Cultural Affairs

The City of Meridian Cultural Affairs Coordinator has a variety of duties. The purpose of the division is to serve as a resource to the community to encourage/promote development of festivals, special events, and cultural resources, to work with local art organizations and artists, and to promote and establish awareness of cultural activities in the city.
Click here to view the calendar of events.

Cultural Affairs is involved in the following events:

City of Meridian Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony
The City of Meridian Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony is held at the beginning of the Meridian Downtown Association Holiday Season promotional presentations. These events are held the last week of November or the first week in December, starting with the Official Tree Lighting Ceremony and finished by the Meridian Downtown Christmas Parade. The tree lighting has been held on the lawn of Meridian's City Hall in the past, but due to renovations being made at the City Hall building, this year the official "Tree Lighting" was held on Dumont Plaza with a tree especially selected for the Plaza. The offical "City of Meridian Tree Lighting" is planned for Dumont Plaza until the renovations are complete at City Hall. The Holiday Season is full of plays, a symphony concert, and events at the MSU-Riley Center and various other sites throughout the City. Check the calendar of events for specific details.

Threefoot Art Festival

April 4, 2009 was the date of the renewed Threefoot Festival. This festival is a combination of the old Art in the Park Festival and the 6 year old Threefoot Art Festival.
The mission of the Threefoot Art Festival is to showcase work of exceptional quality and creativity by artists in a variety of mediums. It is our goal to nurture artistic expression by providing an opportunity for artists to share and sell their work; to educate the public about the creative efforts of artists; and to add to the cultural climate and quality of life in the community, state and region.

The festival was held on 6th and 7th Streets between 23rd Ave. and 26th Avenue around City Hall and the “City Green” The Threefoot Building and the Dough Boy Monument is just across 23rd Ave. from “The City Green” in the heart of downtown Meridian.

The weather was perfect, the crowds were wonderful and so was the festival!

Meridian Council for the Arts, Inc. is dedicated to providing high quality art experiences and the Threefoot Festival is no exception.

Thirty-eight artist exhibitors from several states were selected to be a part of our festival using a juried- artist criteria that is governed by Meridian Council’s for the Arts standards of quality, originally, and creativity as interpreted by a jury of visual art professionals. Thirty four of the artists were from out of town. Most of the out of town artists arrived on Friday night and stayed overnight in local motels at least one night and ate in local restaurants as well as purchasing gasoline for their return trip home.
A total of $2,400.00 was awarded to the artists participating in the show as art awards. A respected artist from Louisiana chose the winners of these awards. There was also a total of $1,700.00 spent with the artists in the form of purchase awards. These purchase awards are sponsored by corporations and individuals and guaranteed to be spent with the artist during the festival. Our artists turned in sales tax receipts showing a total of approximately $17,000.00 in art sales for the day of the festival.
The Threefoot Art Festival also featured live music and entertainment throughout the day. Three Chili Cook-Off Teams decorated there booths and cooked their chili on site to compete for trophies and $ 500.00 dollars in prize money not to mention the bragging rites as “Best in Show” Threefoot Art Festival Chili Cook-Off Team of the year. The crowds of festival goers choose a People’s Choice Chile for 2009 as well by sampling the wares of the Chili Cook-Off Teams. Festival goers were also able to purchase food and beverages from three local organizations scattered throughout the festival. Jimmie Rodgers held its Talent Contest Saturday and a concert Saturday night at the Temple Theatre during our festival. Jeff Anderson Hospital held its annual Anderson Cup Race featuring a 5 K run, 2-mile walk and 1-mile fun run with a record number of participants and The Make-A-Wish Foundation held its annual walk for wishes with over 100 participants from as far away as Touscaloosa, Ala. during this year’s Threefoot Festival.
The Arts Education Committee held hands on arts opportunities for children again at the Threefoot Festival that were “American as Apple Pie” featuring arts from major regions of the United States. Hundreds of children enjoyed nine regional art activities as well as an archeological dig, square dancing, dulcimer music, weaving, pottery, Choctaw Indian bead weaving, storytelling, and quilting at the festival. All of these activities were available free. Facilitators and demonstrators who volunteered for the children’s art activities included city, county, and private school art teachers, community members, and out of state volunteers s well.
Admission to the festival is free so it is hard to get an accurate count of attendees. We do know that sales were good for the artists and that the crowds were heavy for the chili cook-off teams and to listen to and watch the free entertainment. We estimate 5,000 people attended this year’s festival.

So you can see that the festival turned out to be an economic plus for the downtown merchants, local restaurants, hotels, and for the artists that participated in the festival.
The Meridian Council for the Arts is proud of the public reception to our newest art endeavor and is pleased to be able to say that the Threefoot Festival was a success in every way.

Main Event
Cultural Affairs is on the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation’s “Main Event” committee. Each year in April the event is held and the entire main stage entertainment is organized and provided by Cultural Affairs/Meridian Council for the Arts. The stage is filled with free local talent from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Main event is a business and industry expo that showcases businesses and industry.

Meridian Day-Neshoba County Fair
Meridian Day at the Neshoba County Fair, billed as the Nation's Giant House Party, is coordinated by the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation and is held each year on the last Wednesday during the Neshoba County Fair. Politicians and local Meridian residents gather at the fair to partake in a political forum, win door prizes, and in general have a good time. Cultural Affairs is in charge of the City’s participation in Meridian Day. We provide a tent and display that features local Cultural Affairs, Arts Council, Main Street, Retiree Recruitment, and Keep America Beautiful events that are held throughout the year in Meridian. Cultural Affairs also provides various items with the city logo on them to give away to everyone attending Meridian Day.

Around Town Carousels Abound
Cultural Affairs has also helped in the coordination of the fun outdoor public arts project Around Town Carousels Abound. The project is intended to promote community pride and spirit throughout the county, region and state. It excites the creative thought-process of many seasoned and aspiring artists. It encompasses the hard work and association of many volunteers and generous contributions of many carousel horse sponsors.

July 4th Celebration
The day features good food supplied by food vendors, and plenty of fun for children at Bonita Lakes Park, and the evening features the annual fireworks show that is both beautiful and exciting! Free to the public and has grown into a fun filled family day you don’t want to miss.

The Cultural Affairs Division keeps an up to date local calendar of events that is listed on the City of Meridian’s Website as well as distributed to local media and publications. This division also supplies the city’s website with information on art news and art events. If you have an even that you would like to have submitted please go to www.meridianms.org and click on events.

Meridian Council for the Arts Inc.

On December 1, 1989 the Arts Council was recognized as the official arts agency for Lauderdale County.

The Meridian Arts Council continued to grow and mature. It patterned itself after arts agencies in the state and around the nation. They used Jackson’s Art Alliance, Clarksdale’s Miss. Delta Arts Council as examples as well as art agencies in Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. Most of the agencies they learned from had a close working relationship with their city and were being funded by donations from their city, county, and state arts commissions as well as receiving in kind donations such as printing, office space, and staff from their local governments. Some of the cities had a position on their staff for a city event coordinator, special event coordinator, or cultural coordinator. These positions were often part of a Parks and Recreation Department in various cities.

On June 4, 1990 the City of Meridian hired Virginia Brown as Cultural Affairs Coordinator. This position was part of the Parks and Recreation Department at the time she was hired.

In September of 1991 the City’s Cultural Affairs Coordinator, Virginia Brown was moved into the Community Development Department of the City and her office and services were offered to the Meridian Council for the Arts as their Executive Director. This same restructuring of Events Staff was taking place in other cities as well. The state and nation were making a link with art organizations because they saw them as an economic/development and redevelopment tool to be used as an asset in their community planning strategies. The Cultural Affairs Division of the Community Development Department of the City of Meridian now not only has a fulltime coordinator but also shares a full time secretary with Keep America Beautiful, and is located in the downtown Arts District Parking Garage.

The services of the Cultural Affairs Coordinator and that of her secretary are given as an in-kind contribution to the arts council as their staff as well as the use of office space, office equipment, and various citywide services. This link works well for the city and the arts council in many ways. It promotes art and art organizations in the city, which in turn helps to promote the area to prospective industries that are being recruited to locate here. It helps to provide outlets for art organizations, and artists, brings in revenue when it sponsors events and presents art performances. In the last few years a strong trend that ties art organizations and presentations to downtown redevelopment/revitalization has been growing by leaps and bounds. (Example – MSU-Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts) At the present time many cities are wishing that they had a stronger link to their local art agencies and local art agencies are looking for strong links to their city and community development. Meridian is lucky to have had leaders that saw this trend coming and took steps to create these strong alliances early on. Feel free to check out the Meridian Council for the arts website by clicking here Meridian Council for the arts.

e-mail Cultural Affairs culturalaffairs@meridianms.org