Farewell to an artful friend

Published 3:37 am Saturday, December 27, 2025

A tribute to Robert Evans, musician, visual artist and longtime staff member for Hope Village for Children

Dear Robert,

This is a note of appreciation, from a friend and neighbor, for all you’ve given to our community. Now that you’re gone, all too soon following a hard medical struggle, I hope this sentiment finds its way to you.

Surely that’s possible in the spiritual realm.

I thought of you days ago as we sat in a balcony pew at First Christian Church, relishing our choir’s performance of beloved holiday songs.

Not too long ago, with little prompting, you sang “Amazing Grace” during a Kentucky Ham meal gathering at the same church, a fine added touch. There’s little doubt that you could pull off an impressive holiday concert all alone – playing piano as well as singing.

Your comfort level with gospel, jazz, country and other music genres (“I’m a fusion of everything”) was extraordinary. Robert Evans performances around Meridian were gifts. And they were enhanced by your genuine appreciation for all kinds of people.

I recall from an interview with you, as I was preparing to write a magazine piece calling you Meridian’s Renaissance Man, how your passion for music was illustrated by a childhood memory. Growing up in Newton County, you would borrow an aunt’s keys to a rural Presbyterian church, go there alone, and spend hours playing the piano and singing.

Somebody ought to make a movie with that scene, I remember thinking.

Meridian is fortunate that you, a well-traveled Navy veteran and mostly self-taught artist, settled here and worked as a counselor and store manager for the nonprofit Hope Village for Children – while embracing opportunities for performing at The MAX and other venues. Your easy laugh and ever-present desire to “help somebody” produced lots of admirers.

It’s hard to wrap our minds around losing a generous friend barely into his 50s. You are missed by many, I hope you know.

“Our hearts are broken,” said a social media post from The MAX, the attraction that celebrates all art forms in Mississippi. Another observer noted: “His remarkable musical talent, captivating visual art, and unwavering kindness inspired us all to be better versions of ourselves.”

I hold on to a memory, from late 2023, when Meridian Community College exhibited dozens of your paintings and other art pieces. Your affection for writer Eudora Welty’s stories and for abstract multi-media art came through clearly.

Just after visiting the MCC show, I dropped by the Hope Village second-hand store to compliment your art. There, I found you chatting with visitors, keeping staff morale up, and prepared to take a break and bang out tunes on a piano temporarily placed in a storage room.

I’m sad there won’t be more opportunities for hearing you perform at the Eighth Street shop and other spots around town. And that you will no longer be my neighbor on Poplar Springs Drive, painting or sketching in a home studio at odd hours, drawing on all sorts of influences – from Mississippi, Navy career stops overseas, and elsewhere.

A text you sent us a year ago resonates: “Happy Holidays my friends. Love you and just reaching out to wish you the best of the best into the new year!”

So this is goodbye, for now, my friend. We’ll see you on the other side, curious about what sort of music or art you’ll be making there.

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