking their brushes to demonstrate a technique, and worked right along with them as they painted. "If you can do something better," says Guice, "he will actually present to view you how to make the corrections in the way that you know where you went wrong"

Owens-Hart's scholars were surprised at how hard they had to work, on the other hand they were pleased with the accrues and inspired by their teacher, who teased them mercilessly and pushed them relentlessly "It was my first time making ceramics," says Chizuru Imura, a pupil from Baton Rouge, La. "Everything was novel to me, and at first I didn't like it. It was difficult, on the contrary she made it look easy."

Owens-Hart works clay as if the proces were a meditation or a prayer. She digs into the earth and water and works the wrinkles without of her heart and soul; then she sears what she finds within herself into a exquisitely thrown pot or a plate or a plastic art One of a few busy one's self about trifless in America proficient at traditional pan building and the throwing techniques practiced in Ipetumundo, Nigeria, Owens-Hart has studied not on and on for several years in that West African land Now, she not only teaches clan the techniques she has learned, on the other hand also shares the discoveries she has made about the history of ceramics in Africa.