I suspect we’re all heard the term, artsy-fartsy.  It’s a term that denigrates the arts and anyone who supports them.  The term suggests that the arts are the private domain of an effete group with little linkage to the “common man”.  Furthermore, the scatological allusion makes the term even more offensive to some.  

    As a community, we can be our own worst enemy.  While reading the web page of a local media outlet last week, I saw a group of arts activists referred to as blood-sucking vampires.   This mindset only enhances the idea that mediocrity is our birthright and the arts are the private domain of wealthy elitists.

    Make no mistake about it, I am not an artist.  I can’t paint or draw. The only musical instrument I can play is my CD player, and my dancing offers proof positive that “all God’s children got rhythm” is not necessarily so.  I  do come, however, from a family of artists, including my great uncle, Clarendon McClure, a Julliard graduate and renowned composer.  He also served as organist at Christ Episcopal Church and the Springhill Avenue Temple in Mobile. I am told he once served (in the ’50s perhaps) as organist/music director at Temple Beth Israel here in Meridian.  My great aunt Genevieve Southerland  was a respected regional artist and educator who fostered  and led an art colony in Bayou la Batre in that same time period.

    Unfortunately for me I was born in the shallow end of the artistic gene pool.  However, I do know enough about the arts to realize that they belong to everybody, not just a few, as some suggest.  The State of Mississippi has a rich tradition of  art. Just take a look at the Walk of Fame stars on downtown Meridian sidewalks.  Jimmie Rodgers  – the father of country music – was an inaugural inductee in country, blues, blue grass and rock-n-roll  halls of fame.  Rodgers was undoubtedly an artist for the common man.  Elvis Presley was anything but an elitist, and neither were B.B. King or Robert Johnson.   

    Mississippi writers have spoken to the world.   Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and Richard Wright, to name a few, were writers for the people and of the people.   Accomplished Mississippi artists of all disciplines share that common thread.

    This commonality was brought home to me recently by three different arts events in downtown Meridian.  The first was Marty Stuart’s Sparkle and Twang exhibit, on display at the Riley Center through September 18th.  If you have not yet seen it, you need to do so.  It’s a world-class collection of musical memorabilia that traces the evolution of country music while celebrating Mississippian Marty Stuart’s own musical odyssey.  I suggest you sit down and watch the 20-minute video before you explore the exhibit.  Definitely not effete or elitist.

    The second downtown arts event I recently enjoyed was the Sucarnochee Review, a live musical show featuring artists from Mississippi and Alabama.  It is held the first Friday each month at the historic Temple Theatre, with admission under ten dollars.  All types of roots music can be experienced, including folk, country, blue grass and blues as well as rock and roll.  The common thread is high quality music of the people for the people.  Definitely not effete or elitist.

    The third downtown arts event was the Whole School Summer Institute, a week-long workshop sponsored by the Mississippi Arts Commission.  The event brought 300 or so teachers from throughout Mississippi to the Riley Center.  The Whole School Initiative is a concerted effort to integrate the arts into all phases of education from early childhood development through college.  This approach helps students use both sides of their brains throughout the educational process, enriching the rest of their lives. 

    All indications suggest this approach can revolutionize education, enhancing students’ critical thinking skills while improving their performance in all academic disciplines from arts to zoology.  This educational initiative is strongly supported by the Mississippi Arts Commission, which hopes to implement the approach throughout the state.

    As we reinvent our downtown, I suggest the arts be included as an integral element of our economic development/community development initiative, along with tourism, retail development, manufacturing, finance, education, high tech, distribution, transportation, internet entrepreneurship, etc.  One of our country’s most successful arts entrepreneurs, Hartley Peavey, is a strong advocate of such an approach, stating that musical tourism may well be the single best opportunity for economic development in this community.  Malcolm White, executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC), makes a convincing argument that the creative economy represents our state’s greatest asset as we respond to an ever changing world. (Visit the MAC web site at www.arts.state.ms.us)

    These leaders are all speaking to the same issue.  They’re doing so because they recognize a rising tide elevates all ships, and that the arts belong to all of us, not just the financial and cultural elite.  With such a vision we can all benefit from being artsy-smartsy, a much more pleasant and accurate description.

    John McClure is the executive director of Meridian Main Street, a not for profit, public/private partnership working in concert with others for the revitalization of

downtown Meridian.