Blues, haints and bayous: snippets from the Deep South: The endearing Miz Alice

Spring is bustin’ out all over, we notice, as we head out of New Orleans across to Bay St Louis along the Gulf Coast in order to hunt down the art works of Miz Alice Moseley of Mississippi.

We notice, too, as we drive into Bay St Louis that there is a welcome sign pointing out that this is a Certified Retirement Community. When searching out what this means we discover that many of these southern states have begun to realise that Florida is not the only attractive destination for northern snowbirds needing a great winter break. They, too, have the stuff that makes Florida wealthy.

So many places along this beautiful coast go through a very lengthy and demanding process of approval in order to meet state government criteria that allows them to become classified as a certified retirement site, such as generous tax arrangements, adult education opportunities, recreational activities, among many others. Down here, they have casinos, as well, for those who find the need.

And everything is sun drenched. Which seems to be a prerequisite. In between hurricanes, that is. Nowhere, though, is brighter or more charming than the folk paintings of Miz Alice Moseley of Mississippi.

After a long and happy career teaching in Batesville, Mississippi, Miz Alice moved down to Bay St Louis. She started painting only when she retired. Fun things she painted. On shingles. And old bits of wood. Folk loved her work, just as they did Clementine Hunter’s in Louisiana. And, like Clementine, Alice found herself drawn to painting. It became a compulsion. Her world, in retirement. And she painted her world. Her memories and her dreams and her wishes.

In Bay St Louis she found a house she could live in in retirement, and called her son to came take a look at it with her. He did. They ended up looking out at the blue blue sea, as everyone does. And there, on the waterfront, they espied a sad old man, the saddest person Alice had ever seen. She turned to Tim, and remarked wryly, that she hoped that was not going to be her in a couple of years given this decision she’d made to move.

It wasn’t. Alice had her new wooden home painted in bright Wedgwood Blue accented with brilliant white. She then painted a picture of it as a memento of that day on the beach. She called it: The House is Blue but the Old Lady Ain't.

Like Clementine, her work reflects her life, and the things she knows and loves and treasures. They often reflect wholesome homilies, too, on how she wished life had been way back. Her piece entitled: If Only The Past Had Been So Bright focusses on a shiny summer day, cotton pickin’ all in a row, kids playing in slave quarters, folk taking time to chat in the fields. Idyllic. Hopeful. If only.

Other pieces of her work focus on daily life activities, including church on Sundays. Much like Clementine’s works. One piece, entitled Memories of Fredonia Church, was a commissioned work. All the tiny details, the cemetery stones, the church cake stalls, the folk arriving for church and talking, are the things that appealed to Alice about church.

Alice needed a title, she said, before she could paint. Clementine, on the other hand, rarely spoke of her work using titles. When she was asked about a piece she would often say: “This one is about…” and she described the subject matter. Alice always hunted down that title. She had a friend who did patchwork. Something different. Alice pondered this--why one person liked one thing, another something else and she came up with her title: Life has so many angles. She then produced a work quite different from her other folk pieces. Geometrical. Stretching herself.

Alice died a few years ago. Her works are greatly in demand and frequently being found, gifted, bought and displayed in the historic train station in Bay St Louis right opposite her Wedgwood blue home which still stands today.

For rent, as it happens. So folk who stay there need only to walk across the street to the museum where much of Alice’s life fills the walls upstairs. Her desk, her chair, the walls.

It is all so utterly endearing. Like the lady herself.