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Art Students and Faculty at Mississippi College Spotlight Louisiana Scenes


Lagniappe remains a popular Cajun term that means a little something extra.

No doubt, Mississippi College art students and professors captured a little something extra as they explored New Orleans and nearby Louisiana communities for May classes far from the Clinton campus.

The MC professors refer to the experience on the road as their May Mini Trip. And the academic journey to the Bayou State yielded big results.

“We sketched and photographed Bayou Manchac, Bayou Lafourche, Bayou Terrebonne and Audubon Park,” says art professor Albert Smathers.” We hope to make this an annual learning event.”

A Raymond resident and prominent Mississippi artist, Smathers served as the ringleader of the trip. Nine MC art students and three professors put their creative juices to work soon after they arrived.

There was much to see. Bayou Lafourche is billed as the world’s longest street with everything from alligators to birds, from swamp adventures to fishing and boating opportunities.

The City of New Orleans is always brimming with wonderful artistic settings. The Big Easy’s life revolves around jazz, spicy cuisine and the city’s culturally rich galleries along Magazine Street.

It wasn’t all work and no play for the Mississippi College delegation. Smathers, and art instructors D.P. Smith and Barbara Gauntt found time to listen to Cajun music and enjoy delicious Cajun food.

“Clarion-Ledger” photographer Gauntt and colleagues featured the beautiful scenery in the New Orleans City Park and Sculpture Garden.

The summer road trip three hours away from the Clinton campus wasn’t the only one for Mississippi College professors and students in recent days.

MC history professor Otis Pickett accompanied his Civil War class to Vicksburg. They visited battlefields that were part of the Vicksburg campaign like nearby Champion Hill in Edwards. In addition, they toured the national military park in the River City. Pickett and a half-dozen students saw the remains of the Cairo ship sunk during the Civil War.

The students read from one of Shelby Foote’s works as part of their studies.

“We want to take them beyond the classroom,” Pickett said. “They loved it.”

The MC visit in late May came on the anniversary of the start of the invasion of Vicksburg by Northern General Ulysses S. Grant in 1863.

As a  University of Mississippi graduate student years ago, Pickett recalled his enriching academic experience when Ole Miss professor John Neff accompanied his class to the site of the Civil War Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

Pickett grew up in South Carolina nearby Civil War sites in his home state.