Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center … and the Murals of Ocean Springs

Saturday, 20 April (Part II)
Shields RV Park — NCBC Gulfport, Mississippi
Temps: Lo 42F / Hi 71F (5.5C / 22C)

I wrote about exploring Ocean Springs and ending the day at the Katrina Memorial in Biloxi (post here), but left most of our morning out of that post as it would have made an already long post even longer.  So back to Ocean Springs we go to wrap up.

This tile mural by Elizabeth Veglia is at the Civic Center near the Mississippi Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  She modeled it after a painting by James McConnell Anderson, brother of Walter Anderson, and an American painter, muralist, and pottery designer and decorator in his own right.

After parking the car at the L&N Depot we began a meandering stroll through the city, loosely following a walking map we had picked up at the visitor center.  Our first stop was at Camp Victor, a disaster relief organization formed by the Christus Victor Lutheran Church in the days following Hurricane Katrina.  At some point, they moved from their original location to a building on Government Street.

Note the people in the tree (left), and the parents trying to hold up the wall
against katrina’s storm surge as the kids find high ground on top of a table.

I had read that there was a mural on the façade of Camp Victor, but wasn’t expecting to see some on the walls flanking either side as well.  The vivid colors of the murals have faded from bearing the full brunt of the sun; perhaps they will be restored someday.

Best I can decipher, this mural was painted by Jody Corban in Aug 2006.

This mural was a June 2007 collaboration between Jody Corban and Vince Palmer.

Our primary reason for wandering up Government Street, which is off the beaten path of the shops and restaurants that cater to tourists, was to check out some Walter Anderson murals in the theater/auditorium of the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center.

The center, which provides an “environment for artistic activities including music, visual and performing arts and education,” is located in the former Ocean Springs Public School building that was built in 1927.  It was renamed in 1998 for Ms. O’Keefe, the first female school superintendent in Mississippi.

In the lobby, we were greeted by a woman named Joyce.  Having gone to school in the building, she had some interesting stories to tell about her personal memories.

When we asked her if we could wander around and take some pictures, she readily gave permission, and even invited us to enjoy the cookies that were set out on the counter for an ongoing retreat.

Joyce explained that the school auditorium had been renovated after falling into disrepair, and the murals we’d come to see were not the originals, but rather reproductions that had been commissioned as part of the restoration work.

In addition to inviting us to check out an exhibit entitled Paper Dolls Uncut, she encouraged us to take a look at the Taconi Murals adorning the walls.  I had to laugh when she said that the teachers had drawn the designs for the 5th grade students to paint.  Sort of like painting by numbers!  And finally, the pointed out the original auditorium chairs that had been painted and placed around the building as lobby seating.

No wonder we spent several hours at the center! 

High up on the walls of the renovated auditorium, the reproductions of the Walter Anderson
Murals are difficult to photograph, but definitely worth stopping in to see them.

My favorite of the canvas murals painted by the 5th graders of Taconi Elementary School.

Three of the many original auditorium chairs painted by local artists
and scattered around the lobby and hallway.

Joyce was right on target in describing the Paper Dolls Uncut exhibit as nothing like the paper dolls she grew up with!  A group show, there were some interesting pieces featured; it was worth a peek.

Left: “Mix-n-Match - Gulf Coast Girl” by Suzanne D. Findeisen.
Right: “The unkindest Cut” by Vicki Niolet.

Everything we saw at the Mary C. O’Keefe was a surprise, but the biggie was the mural I stumbled upon in one of the second floor classrooms.  Joyce had not mentioned it because she thought there was a class in the room.  Considering the room is dedicated to the Performing Arts, I found the theme of the mural to be spot on.

Too bad about the furniture in the way, but the vivid colors of the mural pop nonetheless.

On that note, we thanked Joyce for chatting with us and bid adieu to the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center.  After having lunch in the park on the grounds, we began a meandering stroll back to the L&N Depot to pick up the car.

En route, we stumbled on another unexpected mural at the corner of Washington and Bowen avenues.  Faded from the sun, but beautiful nonetheless, the series of panels entitled Ocean Springs: Past, Present and Future was painted by Christopher Inglis Stebly, grandson of Walter Anderson.  The 80-foot (24 m) long mural is described as “an illustrative image of Ocean Springs spanning over three hundred years, bridging the passage of time.”

I’m going to share just one panel in this blog post … unfortunately, there was no way to photograph the entire mural without an ultra-wide lens.  I’ll do an entire post in my Viewfinder blog for the Mural Monday meme one of these days.

“Education” links the past with the future!

As regular readers already know, I enjoy searching out and photographing murals of all types.  Sometimes I have a specific mural in mind, but I come upon some of the best ones purely by happenstance.  That was certainly the case with many of the murals I photographed in Ocean Springs.  It was a great day in more ways than one.

(If you would like to see more photos from Ocean Springs, or would like to view the full size images used in the collages featured in this post, click here to go to my online gallery.