MC Graduate Wyatt Waters Receiving Mississippi's Top Arts Honor
Wyatt Waters
It was recently announced that Waters will be recognized for lifetime achievement at the 2010 Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.
Recipients were chosen from 46 nominees and they will be honored in February. The awards are a project of the Mississippi Arts Commission. The awards salute outstanding work by people and organizations in visual and performing arts, patronage, support, community development through the arts and arts broadcasting.
Wyatt's award news received coverage in "The Clarion-Ledger" and "The Clinton News" this week. In the story by Clarion-Ledger reporter Sherry Lucas, Waters said he's thrilled to be included in a program that honors so many other talented artists he greatly admires.
"It feels funny, because they are my heroes," Waters told the newspaper when reflecting on former winners such as the Mildred Wolfe Studios in Jackson.
The Wyatt Waters gallery in Olde Towne Clinton is always a must-stop for MC graphic design coordinator Michael Hataway and his students.
Hataway joins other MC faculty leaders who say Waters is an excellent choice for the lifetime achievement award.
"He's devoted his life to it and continued to improve his skills over the years," Hataway said Friday.
Waters is also "one of the few to make a livelihood out of his artwork. That is difficult for any artist," added the award-winning Hataway, who teaches photography and graphic arts classes on the Clinton campus.
Hataway and his students always enjoy their trips to the Wyatt Waters Gallery that's just a short stroll from the MC campus. Waters "couldn't be any nicer whether they are buying customers or just looking," the professor said.
Waters spent his early years in Florence, and moved to Clinton in the tenth grade. He recalled that former MC art chairman Dr. Sam Gore gave him the encouragement he needed to study art. He graduated from MC with a bachelor's degree in art and received the Belleman award for art and creative writing.
Over the years, the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson and Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel have hosted solo shows of his art work. A couple of books on his paintings have been published.Waters is a past president of the Mississippi Watercolor Society.
Recently, Waters returned to his alma mater and brought his easel to the Quad. He spent an afternoon last month sketching a picture of Provine Chapel as MC's oldest building celebrates the landmark's 150th anniversary this year.
Students and other on-lookers quietly watched as Waters kept busy with his craft. He's also staying on the go this fall with other pieces of art that depict scenes of his hometown of Clinton.
Waters is in good company this year. Other members of the all-star roster of the Class of 2010 in the spotlight at the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts include blues man David "Honeyboy" Edwards, West Point basket maker Bessie Johnson, Mississippi Public Radio's "Grassroots" program and Cleveland community arts educator and advocate Lenagene Waldrup.
The MC graduate and former art department chairman who helped him get started, Dr. Sam Gore says Waters was a gem of an artist even back during his student days.
"I pushed him," Gore said of Waters. "He helped me as a student assistant in drawing and various other things. In his graduate program he was kind of on call (for me). He was especially good with going with groups and painting outdoors. He was a very pleasant person."
The award for Waters was was-deserved, Gore said. "He's home-grown. He didn't have to go off somewhere else to learn what he does. He learned it in his community," Gore said. "Wyatt chose to stay here and work hard. He developed his style right here."
And Waters "has proven to be a good neighbor in Clinton. He's fit in well with the community leadership," Gore added.
Wyatt Waters' dad, the late Bucky Waters, was a Mississippi high school coach, and he also worked for the state Department of Education. His mother, Lucy Waters, is still active in the Clinton community and is a supporter of the arts.
"I'm very proud of him (Waters)," said Gore, who is an internationally celebrated artist with a career spanning more than five decades. "He's developed a unique coloristic style."
Both Wyatt Waters and his wife, Vicki, are both MC people. He met and married Vicki Little in graduate school at MC. His wife worked for years as a school teacher.
"Vicki has always supported my painting: helping me critique at the end of the day, writing letters to collectors on my behalf to promote shows," Wyatt Waters said in a self-penned biography on his Web site. "If I had married someone else I don't know if I would still be painting today."
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