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gets ooost
By NAN PATTON EHRBRIGHT
KEVIN COOPER/THE SUN HERALD
Coast artist Elizabeth Veglia, foreground, puts the finishing touches on a tile mural on the wall of the Bay St Lou-is-Hancock County Library in Bay St Louis. Her mural gave the community an artwork of which to be proud, although John McDonald?s work will be the first created as part of The Renaissance Project
mien; o-o p.m. aaiuraay. Sept. 28 Where: Serenity Gallery, 126-1/2 Main St., Bay St. Louis.
Admission: Free.
Details: The reception will kick off a project to preserve and share the community?s history through wall murals and a gathering of folklore. The reception will include presentations by several storytellers and the unveiling of John McDonald's painting, ?Promenade Mural.' People will have an opportunity to buy "likenesses" of themselves for incorporation into McDonald's mural and to reserve prints of the painting. One ?likeness? will be raffled.
To volunteer to help gather folklore: Dixie Boyd, 467-2764; Sharon Kronlein, 467-2283.
THE SUN HERALD
BAY ST. LOUIS ? About five years ago, Pass Christian artist John McDonald stood at the door of his Bay St. Louis studio and gazed across the parking lot at the large blank wall of the Hancock Insurance Co. Agency?s office.
Today, you can still see the remains of the drawing he scratched on the glass of his door.
In another month or so, you?ll be able to see. the
Moselev	detailed drawing
Moseiey	_ painted m ful]
color, 85 feet long and 18 feet high ? as you enter the parking lot off Main Street.
McDonald has jokingly dubbed his ?Promenade Mural? the ?Drive-by Mural.?
?It?s designed to be viewed from a car,? he said last week. ?I think I?ll name the parking lot after myself ? the McDonald Auto-diorama.?
Townspeople and visitors already have been introduced to wall murals. The north wall of a building at Beach Boulevard and Court Street sports a Mardi Gras mural. Paper Moon on Main Street has an old-timey Coca-Cola sign mural.
The project
Under the tutelage of Bay St. Louis artist Elizabeth Veglia, more than 200 Hancock Countians contributed to the mosiac tile mural that was unveiled this spring next to the Dunbar Avenue entrance of the Bay St. Louis-Hancock County Library on U.S. 90.
But ?Promenade Mural? will be the first mural created for The Renaissance Project, which will be partially funded by a $20,000 Artists Build Communities grant from the Missis-fcppi Arts Commission and sponsored y the Gulf Coast Community
yundation.
\The use of exterior murals to share
Vommunity?s history is not new.
Between 1982 and 1993, artists from Canada and the United States created 32 wall murals depicting the history of Chemainus, British Columbia.
In Lake Placid, Fla., artists have painted 16 murals, and a 17th is under way.
Plans to make Pine Bluff, Ark., known as Arkansas? City of Murals call for a series of 22 murals illustrating various facets of the city?s history. As of Jan. 31, six murals had been completed and the project had been written up in Southern Living magazine and the Dallas Morning News.
Mining the folklore lode
While the murals are important, The Renaissance Project goes one step farther in its effort to resurrect an awareness of the country?s collective roots.
Beginning immediately, volunteers will begin recording the stories of older residents as they reminisce about the past.
?These are the tales that have been related in family and church gatherings, on front porches, along the streets and in the businesses of Han-
cock County,? said Veglia.
The artist was instrumental in securing the grant and who serves as project director.
The community storygathering will be coordinated by Dixie Boyd of Bay St. Louis and Sharon Kronlein and Sara Foster, both of Waveland.
Next month, professional storyteller Chris Vinsonhaler of Ocean Springs will spend a week teaching interviewing techniques to Bay Middle School students.
Afterward, they will gather stories, take them back to their classrooms and learn how to edit and compile their tales.
Bay High and Hancock High also have been invited to participate in the storygathering.
Ultimately, the stories will be compiled into an illustrated booklet, which will be available to the public in December.
The next mural ? to be painted by Bay High teacher Ken Matthews and his art students from a painting by folk artist Alice Moseley of Bay St. Louis
?	is scheduled to go up in late fall or early spring.
?We hope to have seed money to
create other public artworks after the project is finished,? Veglia said. ?My personal interest, and that of a lot of the people involved in this, is not only to develop the artwork but tourism, so that the businesses can thrive.?
Spans centuries
McDonald got serious about the ?Promenade Mural? about a year ago.
As usual with his work, McDonald started with small-scale studies, then advanced to larger-scale drawings.
?It took lots of research to get the appropriate dress,? he said.
The French term for the style is ?trompe l?oeil,? an allusion to ?fooling the eye,? McDonald said. ?The mural is a vision of the Bay over time.?
The piece depicts a pavilion-style brick building where a contemporary audience on the top level ? turned anonymously away from the viewer
?	looks down on a sweeping panorama of several centuries of history, including the native Indians, the arrival of the French in 1699 and a train engine chugging across a railroad trestle.
Viewers can see the bluff near the Ulman Avenue pier as well as Hen-
derson Point and Cat Island in the distance.
McDonald points to two greei plaques in the lower right comer o the piece.
?They will have writing on them,? he said. ?They will describe whai people are looking at.?
McDonald said it will take about < month to paint the mural.
Assisting him will be Jim Boyd o Pass Christian, an art student at Wil liam Carey College; David Wallace o Bay St. Louis, an art student at tht University of Southern Mississippi; and Gulfport artist Geo Balsly.
McDonald referred to a Septembei 1996 Atlantic Monthly article in whicl James Howard Kunstler wrote aboui ?chronological connectivity. ?
This, McDonald explained, ?charges the present with a vivid validation of our own aliveness? anc ?puts us in touch with the ages anc with the eternities, suggesting that we are part of a larger and mors significant organism.
?It puts us in our place, all that,? McDonald said. ?And says it nicely. ?