Frances Hairston

Frances Hardwick Hairston, born near Vaughan, Mississippi, grew up in the Mississippi Delta in Belzoni, but has spent most of her life near Crawford, Mississippi in the Black Prairie. As a child, she was surrounded by nature. "I was always roaming around noticing trees and flowers and making flower arrangements. Nature is second nature to me."

Later as an adult, Hairston developed this love of flowers into the Tussie Mussie, a nosegay of dried Mississippi flowers which was sold all over the United States. Her sense of color, shape, and design still left her wanting to draw and paint. She returned to her alma mater, Mississippi University for Women where she earlier received a BA in history in 1961 and a MFA in history in 1973, to be granted a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2013.

A mother of three children and a grandmother of seven grandchildren, she is very involved with the community. She serves on the Columbus Arts Council where she helps set up monthly exhibits. She is a member of Mississippi Association of National Women in Art, Mississippi Watercolor Society, church and community choirs, and is a chair person of Art and Environment in her church. In addition, she is a member of PEO, a docent at the Lee Home, and serves as president of a garden club. Her paintings have been accepted into juried shows. Her first solo art exhibit is scheduled for September 2015, at the Rosenzweig Art Center in Columbus, Mississippi.

Seeing beauty in the complexities of nature and being able to convey what I see is my goal. By searching in nature for complexities and ambiguities, I want to paint something I consider beautiful that many times is often overlooked by the average viewer who simply see the surface. By peering closer, there is beauty, color, life teeming, wonder, amazement, and complexity. We go through life never really noticing nature or just taking it for granted. Living always in the country has inspired me to paint my visual surroundings.

Most of my training in art school was with oils. Painting in oils taught me color mixing, luminosity, and texture. Since graduating, I am becoming more and more interested in pen and ink and watercolor and work now primarily in watercolor. All of the techniques I learned with oil painting transfer over to watercolor. I love the transparency of watercolor and the layering of colors. There is something exciting about loading a brush with paint and watching what happens when the brush hits the wet paper.

I share a quote from Karel Appel: "I always new I wanted to paint. It is an urge inside of you, a different feeling, a different view of the world." I have come late into painting, but the desire, the urge to paint has always been present.

I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Mississippi University in May, 2013 and participated in watercolor workshops in the summer of 2013.

You can read an article about Frances in the Commercial Dispatch here.