Page 58 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2018

FROM SMALL BEGINNING,
FESTIVAL GOING STRONG AFTER 40 YEARS
STORY BY SUSAN RUDDIMAN PHOTO COURTESY OF OCEAN SPRINGS RECORD, 1986 AND PHOTOS BY DONN HUPP
Forty years ago, the arts and crafts event
in downtown Ocean Springs did not resemble today’s Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival, which is attended by thousands each November. The first crafts sale was held in conjunction with the 50th anniversary observance of Shearwater Pottery, so the ties between the festival and the pottery were just as strong then as they are today.
“We had a big celebration on Friday evening honoring Peter at the community center.
He was given the key to the city and all,” said Margaret Anderson.“I was the pottery business manager then, so we were involved.”
The celebration, sponsored by the Ocean Springs Chamber of Commerce, went from Oct. 31-Nov. 17, 1978. Peter Anderson Day was proclaimed on Friday, Nov.
3, with the reception at the
Ocean Springs Community Center that evening. On the following Saturday, Nov. 11, there was a sidewalk craft sale set up downtown. The day concluded at the community center where the Walter Anderson Players presented “Yellow Butterflies,”
a collection of excepts from the writings of Walter Anderson.
The festival could have ended then. However, in 1979, the Chamber of Commerce,
Ocean Springs Art Association and volunteers came up with the idea to turn it into an
arts festival. With the help of the Anderson family, Ocean Springs was growing as an arts community, so the festival idea became fitting and grew. “In the beginning, the festival was made up of card tables and crafts in the Depot parking lot,” said Margaret Miller, former Chamber of Commerce director for nearly 30 years.
58 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • October 2018
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