17th annual Holiday Arts Tour, November 20-23, 2014 Today's Tour Stops include Kelly Moore Bag and Embellishments. Here you will see works by Joey Slaughter and Emma Melville, as well as hear the music of Monty Russell.
Ruston is fortunate in that Kelly Moore Clark, of Kelly Moore Bag, is one of our local ladies. Kelly ships her camera bags around the globe and she's opened a brick and mortar store right here in downtown Ruston.
For this year's Tour she will host Joey Slaughter. Joey's artwork investigates the "look" of digital information as it is transmitted around us, providing an overabundance of stimuli and therefore, distractions. He combines the hands-on acts of painting and sculpture with digital media, using a blend of tight and loose, machine and man, all working together for a unified whole. The combination of these traditional and non-traditional processes is important to Slaughter, and allows for a play between spontaneity and precision. Joey is Associate Professor of Art at Louisiana Tech's School of Design, as well as Graduate Coordinator and a Gladys Lawson Rogers Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts. Check out this recent article about Joey in the November issue of Bayou Life.
Monty Russell will kick off the Tour's Friday performances with a show at Kelly Moore Bag from 5-6pm. Monty Russell is a singer, songwriter, Americana radio personality, and concert promoter based in Northern Louisiana. After having been taught to accompany himself by sliding a knife blade over an open E tuned guitar at the age of 8, and having been immersed throughout his youth with the honky-tonk, gospel, western swing, and blues music played by his Grandfather Leon Russell, a rural self-taught barrelhouse piano player, guitarist, and fiddler, Monty set out on a musical journey that has lasted over 30 years. He has played theatres, listening rooms, festivals, honky-tonks, churches, and any other place people would listen.
Over the past decade, he has shared the stage with the likes of Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Currington, Gary Allan, Little Feat, Merle Haggard, Reckless Kelly, Blues Traveler, Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball, Charlie Daniels, Confederate Railroad, Bucky Covington, Robert Earl Keen, Delbert McClinton, David Alan Coe, Pat Green, Jerry Jeff Walker, Paul Thorn, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Del McCoury, Radney Foster, Reckless Kelly, Pete Anderson, and many others.
Just down the street a bit is Embellishments, a privately owned shop that offers a wide selection of gifts, home decor, bamboo bedding, jewelry and more. Tanya Florence, shop owner, will be hosting Emma Case Melville. Emma is a local potter who's recently begun a line of functional ceramic items, called Chene Clay Company. For this year's Tour she will be offering an assortment of niche items, such as shaving bowls and yarn bowls, in addition to other more traditional pieces. A shaving bowl--what a great gift for the hard-to-shop-for man! Of her new business Emma says, "My family comes from a place in Louisiana called Bayou Chene. They were a hard-working people who lived off the land and water. Though the community of Bayou Chene was forced to disperse to make way for a spillway, Chene Clay Company is a continuation of the spirit of my family and the people who worked hard to live good lives and give back to their community." Emma made some beautiful mugs for NCLAC during our Fall 2014 Membership Drive. Thanks, Emma!
Holiday Arts Tour programming is free and the public is invited to enjoy! HAT is supported in part by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council and administered by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council.