Page 90 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2023

meet tHe Artists:
BRENDA AND MARTY STOKES &
MICHAEL AND VICTORIA TERRA
Among the many talented vendors at the festival each year are two potters who’ve been coming many years and are crowd favorites – Holly Hill Pottery of Navarre, Florida, and Terra Cottage Ceramics of Paducah, Kentucky.
Brenda and Marty Stokes of Holly Hill Pottery have brought their wares to Ocean Springs for 43 years. “We come back because of excellent sales and our love
for the many lifelong friends we’ve made,” Brenda says. “Each year we leave with special orders and requests for next year’s show. We also take home much gratitude, appreciation and an inspiration to create new art for the next Peter Anderson festival.”
She adds that the Peter Anderson Festival is an excellent ambassador to Ocean Springs as it features and brings together artists and visitors with such diversity and lights the fires of creativity as it has for the Stokes family. “Ocean Springs offers art and culture; not only to its many visitors but to artists of many mediums. Younger, progressive artists and enthusiasts of contemporary art enjoy an education that only Ocean Springs offers. We old-timers share our knowledge with new comers and art is everywhere!”
Michael and Victoria Terra of Terra Cottage Ceramics
have enjoyed being at the festival year after year. “The
folks who come are so happy to be there. They’re laughing and engaged and the support for my work has kept growing which is a humbling experience,” says Michael, a potter/poet.
He began making pottery in college while waiting for a girlfriend, who was a ceramics student, to finish pottery class. “I picked up the clay and kept myself busy while waiting. Eventually I was paying my monthly expenses selling $5 mugs on the Campus Concourse two days every month,” he recalls.
The poetry is another story as he’s always written in one form
or another and was attracted to the Japanese esthetic of brevity in using just
what you need and
then no more. “So my writing got shorter and shorter until what was left was poetry,” he says. “Inspiration to create
is hard-wired into my DNA; there has never been a time I was not creating something.”
ABOVE: Pottery by Brenda and Marty Stokes. BELOW: Mugs by Michael
and Victoria Terra.
90 | October 2023
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