Page 38 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2020

ARTS WRITTEN
Plein Air Painters of Horn Island
IN THE SAND
story by Troy Gilbert
photos by Troy Gilbert and courtesy of Walter Anderson Museum of Art
Ghost crabs write in script on the sands of Horn Island, and one hears tales in the bleached bones of a pelican exposed in a dune. The high watermark puzzle of marsh reeds and waterlogged boughs washed ashore speak of journeys, and they all tell the true story of the island.
38 | June 2020
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
Billy Solitario draws his inspiration from Horn Island.
Walter Anderson socially distanced on Horn long before our current troubles and he listened to the island’s tales and stories and captured them on canvas and in his sketch books. Coastal artists have long followed in his footsteps and an expedition set out
this past year to capture a glimpse of this remote world and their collected works are now on display at the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs.
Billy Solitario’s natural
gifts as an artist would have allowed him to flourish anywhere, but a lifetime
spent on boats fishing and running Mississippi’s barrier islands colored his worldview and left an indelible mark
on his canvas. Solitario is
at the vanguard of the next generation of Mississippi’s coastal artists finding their own rhythm and style while drawing their inspiration from the state’s coastal waters and barrier islands.
The kits, gear and suntan lotions for boating expeditions to Horn or the other federally protected Gulf Islands stretching from Mississippi
to Florida are as one would suspect, but with artists set
to work and camp en plein
air for long weekends, their campsites include crates of canvas, paints and charcoal.
A couple of times a year, Solitario organizes expeditions out to Horn for artists to
paint en plein air, with their feet in the water and in the sand. “Nature has a way of reminding us that we’re not really in charge. As large and asbigasashrimpboatora freighter is, or as strong and