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franklin county times

Alex Loeb's paintings featured
in Port Gibson Bicentennial event

By Staff
ARTWORK Alex Loeb is one of only 10 Mississippi artists to participate in the Port Gibson Bicentennial Invitational Art Exhibit. Photo by Carisa McCain/The Meridian Star
By Penny Randall / staff writer
March 30, 2003
Alex Loeb of Meridian is one of 10 Mississippi artists whose work will be on display at the Port Gibson Bicentennial Invitational Art Exhibit.
C.K. Alford, curator of the show, has this to say about Loeb's paintings.
In preparation, the artists were introduced to all aspects of Port Gibson, its history, stories, and plans for the future by the curator and other members of the community. Then the artists were left to interpret their own subjects.
Port Gibson is celebrating its 200th anniversary. The bicentennial invitation art exhibit will remain open through May 9. A reception for the artists will be April 5, from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
The exhibit will hang in the newly reconverted Bakery Building at 621 Market St. It is open weekdays 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m.-4 p.m., and Sundays 2 p.m.-4 p.m.
Loeb, a member of the Jewish community in Meridian, said the curator asked him to consider the Jewish influence on early Port Gibson in his paintings.
As a result, one of the five pieces in the show includes Hebrew cryptology and his memory of the Bernheimer buildings, which occupied a city block in Port Gibson.
Loeb said he remembers Port Gibson from his childhood when he visited his mother's family in Vicksburg.
He and his wife, Jean, have been serious painters since 1950 when she gave him a box of paints as a present. Now, at 84, Loeb credits his longtime friend Homer Casteel with encouraging him to paint.
Loeb and his wife have participated in workshops and art classes every year since. For more than 40 years, they have been active members of the Mississippi Art Colony, a retreat for artists which meets twice a year.
DID YOU KNOW?
Meridianite Alex Loeb is only one of the artists whose work will be displayed. The exhibit also includes entries from:
Martha Ferris of Vicksburg, who paints on cut steel;
Kenneth Humphrey, a winner of the National Ballet poster competition;
Filandus Thames, a painter whose work was recently shown at the Smith-Robertson Museum;
Mary Hardy, head of painting and drawing at Gulf Coast
Community College;
Lavern Hamberlin, a sculptor from Lafayette;
Robert Brooks, a photographer from the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum;
Ron Lindsey, an architectural painter from Clinton;
Gustina Atlas, a quiltmaker affiliated with Mississippi Cultural Crossroads; and
Edward Jones of Pattison who makes models of old buildings.

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