Upcoming Exhibition at the Fine Arts Center in Eupora, MS

My next show will be a one man exhibition at the Fine Arts Center in Eupora, MS. The show will be from 25 April to 2 May 2009 with an opening reception on 25 April from 6 to 8 PM. I plan on having at least 40 framed drawings in the show, and maybe more depending on what I can fit in. I will also have some prints for sale. I plan on giving away a framed print of "Infinity" (see the picture above) in a random drawing. I hope to get lots of people from Starkville to make it to the show, as Eupora is a small town. However, they do have a gallery, so that is definitely a step in the right direction!

In other news, I just found out I will be one of the featured artists at an event at Mississippi State University called "Mississippi's Best Grassroots Concert." The event is from 6 to 9 PM on 10 February 2009 at Lee Hall on the MSU campus, and it is free. Various artists in the region will have several pieces of their artwork on display for that time period with the first hour devoted to viewing the art, and the remaining two hours will be filled with some of the best music from north MS. The music will include a variety of genres having origins in our region including blues, bluegrass, jazz, gospel, and other styles.

My current show at the Meridian Museum of Art and other news

My 2-man show with Cetin Oguz at the Meridian Museum of Art is up for two more weeks. The opening on January 3 went well, especially considering the fact that it was raining like crazy! I was fortunate to have a nice contingent of people from my home town of Starkville make the trip to Meridian just to see the show. Thanks guys! The response from viewers was great, and I had tons of questions asked. Additionally, both Cetin and I gave a short talk about our art with a questions and answers session. Although, I did not list prices on my work at this show, I still managed to make a nice sale of my drawing "In the Beginning"! I met some wonderful people at the show who showed great interest in my art, and all and all it was a wonderful event. For more info and some photos of the show go to my web page about the show (link).

I had a couple of wonderful write-ups about me and my art in the Columbus Dispatch and Starkville Daily news. The Starkville paper was especially nice because I was on the front page in full color! Very cool.

In other news, I donated a framed print to our local arts council fund-raiser auction (the Starkville Area Arts Council) where we raised over $10,000! The awareness of the arts in our relatively small town has really increased in recent years. I also have some prints on display and for sale at the Creative Warehouse in Starkville (MS). If you are in town, check them out! This week I framed two drawings and am finishing another that I still need to frame for an upcoming International Imaginative Arts Association (IIAA) group show in Los Angeles that should be opening hopefully sometime in the spring. I have a big one man show coming up in late March at the Fine Arts Center in downtown Eupora, MS. This is a small MS town, but yet another one focusing on the arts. I was able to get a grant from the Mississippi Endowment of the Arts to help pay for framing for this show. I hope to have a good crowd on hand and in addition to the original artwork, I will have prints for sale. I hope to enter at least one, and maybe two new works in the upcoming Cotton District Arts Festival juried show in April. This is a wonderful event with many great artists from the Southeast competing for cash prizes. The last three years have been good for me there as I have placed 3rd, 1st, and 2nd overall during that span! I also plan on entering two pieces in the Meridian Museum of Art Bi-State Juried Competition this spring.

MacGown and Oguz Art Exhibition at Meridian Museum of Art

Well, it is definite now. I will be having a two-man show with Cetin Oguz, an art professor at Delta State University, at the Meridian Museum of Art from January 3-31 2009 with an opening reception on January 3rd from 6-8 PM. I will have two gallery rooms to exhibit my surrealistic art. I plan on having between 60 and 70 framed drawings and mixed media images. My artwork should work well with that of Cetin's. His works are somewhat abstract mixed media representations of his beliefs, history, and ideas and perceptions of life.

Upcoming art show and recent news

6 Oct 2008,

My art show at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba, MS went well. Lots of folks attended the reception, and I got a chance to talk to a bunch of them about my art. As result of this show, I am now going to be part of a three man show at the Meridian Museum of Art opening on January 3rd, 2009! I will be able to include even more pieces in this show than in the show at Scooba. The gallery features 3 large exhibition rooms on the first floor and one larger room on the second floor. The other two artists and myself will each have one of the rooms on the first floor to display our artwork. This is very exciting, as Meridian has a large group of people who support the arts. I will update this when I get more information.

In other news, I was volunteered to be the assistant coach for the newly formed 7th - 9th grade cross country team at Starkville Academy. My son Joseph is in 7th grade and is on the team. We are an exceptionally young and inexperienced team, but the kids are making great headway and are getting in much better shape. They did exceptionally well at our last meet hosted by Pickens Academy in Alabama. Joseph won the junior varsity (junior high) boys division and our other junior high boy came in 2nd place. Our only junior high girl entry took 3rd place. We had four varsity girls in the top ten and their team came in 2nd place, and we had one varsity boy in the top ten.

Joseph won 3rd place in a photo contest at the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge for a photo of a buckey butterfly he took! He also won first place in an art show at the Prairie Arts Festival in West Point, MS earlier in September in the 7th - 9th grade division!

MacGown Art Show-EMCC 17 Sept. - 8 Oct. 2008

I will be having an art show at East Mississippi Community College (EMCC) at Scooba, MS from 17 September through 8 October 2008 with an opening reception from 2-3 PM on 17 September. This show will feature a selection of my detailed surreal art, probably about 20 pieces in all. The show will be in room 25 of Aust Hall. The community college is about 50 miles south of Starkville on Hwy 45 Alt. At Scooba, MS, take the exit for Scooba/East Mississippi Community College at Hwy 16. Continue down Hwy 16 for just over a mile then take a right at the entrance to the campus under the large archway. Go straight through the campus until dead-ending in the parking lot for Aust Hall, the art department. Everyone is welcome to attend the opening and I look forward to seeing you there! A write up about the show can be found at the EMCC web site- MacGown Art Show at EMCC.

My recent and upcoming shows

***July 13, 2008*** I will be having a one man show in the relatively new Eupora Fine Arts Center this coming spring (2009). I am hoping to have at least 40 of my semi strange, very detailed, pen and ink, surreal works framed for this show. Dates are still tentative, but it should be in late March through mid April. I will post details concerning the exact dates and the opening date when I have that information. This gallery is an old downtown building, which is basically an elongate, rustic structure with brick and old wood. It is not a lot to look at, but it has two really long walls perfect for hanging lots of art! Hopefully, I can have a good turnout to the opening. I am getting great support for this show from Mark Wood, the owner of the Chalet, a local frame/art supply store here in Starkville, MS. Mark has been of great help in the framing/matting process, and I highly recommend anyone needing high quality framing or printing from this area to vist the "Chalet". This show is going to be of incredible quality (at least the frames) due to my works being framed and matted there. Addtionally, I recently received an artist's minigrant from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment of the Arts to help pay for various expenses for the show.

Last night I went to the closing reception for the People's choice Competition at the Meridian Museum of Art (here in Mississippi) where I had entered my drawing "Nine Panes of Thought." This contest is a bit unusual in that the viewers vote for their favorite works. This is a large show with entries from several southeastern states, all of which were of high quality. Needless to say, I was happy to learn that I won first place in the drawing/print category! The best of show went to a very nice oil paint portrait of an old man done by a local artist from Meridian. I was more than content considering I am not from Meridian and did not have any friends there who could vote for me. I also met some good contacts and it sounds like I may have lined up a couple of gallery showings for the future with at least two of them.



April 21. Well, I managed to land second place in the Cotton District Juried Art Show in Starkville, MS with "Nine Panes of Thought." As in the previous couple of years that I have entered this cometition, mine was the weirdest stuff in the show! I have had pretty good luck with this show, having won 3rd place two years ago, 1st last year, and now second. It has developed into a very competitive show with lots of entries from the region. Not only that, there are no categories; therefore, you are competing with sculpture, photography, paintings, etc. So, I was quite happy with second place! Some of my local supporters were less happy and actually complained that my stuff was clearly the best and that the reason I didn't get first was that I had won the year before. I appreciated their sentiment, but didn't agree as all of the art in the show was very good. In fact, I would hate to judge a show like this, and I realize that it must be exceedingly difficult to pick winners from such a diverse assortment of artists. The winning piece was a wonderfully rendered pastel drawing of a manufacturing plant done by Michael Maxwell, from Oxford, Mississippi. Third place went to some ceramic work done by Robert Long, a pottery/ceramic professor at Mississippi State University. And of course, there were honorable mentions and some merit prizes for several others....