Faculty and Graduate Students To Visit Costa Rica

White sand, crystal clear waters, the mighty Poas Volcano, coconuts and wild monkeys are some of the big attractions for tourists to Costa Rica.  But the Mississippi College delegation visiting Costa Rica for two weeks starting in early June won’t be there to snorkel, scuba dive and have fun along the beaches.

Professors with the MC Art Department and a number of graduate students will be working on art projects to be showcased at the Gore Galleries on the Clinton campus later this year or sometime in 2012.

Among those making the journey will be internationally celebrated artist Sam Gore, the former chairman of the Art Department. The Clintonian will be joined by art professors Albert Smathers and  Carrie Reeves, plus other local artists. Just over a dozen people will comprise the Mississippi College delegation.

The benefactor and host of the visit will be Dr. Gore’s college friend, architect and businessman H.C. “Pat” Pattillo, who’s with a large architectural firm in Georgia. Pattillo also owns a 4,500 acre resort in Costa Rica. More than 60 years ago, Gore and Pattillo were classmates at Georgia Tech after meeting at a Baptist Student Union event on the Atlanta campus. They’ve stayed in touch ever since. Pattillo also awards scholarships to talented MC art students.

The trip, Smathers said, is a “thank-you to Dr. Gore for their friendship over the years.”  It’s also a way to reward promising MC art students, he adds.

The trip will be similar to one that MC art faculty, students and alumni made to Costa Rica in 2008. After they returned, some of their paintings were part of a show at the Gore Galleries in August 2009. Other pieces of art were donated to Pattillo’s resort and other businesses.

The setting back then was magnificent and the same will be true of their upcoming stay.

“We had a cottage right on the beach,” Gore said at the time. “Costa Rica is absolutely beautiful. There is fruit, fish and incredibly friendly people. They are poor by our standards.”

In June, the MC visitors will stay at an old Costa Rican ranch house owned by Pattillo near the beach.

During their field trip, the graduate students will spend much of their time producing artwork inspired by their surroundings under the instruction of MC professors. The students will receive academic credit for their art work.  Upon their return,  expect to see lots of watercolors of landscapes, views of city life and scenes of fishermen.

Carrie Reeves loved her first visit to Costa Rica in 2008. It was, the Mississippi College graduate said, “an unbelievable opportunity for an artist. We had two weeks to be inspired by the beauty of Costa Rica. It was an artist’s dream.”

Carrie also speaks fluent Spanish. Her language skills are a plus in the Spanish-speaking country bounded by Nicaragua, Panama, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

For years, tourists have made Costa Rica a popular destination point. There were two million visitors reported in 2010.There’s no need for the Mississippi College visitors to bring alarm clocks. Noisy monkeys roaming the trees woke up the MC guests early every morning during their 2008 art trip.

Other artists making the trip include Dr. Steve Glaze, a former MC art faculty member now at Liberty University in Virginia, Pam Kinsey, Jeanette Jarmon and Faye Maynard. Not far from the beaches, the artists will be staying at San Pinilla on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.