Starting the Journey Through The Mississippi Hills

As a Mississippi artist who often draws and paints landscapes and historical structures, it is a real advantage to live in the Mississippi Hills.  This area of Mississippi has a myriad of interesting subjects tied to notable buildings or structures, history, literature, African heritage, music, the Civil War, local festivals and events, civil rights, native American culture and notable individuals like Elvis Presley, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Tammy Wynette.  I plan to explore this region, comment on it in this blog, and share my adventures and my creations which will result.  I would like to invite you to come along with me.

To begin my discovery of the Hills, I turned to a very important and rich resource, the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area Alliance.   According to their website information, the Mississippi Hills National Area was designated by Congress in 2009. The limits of the area stretch from I-55 to the west over to the Alabama line and from Highway 14 to the south up to the Tennessee border.  The area covers all or part of 30 counties in Mississippi. 

As you will also find on the on the Alliance website, there are 24 Main Street Communities.  I live in Oxford, Mississippi which is one of these communities, so I will start the blog with a notable structure in Oxford which is the Lafayette County Courthouse.  This building has stood at the center of the Square in Oxford since 1872 and plays a major role in the works for William Faulkner who lived in Oxford.  It became one of my first subjects when I moved to Oxford. 

Here is my drawing of the Courthouse.  Prints of it are available on lynningram.com.