Art Education Students Selling Christmas Ornaments

MC students crafted about 400 Christmas ornaments this fall.

Cameron Huey cherished the time with classmates this fall crafting Christmas ornaments like white crosses and multicolored doves.

Call it a labor of love for the Mississippi College art education major. Cameron also enjoyed working on metallic and dark blue colored arrowheads.

An MC junior from Florence, Cameron, 21, was part of the Art Department’s team creating Christmas ornaments. The 11^th annual sale on the Clinton campus proved to be a big hit with the Blue & Gold family.

The students’ activity at the Baptist-affiliated university began when they worked on the items in mid-October. The ornament sale in early November stayed on track despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sales occurred in two locations: the MC cafeteria and the top floor of the Aven Fine Arts Building.

Last year, Mississippi College art education majors sold almost 300 ornaments. The students crafted over 400 items in 2020.

“Mississippi ornaments are always popular to give as gifts,” says professor Stephanie Busbea, assistant chair of the MC Art Department. “This year, stocking ornaments are selling really well so far.”

Each year, students use funds raised at the MC Christmas ornament sale to help pay for their expenses to attend National Art Education Association conventions. Attracting educators, students, and other art professionals, the 2021 convention will be in Chicago. But due to the worldwide health emergency, the meeting will be a virtual gathering of visual and media arts educators from across the USA on March 4-6. Students are invited to participate.

In 2019, MC students produced items in the university’s kiln and did so again this fall. With university leaders adjusting the college’s fall calendar to wrap up the semester prior to Thanksgiving, the 2020 sale was going on in November. Normally, the event is booked for the traditional time in early December.

At prices starting at $7, the creative ornaments serve as wonderful stocking stuffers for bargain hunters as the Christmas holidays near.

MC students crafting ornaments also included: Lauren Sitarz of Birmingham, Alabama, Laura Wingo or Pelahatchie, Corrie Lee, Brittany Bradley, and Ashley Thurman, all of Jackson, Emily Elliott of Bogue Chitto and Cate Stennett of Fleming Island, Florida.