Mississippi Honors its Artistic Wolfes

Each year Mississippi recognizes some of the state’s greatest artists with the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts.
This year there are six honorees. Today, MPB arts reporter Ron Brown tells us why one of the winners is being hailed 60 years after their debut.

When Jackson artist Bebe Wolfe steps outside her studio on Old Canton Road, she is reminded of our fast paced world. The sound of rushing traffic is constant at all hours of the day. If it seems odd to place an artist’s studio next to a highway, you should know that Wolfe Studio came first. Highway fifty-five, that came later.

Bebe Wolfe: “This used to be way out in the country, and there was no interstate and there was just Old Canton Road out there and you could hear the wind blow and… (laughs)”

Highway fifty five wasn’t even a blueprint then. Old Canton was a just gravel road when Bebe’s parents Karl and Mildred Wolfe built the landmark studio in 1946. The second world war was history, and Mike Douglas was singing one of the hit songs of the day with the Kay Kyser Orchestra.

“In my early childhood I remember this being really in the county and actually the city limits sign was back on the other side of the highway. Back over on Old Canton Road, back over there…”

Though it was built more than half a century ago, the sounds of construction continue to punctuate the air at Wolfe studios. New construction and repair are ongoing. The studio has not only survived at its original location, it has thrived.
And this year, a special recognition; The Governor’s Arts Award for Artistic Excellence… 60 years in the making.

“What my parents did about establishing this studio here was they were probably the first professional artists who were really making a living and really establishing themselves as artists in the state. They were kind of frontier people in that way. And they were really determined to make a living at it.”

When the Wolfe’s began their art careers, there were no endowments or grants, like today. They were on their own trying to balance their artistic goals and still pay the rent and put their kids through school. There was no model, so they became the model… an example for others to follow.

“One thing that my parents started long ago was a ceramic business and they were both mostly painters so the ceramics were kind of a side line for them but they were very, very interested in, They did little ceramic birds was what they found just hit on by accident but turned out to be very very popular. And it was kind of a bread and butter kind of thing for them to keep making them.”

Their bread and butter ceramics business took wing and provided a steady income. That allowed them to concentrate on their paintings, sculptures and hand-made prints. Behind their success, a growing arts community followed and established itself, like Pearl River Glass, a stain glass business owned by longtime Wolfe family friend Andy Young.

“They really did set an example for me, that I can create a studio environment that is sustainable that would be able to support me in a lifestyle that I had grown up in. It’s a very just reward for a lifetime of achievement because they really are so much a part of the fabric of the community….”

Bebe Wolfe: “I have heard many people say that they were inspired by my parents… the feeling that well, if they can do it, I can do it. So I really think that they contributed a lot both in their careers and as an example as what people can do.”

Karl passed away in 1985, Mildred is now 96 years old, and Bebe Wolfe, is a respected artist in her own right, as she continues the family legacy.. a legacy which began in a little studio near a gravel road fed and nurtured with dreams under buttermilk skies. For MPB News, I’m Ron Brown.