Inside The Masters' Studio
These artists produce nationally recognized work and help establish Oxford as a cultural center

Photo Essay by Ryan Whittington and Dicki King

In Oxford, the old observation goes: if you meet two people on the Square, one will be a lawyer and one a writer. That saying needs to be amended. If you meet three people on the Square, one will be a lawyer, one a writer and one an artist'

Oxford is "a leader in Mississippi's creative economy," said Malcolm White, executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission. The artists pictured here led the charge, working in Oxford and achieving national prominence, teaching their craft to students at the University of Mississippi and attracting international attention in the art world.

JASON BOULDIN is nationally famous for his commissioned portraits. His father, painter Marshall Bouldin, inspired him to incorporate intangible elements in his work. "The likeness of personality is just as important as physical likeness," he said. When Bouldin paints for himself, his paintings
"are more like visual diary entries."

JERE ALLEN comes from a family of artists, from his grandmother to his wife to his son. His work, with its distinct figurative expressionism, is on permanent display in museums around the world. "I go to work every day," Allen said. "It directs me. I react to whatever is happening at that time."

PAULA TEMPLE was following a more traditional art track until her stint in the Peace Corps stationed her in the West Indies in the 1970s. She painted throughout her seven years in Grenada and St. Lucia, falling in love with color. "Not using color was a sin to them," she said. The beginning of each piece is simple, but "the last five percent of a painting takes the longest."

ROBERT MALONE is influenced by the Barbizon school of artists - Rousseau, Daubigny, Corot. He's painted modern art and other forms, but he said painting at the scene, as he did with his piece, Passing Clouds, is far more enjoyable. "You can't replace reality," he said. "There are fewer obstacles between you, and it's a more intimate experience."

GLENNRAY TUTOR was born to be an artist. "My whole life revolves around art, and everything
else in the world revolves around that," he said. "I weave visual and emotional elements together from this crazy reality that we're in, and fashion them together into the highest form of enterntainment: art."

RON DAL's ceramics and woodwork are socially and politically oriented. He said he's constantly thinking of ways to improve his art. "You never attain what you really want. You always think you can do something better," Dale said. True artists are driven. "I think artists have a compulsion to create."

STAN O'DELL communicates through his art and said his previous time as a psychologist
sidetracked him from his true calling. "I'm capturing the beauty and complexity of the female figure. Both photography and my artwork allow me to do that," he said. "The challenge is making the figure come to life."

MILLY MOORHEAD WEST counts former UM journalism professor Gale Denley and her mother, who always had a camera at hand, as her biggest influences. "I'm beginning to find that a lot of my motivation is something inherited," she said. In her famous photo at Ernest Hemingway's Cuban estate, Finca Vigia, her daughter laid in the empty swimming pool. "You can't wait. You have to take the picture as soon as you see it," she said.

OBIE CLARK is drawn to the John C. Campbell and Arrowmont schools of craft, but counts Ron Dale, his ceramics professor in UM's Master of fine arts program, as his biggest inspiration. "I didn't want to graduate," he said. Clark and his wife own Taylor's Tin Pan Alley Antiques, where his pieces are also sold.

DEBORAH FREELAND's realistic paintings, Window at Central Grocery (here) and her Street Dancing series illustrate more than the scenes they portray. "It's like writing a novel and each painting is a chapter of a book. Each painting has a story behind it... though some pieces are poems that stand alone."

DICK WATERMAN never intended to make a career of photography. But it was the '60s, and Waterman, a concert organizer and promoter, had a camera. He was able to capture moments like this one, in 1965, when Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. "I have always felt that this is the moment when the accessible folkie Dylan was exiting from the scene and the reclusive rock icon is emerging."

CONNIE FLAKE's figure studies show ordinary people in domestic scenes. She starts many of her paintings with a charcoal sketch that is layered with an under-painting of sepia wash and then finished in oils. After a scary bout of rheumatoid arthritis, Flake is rebuilding her career. "Many were praying for me."