Downtown shop a friend to Mississippi arts

Published 12:21 am Sunday, December 14, 2025

As Anthony Thaxton, a Clinton-based author and illustrator, touched up a new painting amid shelves and customers at Crooked Letter: A Mississippi Marketplace, he noted that interactions made possible at the downtown Meridian shop offer a contrast to online shopping.

“You’re buying a book that I put together and you’re able to have a conversation,” Thaxton said, next to an image-rich book on writer Eudora Welty that he produced with Robert St. John and others. “It’s an experience.”

Steps away during a recent meet-the-artists day at Crooked Letter, Pauline Laubacher, based near Madison, was creating a multi-media art piece and also chatting with visitors. “I feel very much at home here and hope to do a (Meridian) show one day,” she said.

A big window nearby offered a bold message for pedestrians and motorists outside: “MISSISSIPPI MADE.”

The mission of this shop at the corner of Front Street and 22nd Avenue, just across from the Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Experience, is clear: Offer an appealing platform and sales point for more than 100 artists, craft and food vendors, and other creatives who are well grounded in the state. Roughly a quarter of the total represented are from the Meridian area.

Now early into its ninth year, Crooked Letter – its name inspired by a ditty used in teaching children how to spell Mississippi – is a small-business success story. Its high-profile location (next to Visit Meridian’s office, near restaurants) and artist networking contribute to Meridian’s status as a cultural capitol. This shop is a vital piece of an attractive puzzle.

Playing off the pending launch of the state-mission MAX attraction, Crooked Letter was opened in October 2017 by Debbie Mathis, a financial manager for the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation. Her son Noah Mathis and his wife Kylie, both now 28, took over the business in 2021 when they moved to Meridian from Nashville.

Noah and Kylie, each a graphic artist and photographer, graduated from Mississippi College and married in 2019. Noah attended Clarkdale High locally and Kylie is from Tyler, Texas. Both are committed to promoting Mississippi art figures and vendors, and to refining Debbie Mathis’ early concept. The founder occasionally helps out at the shop.

The young entrepreneurs make sure to have real artists on hand a couple of times each quarter, and their online marketing is expanding. (For more information, see www.crookedletter.shop or call 601-207-5072.)

The shop is uncompromising in its vetting of products for sale and promotion; the Mississippi connections are legitimate.

“It’s important to people, now probably more than ever, to know where products come from” and they are pleased to learn “the story behind a product,” Noah Mathis said. He relishes promoting “an underdog state,” pushing back against far-flung perceptions that Mississippians are lacking in creativity or skills.

Kylie enjoys seeing the reactions of tourists when they visit the shop and become more aware of the state’s diversity of talent.

“Wow, I had no idea,” is the typical reaction, she said. “It’s cool to be a surprise in that way.”

Depending on your tastes, there are lots of temptations to buy things at Crooked Letter, I noted during a recent visit.

Beyond Thaxton’s books and art prints, one could find a Guitar Pick Keychain from Golden Age Supply in Terry, Miss.; the children’s book “Saving Sam: A Banjo the Dog Story” by Marshall Ramsey, an illustrator now working with Ole Miss; pillows by Little Birdie Arts in Calhoun City; and soy wax candles from the W.H. Candle Co. in Iuka. Even bags of grits from the Sciple Water Mill in DeKalb.

Among featured items from our community, there were paintings by Meridian artists Joy Greer and Tim Allred, and a Bible study book, “Wholly His,” by Jim Feirtag, a pastor from NorthPark Church.

The list of appealing items at Crooked Letter, many from producers you probably never heard of, is long and keeps getting better.

Coleman Warner is a journalist and cultural historian, and can be contacted at legacypress.warner@gmail.com.