18 August "Between Earth and Sky," works of two artists, now on display at the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts gallery on the ICC Fulton Campus August 18, 2025 By Thomas, Donna S. General 0 Now through Sept. 18, Itawamba Community College is hosting “Between Earth and Sky,” a collection of works by two participating artists in the gallery of the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center at the Fulton Campus. A collection of ceramic pieces by Melanie Eubanks of Jones College is complemented by the large acrylic paintings of clouds by Hattiesburg artist Martina Sciolino. All of the works are for sale. Eubanks is a ceramic artist who works primarily in stoneware and porcelain. The surface of her work is often decorated with brushwork, sgraffito or Mishima or a combination of all of these. With these techniques, she can make images that usually reference the organic shapes of nature and are echoed by the marks made by wood firing. Most of her work is functional and fired in a wood burning kiln, which creates irregular surfaces due to wood ash adhering to the side of the objects facing the flame, which interests her most. She fires her work at various kilns in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and at her home in Hattiesburg, where she shares a studio with her husband. Eubanks has taught art at Jones College since 1994. She is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with degrees in painting, drawing and art education. Sciolino describes her collection of cloud paintings as her “Sky Mind Series,” of which she says, “We look to the heavens for inspiration, for release, for expansion, for freedom. The sky is also, in its way, a great mystery because its many majestic, mountainous forms are really only vapors in the process of diffusing and aligning in arbitrary ways. The sky is a great improvisation, and these paintings are small improvisations that honor its nature. Clouds teach the truth about all form because they are ephemeral. Whatever shape they take lasts only a short time before the wind creates another. Buddhist teachings encourage practitioners to view their thoughts and feelings as clouds in the sky: there is no sense in maintaining attachments to impermanent forms or in telling stories about accidental shapes that are always in the process of changing. Instead, one can ‘rest in a mind like vast sky.’ The title of this series, ‘Sky Mind,’ comes from those teachings.” “Between Earth and Sky” will be on display until Sept. 18, when the artists plan to give a presentation about their process and ideas at 1 p.m. in the Lecture Demonstration Room. W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center gallery hours are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, unless the college is closed. Admission is free. For more information, contact Shawn Whittington at eswhittington@iccms.edu or (662) 862-8301. Related Articles ICC to celebrate Week of the Arts, formally reopen W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center Itawamba Community College will celebrate the Week of the Arts, Apr. 19-22, with several special events at the Fulton Campus, including a ribbon cutting and formal reopening of the newly-renovated W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center auditorium. They first event will be a CenterStage concert, Apr. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Band Hall. The remaining activities, which will be at the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center auditorium, are the ribbon cutting and open house, Apr. 20, 10 a.m.-noon; Fashion Show, Apr. 20, 6 p.m.; Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble concert, Apr. 21, 6:30 p.m.; and Choir and Chamber Choir concert, Apr. 22, 7 p.m. Renovations began in the fall of 2021 to restore the decades-old 24,000-square-foot facility, which had not received any major renovations since it was built in 1978. With upgrades to almost every inch of the facility, the state-of-the-art auditorium, lecture space, exhibit hall and lobby now boast modern designs that will be more inviting to all guests. The renovations were designed by McCarty Architects. The public is invited to all events. Tom Douglas's work now on display at ICC Fine Arts Center gallery Recent works by Fulton resident Tom Douglas will be on display from Jan. 29-Feb. 22 in the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center gallery at the Itawamba Community College Fulton Campus. The exhibition, which is entitled Pathos and Whimsy, includes landscapes of Shiloh National Battlefield, which is on the route to Douglas’s native home in Tennessee. His intent is for the work to document curiosity and layered investigation. Douglas was a member of ICC’s art faculty from 1983 until he retired in 2013. Gallery hours are from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. except on days that the college is closed. For more information, contact Shawn Whittington at eswhittington@iccms.edu or call (662) 862-8301. Work of 94-year-old Virginia Jackson, one of ICC's first students, currently on display in Fine Arts Center Gallery “The Gift of Life,” a collection of paintings by 94-year-old Virginia Jackson of Tupelo, is currently on display in the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center Gallery at the Itawamba Community College Fulton Campus. The show includes Jackson’s acrylic paintings of landscapes and country scenes as well as two acrylic paintings by her granddaughter, Morgan Davis. Jackson’s first recollection of an interest in art was when she received a box of Crayola crayons at the age of five. She recalls coloring the embossed flowers on doilies (small napkins or decorative mats), but she didn’t start painting until the age of 91 when her daughter, Jill Jackson King, bought her a set of acrylic paints. She describes herself as self-taught and paints most scenes from memory. Most of her paintings are landscape scenes of farm life and “pretty flowers,” but she experiments with abstracts, also. She was born Virginia Anthony in 1929 in her family’s home outside of Tremont. Her father built their house and raised crops, cattle and hogs on their farm during the Great Depression. Growing up, she ... 'Fort Spillman' on display in ICC Fine Arts Gallery through Oct. 2 The paintings of Memphis, Tenn.-based artist Bobby Spillman, which is the first exhibit hosted this fall in Itawamba Community College’s W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center Gallery at the Fulton Campus, will be on display through Oct. 2. The collection titled “Fort Spillman” consists of 12 large acrylic and mixed media paintings deeply layered in imagery surrounding cultural narrative and personal experience. “The work is a reaction to the day-to-day act of living,” Spillman said. “It is sometimes a compilation of ongoing subconscious chatter acting as a surface to collect the filtered distractions, and in other pieces, the artist focuses on a single image that reflects a more thought-out singular moment.” Inspired by cartoons, comics, satire, art history, traditional tattoo flash and childhood pop culture, Spillman’s works are created in a range of mediums from paint, ink, aerosol, collage and color pencil. Spillman, who earned his master’s degree from the University of Memphis, currently teaches advanced placement art in the Germantown Municipal School District. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. For more information, contact Shawn ... Work of Tanner South on display in the ICC Fulton Campus Gallery The work of Tanner South of Columbus will be on display in the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center Gallery at the Itawamba Community College Fulton Campus until Dec. 9. The exhibition entitled “Charm and Chaos: A Collective of Aesthetic Forms Through Decadent Textures” features mixed media paintings, prints and wall assemblages. South said that his work is “inspired by imagination and visionary forms. My paintings embody the textures, colors and nature of my own dreams, nightmares or subconscious renderings. I find it hard not to physically want to touch some of my paintings myself. It’s a sort of textile stimulation that I think I sort of feed into when I’m creating the heavier textured pieces.” South said that he doesn’t “let the orderly left-brain of my day job stop my right-brain from cathartically creating and making a mess in the studio. Whether it’s with multiple mediums at once or with shapes of upcycled treasures to use in conjunction with other forms, it’s always fun to push the limits of myself.” South works full-time ... ICC student artwork featured in exhibit in newly-renovated W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center The artwork of several Itawamba Community College students is currently on display in the newly-renovated W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center at the Fulton Campus. The first student exhibition in the new space, which consists of approximately 80 pieces of art including drawing, painting, computer art and sculpture, will be on display until May 5. Artists include Taylor Braxton of Amory; Jamecia Walker of Baldwyn; Bayleigh Caldwell of Caledonia; McKenna Powell of Hatley; Alli Blansett, Makenzie Brooks, both of Houston; Olivia Jones of Mantachie; Francisco Garcia of Mooreville; Mia Coggin of Nettleton; Michaela Pearson, Rachel Gann, Kaitlin Stegall, Brianna Hall, Maria Tinajero, all of Pontotoc; Lily Wright of Red Bay, Ala.; Jaiden Hutson, Danielle Thompson, Elliana Parker, all of Saltillo; KaJatlon Clark of Shannon; Selena Crowley of Tremont; Ana Chambers, Drew Edmonson, Camille Campbell and Brianna Dent, all of Tupelo. Normal gallery hours are 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Thursday. For more information, email Shawn Whittington at eswhittington@iccms.edu or call (662) 862-8301. Comments are closed.