SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Exclusively Scheduled Museum Activities (Others will be added as needed for community involvement)
Meridian Museum of Art – Activities held at MMA unless noted
Four Youth afterschool classes for Grades (K4-K5 , grades, 3-6 grades, 7-12 grades) – Twenty-Four Weeks, Spring and Fall Sessions on Thursdays
Artist Group – Monthly, Third Saturdays
Vino and Van Gogh Group – Weekly, Thursdays
Paint-A-Long – By Appointment
Children’s Museum – Meridian STEAM Week with A for ART – Spring Break @ MCM-M
Threefoot Festival Youth Art Competition and Exhibition – April
Fundraiser – ARTinis at the Museum (June)
Youth Summer Classes – June & July with a final exhibition of students’ works.
Rising to the Top Youth Exhibition – All Year at the sponsor’s location for more visibility outside the Museum
Permanent Collection Exhibitions – All Year in-house, local businesses, offices, medical clinics; I20 Welcome Center; others as needed to familiarize about the Museum’s offerings and programming
Rotating Exhibitions – Approximately every eight weeks in the Museum’s four galleries
Local School Exhibitions – April
Out-Service Activities – Programming and activities for the disadvantaged and underserved as needed for schools, other organizations, and throughout the community
Artist in Residence as planned and where needed in the service area
Meridian Museum Art Collective – Public art projects handled by contractual artists and volunteers at different locations throughout the city and surrounding areas
October 4 – November 30
Brent Funderburk – “Path of Light” Opening Reception October 4, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Brent Funderburk is the recipient of the Governor’s Award for Education and Visual Arts for 2024, a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University, where he served as Art Department head and taught for 36 years. He has been recognized with the University’s highest academic, teaching, and research honors, including the Southeastern Conference Faculty Excellence Award (2016), the John Grisham Teaching Award, the Ralph E. Powe Faculty Research Award, and the Burlington Northern Faculty Excellence Award.
An artist known for his exuberantly hued water paintings and energetic teaching and lectures, Brent Funderburk is a Charlotte, North Carolina native who has worked as a teacher/administrator for three universities in three states over 40 years. From a robust life of art practice and travel, Funderburk has researched, produced, exhibited, and lectured passionately, working from life and in the studio in Starkville, Mississippi. He has presented 34 one-person exhibitions across the U.S. He has been represented by galleries in Jackson, Atlanta, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Memphis (etc.), with work in public and private collections across the U.S. and abroad, such as the Mississippi Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Memphis-Brooks Museum of Art, and Meridian Museum of Art.
Funderburk’s artwork has been juried into over 100 regional, national and international shows, with numerous awards, such as the International Society of Experimental Artists Award, the Holbein Artist Award, and Isabey-Savoir Faire Award, at the National Watercolor Society 100th International Open Exhibition (San Pedro, CA, 2020), the Artistic Excellence Special Award I at the Missouri International Exhibition (Barcelona, Spain, St, Louis, MO, 2020), the Juror’s Special Award and Certificate of Merit at the 6th Fabriano International Prize (Fabriano, Italy, 2020), and had work that toured seven Chinese museums in the Shenzhen International Watercolour Biennial (2015-16).
Brent Funderburk’s work has been published widely in national/international periodicals such as American Artist, Artists Magazine, Creative Quarterly: The Journal of Art and Design, Studio Visit, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Southwest Art, and Splash: The Best of Watercolor. Funderburk’s “One to One” painting was chosen as cover art for the 2022 Splash annual publication.
In 2010, Funderburk was named the Official Artist of the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS.
Regarded for his depth of research and enthusiastic delivery, Funderburk has presented talks to over 100 museums, universities, and professional organizations across the country. He curated and lectured with the exhibition “Ecstasy- The Mystical Landscapes of Walter Anderson,” which toured four U.S. museums (2008-2010), as well as has spoken about Anderson in association with the Smithsonian Institute exhibit “Everything I See is New and Strange” (2003). In addition to presenting his multi-media lectures, such as “A Halcyon Day! A Day in the Life of Walter Anderson”, “Deep Harvest,” and “The Beathing Eye,” he has presented illustrated lectures on 20th Century visionary modern American artists such as Will Henry Stevens, Robert Henri, and Edward Reep, subjects such as American watercolor, art, and architecture, and often about his art.
Funderburk has taught courses dedicated to the vision of Walter Anderson, “Sea Earth Sky” (‘80s), “Encounters” (‘90s), and “Walter Inglis Anderson and American Art” (2018), has led field classes in U.S. national parks, and has taught semester courses in Vicenza (2007) and Rome (2016), Italy.
Holiday Gala December 14, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Membership Exhibition – December 14 – February 1, 2025
February – March
Gee’s Bend Quilts
Located in Boykin, the Gee’s Bend Quilters’ Collective produces and promotes the distinctive craftwork of the relatively isolated Black Belt community known to its residents as Gee’s Bend. In the 1990s, the quilts made by African American women garnered national attention as striking examples of American folk art. Gee’s Bend Quilters returned to the public in 1993 when photographer Roland Freeman published a book of his photographs, A Communion of the Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories, and featured a striking orange and blue quilt by Gee’s Bend resident Annie Mae Young. Art collector William Arnett came upon a photograph of a Gee’s Bend quilt while researching the African American quilt tradition. Arnett was long interested in African American vernacular art and founded Souls Grown Deep to promote African American artists and their art. Arnett traveled to Gee’s Bend to meet Annie Mae Young and other quilters, and in 1998, Arnett and his four sons created the Tinwood Alliance, a nonprofit company focused on promoting the quilts.
In 2002, at Arnett’s urging, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, hosted The Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition, featuring more than 70 quilts by 45 different quilters. The exhibition traveled across the United States until 2006, appearing in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and in Alabama at the Mobile Museum of Art and Auburn University’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. Collectively, the exhibit displayed the work of 42 women from four generations of Gee’s Bend quilters, including Annie Mae Young’s famous “Housetop” quilt, which had first caught Arnett’s eye. The exhibit received excellent reviews from art critics, vaulting the quilts to fame and precipitating the 2003 foundation of the Gee’s Bend Quilters’ Collective, whose purpose is to aid the quilters in marketing their quilts to a broader public as well as to celebrate their craftwork. The quilts were featured in another major traveling exhibition, Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, from 2006 to 2008, with stops in Baltimore, Denver, Philadelphia, and other cities.
In 2006, the United States Postal Service issued Quilts of Gee’s Bend commemorative stamps, which featured ten designs chosen by USPS art director Derry Noyes. These same designs would be featured in the Gee’s Bend Quilt Mural Trail, created in 2007.
In 2014, Collective members Lucy Mingo, Mary Ann Pettway, and Joe Cunningham were featured in an episode of the PBS series Craft in America entitled “Industry: Handmade in the Creative Economy.” Gee’s Bend quilts have entered the permanent collections of prominent art museums across the United States and the American public consciousness. The Gee’s Bend Quilters’ Collective hosts an annual quilting retreat for people who wish to learn their techniques first-hand. Gee’s Bend quilters continue their craft at the Gee’s Bend Ferry Terminal and Welcome Center, where their quilts are offered for sale.
James Conner
MS/Fine Arts, University of Mississippi. Oxford, MS
BFA/ Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
James Conner was born and raised in rural Mississippi. He believes he was born to be an artist, as his first memories are of drawing with pencil and paper before he was old enough to attend school. Later, while in high school, Mr. Connor received a degree in Advertising Art from art instruction schools in Minnesota. He then served in the U.S. Army as a graphic artist and illustrator, with two tours of duty in Vietnam and Europe.
Returning to the United States, Mr. Connor received his B.F.A. in Art from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Remaining in Detroit, James worked first in drafting, then as a sketch artist in the Graphics Division of the Detroit Police Department. While working in law enforcement, James realized that he wanted to fulfill his earlier desire to support himself with his art and, consequently, decided to return to the South.
Although he continued to paint during the years after finishing college, his decision to return to the South brought a new focus and intensity to his art. James received his master’s in fine arts from the University of Mississippi. He has been an instructor in art at Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi, and Meridian Community College.
April 8 – August 2025
Celebrating 50 years of the Bi-State Art Competition and Exhibition – Selected pieces from the Permanent Collection and invited previous Bi-State Artists over its first fifty years.
ARTinis at the Museum – June 19, 2025, 6-8 p.m. Fundraiser