artwork courtesy mark benner / byron carson co.
This colorful view of the skyline and Riverside Drive, from the vantage point of Ashburn-Coppock Park, is dated 1981.
Dear Vance: What happened to the local artist who went by the very unusual name of Memphis T. Mississippi? — K.B., Memphis.
Dear K.B.: Using little more than a stubby No. 2 pencil, I have been writing my “Ask Vance” column for more than 30 years. In the early days, the questions were rather straightforward: “Dear Vance, can you explain the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion?” Or, “Vance, why can we only see the same side of the moon after all these years?” Or (more persistently), “Hey Lauderdale, when are you going to pay me back that 50 bucks I loaned you?”
The artist’s fascination with the Mississippi extended to her clothes, which often had river themes or geometric patterns.
Lately, though, some of the queries have stumped me — like this one — so they normally go in a folder that I’ve called “I HAVE NO IDEA.” This time I’m going to make an exception. Memphis T. Mississippi was the legal name of a very accomplished artist and I’d like to share her story with you. What I cannot do, however, is provide you with specific details about her life after she left Memphis. My hope is that my half-dozen readers, if they can stay awake for just two pages, will think of somebody who may know her whereabouts.
First of all, though she tried to keep it a secret, her real name was Susan Bailey. Born in Searcy, Arkansas, she later moved to Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband, a computer programmer. When his company transferred him to Memphis, she came along, and immediately fell in love with the Mississippi River.
William Thomas, a longtime reporter for The Commercial Appeal, featured the “27-year-old pixie-faced woman” (as he described her) in a 1984 profile. “I stuck my feet in the Mississippi River in 1979,” she told him, “ and my life hasn’t been the same since.” She put her watercolor skills to work, capturing river scenes, from Memphis Queen Line paddle-wheelers to driftwood snagged on sandbars to Riverside Drive — whatever caught her eye.
She became something of a walking work of art herself. “I rarely wear anything that doesn’t have the river on it,” she told Thomas, designing long robe-like dresses “with curves, bends, cutoffs, and islands copied from official river charts.” Her distinctive clothing went on display at the Omni Gallery in Overton Square, and her colorful paintings and prints were sold at shops and galleries all over town.
“Although a lot of people know more about the river than I do, I’ve never met anyone who is as immersed in it as I am,” she told The Commercial Appeal. “When I start talking about the Mississippi, people roll their eyes and wonder what I’m all about. I’m not sure I understand it myself. All I know is that I eat, sleep, and breathe the river.”
artwork courtesy mark benner / byron carson co.
Memphis T. Mississippi had a keen eye for color and details. This print, showing the Memphis Queen III heading for port, is dated 1981.
When she changed her name to Memphis T. Mississippi (the “T” is for Tennessee) and began signing her artwork that way, I’m sure lots of people thought she was, well, a kook. I’m not one of them. She displayed a great fondness for the river, that’s for sure, but she did plenty of good deeds for this city. In 1985, she donated many of her limited-edition prints to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. The money from the sale of that artwork went to the hospital’s Kaleidoscope program, designed to bring more art into the hospital and make it a brighter place. She even became Le Bonheur’s artist-in-residence, working with the young patients there to develop their artistic skills and take their minds off their troubles.
The following year, she organized Memphis Belles & Beaux, to serve as unofficial ambassadors to the city for visitors here, greeting tourists at the river landing and mingling with conventioneers at the various hotels. According to a newspaper story, “This spring, Ms. Mississippi recently gathered with 14 hoop-skirted friends to meet one of the riverboats and hand out tourism packets. They’ve been doing it ever since, attending the dozen or so stops made yearly by the Delta Queen in Memphis.”
Mississippi — the person, not the river — made the news here quite a bit in the late 1980s. She contributed an original watercolor to “Art for Art’s Sake,” the annual fundraiser for the American Heart Association. She participated in a special “Valentine to Local Artists” at Beale Street Landing. She enlisted sponsors for a solo, 73-mile “canoe-a-thon” from Memphis to Helena, Arkansas, as a special fundraiser for Le Bonheur. She entered her work at the Mid-South Fair, where she was named “Best of Show.” She donated prints to the Memphis Public Library, for display at branches around the city. She worked as a docent at the Mississippi River Museum on Mud Island. And she taught watercolor skills at various Memphis in May International Children’s Festivals over the years.
artwork courtesy glenna gonzales
Although this print has somewhat darkened with age (like the others shown here, it's dated 1981), the artist's appreciation for all aspects of the Mississippi River — even driftwood — is evident.
She did more than just stand on the banks and paint. She bought canoes and kayaks and explored every bend in the river. Even in small watercraft, she never found the eddies and swift currents risky. “I think it’s more dangerous to drive across town in an automobile,” she told Thomas. “Towboats don’t come at you at 55 mph, but of course you have to give them plenty of room. But that’s not hard. It’s a big river.” At the same time, she said, it’s not too big. “The ocean stretches on forever, and it’s hard to feel close to it. The river has banks on both sides, and it’s easy to feel at home.”
Well, if she felt at home here, why did she leave, and where did she go? I actually turned up a 2003 feature story titled “Where Are They Now?” in our sister publication, the Memphis Flyer, which partly answered that question. Buddy Kelso, who had owned the Lighthouse Gallery in Bartlett for 25 years and sold her work there, claimed she left Memphis in the late 1980s, when her husband’s job transferred him to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. According to Kelso, she had also moved to Russia for several years, but then returned to the States. The gallery owner died in 2016, so I can’t confirm any of that.
If Memphis T. Mississippi spent the rest of her life in Ohio, that’s a shame, in my view. Cuyahoga Falls has a nice winding river — rather wild, with heron-watching stations along it. But stretching barely 100 miles, it’s just a trickle compared to the mighty Mississippi, and in some places barely wide enough for canoes.
RiversideDrive-signature
All of the prints I've found so far are dated 1981, and the artist took the time to sign and number each one in pencil.
And what became of her artwork? She signed and numbered her prints, and she must have been confident of their sales, since the print run on the pieces I’ve seen was always the same — 1,500. In addition to the Lighthouse Gallery, she sold them at Bartlett Art Gallery, Omni Arts, the Cobblestone Square Gallery, Everest Gallery, Perimeter Mall — even Wade’s Office World on Summer.
A quick online search turned up signed Memphis T. Mississippi prints for sale at prices ranging from $120 to $600. One of those was located in Seattle, so her work has ended up in homes across America, purchased years ago by people who appreciated the views of our grand river and probably wondered about the curious name of the artist.
For this column, I found a somewhat grainy photograph of her, but turned to readers for help with images of her artwork. I lost track of the number of people who said, “Oh, yeah … I remember that name,” but that was about all they could tell me. It’s rather depressing that so few people know what happened to her, and despite the charitable work she did for Le Bonheur, some 40 years later, no one at the hospital could tell me anything about her or furnish photos during her stint as their artist-in-residence. Well, it has been 40 years.
So I asked for help on Facebook, something I rarely do, and had better luck. Mark Benner, a sales consultant for an electronics component firm called Byron Carson, told me their regional offices in Arlington had two signed-and-numbered Memphis T. Mississippi prints on display. He kindly let me photograph the two images you see here.
Well, that’s all I know — for now. I’m hoping somebody will read this column — maybe Memphis T. Mississippi herself (if she’s still using that name in Ohio, or wherever she may be) — and will provide me with the next chapter in her story.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazinem.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis Magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101
