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| Benny plein air painting. © 2014|Benny Melton |
Plein air painting in Mississippi is like recording a
pictorial narrative. Successful paintings are like interesting conversations,
they invite engagement. Sometimes the
more simple conversations tell the best story.
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| Angel of Repose |
I recently graduated from college with an M.F.A in Painting
(University of Mississippi 2014). It was an extraordinary experience for me as
a non-traditional student and I relished every minute of it.
About the time of
my highly anticipated first summer break I was informed that I would be required
to attend an Intercession Class on Plein Air Painting. Well, I thought, there
goes the summer! Instead, I learned many practical things about becoming a
professional artist.
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| University of Mississippi ©|Benny Melton |
Each year my painting professor invites colleagues to come
to Mississippi to help teach a Plein air Painting class. Yes, Mississippi...
the lush and green rolling hills of North Central Mississippi. These
professional artists have studied and taught at some of the best art schools in
the U.S. and they wanted to come here to teach and paint and learn about
Mississippi.
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| Cole's Bluff, Sardis, MS © |Benny Melton |
We started each day looking at the work of contemporary and
historical painters in slide presentations and then went to paint the local
parks, farms, a large reservoir, town square and other locations. Every student
had a similar paint palette and easel to use in the field.
The instructors did
demonstrations to get us all heading in the right direction. We would stop for
lunch to gather and critique the mornings’ work. After lunch we returned to
painting and painted until late afternoon. The next morning we would meet in
the class room for another short critique and lecture and announce the next
painting destination.
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| Spillway © |Benny Melton |
This continued for 5-days and then we selected work to
display in a “fresh paint” show on the square in downtown Oxford. Paintings
were actually still in the process of drying. Undergraduate students, graduate
students and instructors displayed their work together and the stories were outstanding.
I graduated in the spring of 2014 and with the momentum of
3-summers worth of Mississippi Plein Air Intercessions my wife and I hit the
road for a two-week residency program at Lakeside Labs in Okoboji, Iowa.
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| Add caption |
The
plein air skills learned in Mississippi were put to use about 1000 miles away.
Here are my works:
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| Iowa-Minnesota State Line |
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| Lakeside Okoboji, Iowa 2014 |
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| Iowa |
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| Little Miller's Bay Oil on Panel 8x8 |
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| Prairie Stream |
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| Twin Forks Prairie |
Benny has a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Mississippi and a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Belhaven College in Jackson, MS. He was employed in Chemical Manufacturing for many years in Yazoo City, Mississippi and Sioux City, Iowa. His artwork can be seen in various venues in and around Oxford including Provisions Oxford and Oxford Treehouse Gallery and View Gallery and in Jackson, MS
Born in South Dakota and raised in Mississippi Benny enjoys the influence of both the Mississippi Delta, the plains of South Dakota and the farmlands of Iowa.
He lives in Yazoo City, MS and works for CF Industries, Inc. as the Training Coordinator for the Yazoo City Manufacturing facility.
Benny taught painting classes at Ole Miss in the fall of 2014 and drawing at Memphis College of Art in the spring of 2015. He taught Art for one year at Yazoo City High School before returning to chemical manufacturing in June of 2016.
He enjoys painting people in the landscape and his current work focuses on landscapes and the working people of Mississippi and the Midwest.
Website: www.meltonart.net
A big thanks to Benny Melton for his story!
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Follow this blog about Mississippi plein air artists. In the coming weeks, this site will be publishing contributed articles by painters from the state of Mississippi.
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