Young's art born and bred in the Delta

Photo by Michael Donahue, Courtesy of Joey Young // Buy this photo

Telephone poles dot the landscape in "Bible Belt" by Joey Young.

Joey Young's paintings portray the Delta with its storms, tornadoes and wide-open space.

"It's like turning on a scary movie," said Young, 29, who lives in Clarksdale, Miss. "Sometimes when you look at that sky it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes its the most eerie thing."

When a sudden storm hits the Delta, "There's no running. You're open season. It's just flat land."

But then, he said, "There's nothing like a Delta sunset. ... Maybe just 'cause you can see so far. A sunset just goes for miles and miles and miles."

Photo by The Commercial Appeal files, The Commercial Appeal files

Joey Young of Clarksdale, Miss., is a teacher, potter and painter.

Young is exhibiting his paintings and pottery through Feb. 29 at Revolution Salon & Gallery in Memphis.

Actor Morgan Freeman, whose home is in Charleston, Miss., is one of Young's fans. "He is an excellent and dedicated artist," Freeman recently said by e-mail.

Artist Lane Tutor, who taught Young at Northwest Community College, said, "When you teach people in art, a creative area, you see these guys and girls who've just got a spark there, a passion for what they do. They're like a sponge. They want to get out of you what they can. He was one of those guys."

A native of Charleston, Young wasn't a fan of the Delta at first. He and the other members of his family traveled with his father, a teacher and a part-time preacher, on Sundays to his dad's church outside of Parchman, Miss., in the Delta.

"Even in high school if I came in late on Saturday, I had to go to early church. That was my punishment."

He began to appreciate the Delta when he started teaching art at a middle school in Cleveland after graduating from Delta State University. He also worked as a waiter at Madidi restaurant in Clarksdale, which was owned by Freeman.

"Being in and out of Clarksdale made me grow as an artist. ... I was always on the road between Cleveland and Clarksdale on Hwy. 61. So, every day I saw sunsets, sunrises."

A series of "Delta Crucifix" paintings came out of those trips. Telephone poles on lonely stretches of highway look like crosses in his paintings.

"You see telephone poles in lots of landscapes, but composition wise it kind of worked. I had something to contrast to that open sky. ... But there also was that play on maybe faith and religion in the South, being in the Bible Belt."

Part of that inspiration was actual wooden crosses set up in fields. "I don't know who went around putting the three crosses up, but you still see them all around the South."

Young often uses tornadoes, floods and storms in his paintings.

"If there's a storm coming I'll get in my truck on the back roads and head towards Friar's Point or somewhere on Highway 1 ... get back behind the levee and watch the storm come across the river."

Young now teaches art through a grant program in elementary schools in Friar's Point, Jonestown and Duncan, Miss.

"I go to three different schools, so my kids are always on different lessons. My back seat looks like I'm homeless -- boxes of paper, art supplies."

Young named his new show "Broken Molds" for a couple of reasons.

"In the Delta there are so many potters that have made a name for themselves. A lot of them are older now. Most of their works are (from) molds. So maybe the play on the word 'molds' coming from a potter's sense 'cause I don't do molds. All my stuff is hand thrown."

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"Broken Molds," works by Joey Young

On exhibit at Revolution Salon & Gallery, 109 South Front St., through Feb. 29.

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Michael Donahue: (901) 529-2797; donahue@commercialappeal.com

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