Southern Exposure: Dot Courson

​SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

​-SUBMITTED WORK AND STATEMENTS BY MISSISSIPPI ARTISTS

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Dot Courson

https://www.instagram.com/dotcoursonart/ 
​ ​https://www.dotcourson.com/

​Dot Courson was born at home on a small working rural farm near Corinth in the hills of north Mississippi almost on the TN line. She grew up in the fields, streams, and woods around her home as her parents worked the land, milked cows, farmed and picked cotton. Her talented deaf father taught her to draw. Her grandparents were sharecroppers and lived over in the flat, windy, Mississippi delta and she would go to spent many summers there in the heat and dust in the shotgun house where her grandmother cooked on a wood stove. Cotton grew up almost to the doorsteps and the blistering hot wind blew across the flat delta fields as Dot took in the sights, sounds, and smells of the land and place she loved.

​     Now, she paints from the fullness of the loving memories of her heart as a full-time artist from North Mississippi in her private art school and studio/gallery located on Hidden Creek in Pontotoc, MS. Painting delta memories and cotton are favorite subject matter for her. Several members of her family are artists and art teachers including her daughter, the portrait artist Susan Patton of Bruce, MS Dot is involved in the arts throughout the south. She is honored to have her painting and bio on permanent exhibit at the new Arts and Entertainment Experience Museum in Meridian, MS, a new museum that opened in 2018. She judged the Women Painter’s of the Southeast (WPSE) in 2015 and is a juried member of the Oil Painter’s of America and the American Impressionist’s Society (AIS) where she served on the 2012 and 2015 National Show Committees. She served two years on the board of the Plein Air South – a convention of artists in Apalachicola, FL. She was honored to included in this year’s Oil Painters of America 30th Annual National Juried show of Traditional oils. The exhibition at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido Museum April 9- May 16th. A lifelong, self-learner, painter, and avid reader, Dot attended college after only completing the 8th grade. She has been an art student through private study and the art atelier system with master artists and has been a professional full-time for almost 20 years. Before that, she was a Healthcare Administrator and a graduate of Mississippi University for Women and received a Master's from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Nursing with a Certificate in Health Systems Administration. Dot has had many solo art shows in recent years and won numerous regional and national awards for her plein air and studio paintings. Two of her works are featured in art books, Creative Freedom, a book published by North Light Publishers, and were also in magazines such as Outdoor Painter online and in a feature article published in Plein Air Magazine. Her works are frequently shown on HGTV’s Hometown – a home design reality show. In 2014 when she was invited to teach a workshop and to be a featured painter in Art in the Open in Wexford, Ireland - Europe’s largest open plein air event! The event drew art students from all over the world. With plans to write her memoir soon, she lives in Pontotoc, MS, and is married to Dr. Jackie Courson who is retired from MSU Extension Service Administration in Starkville, MS. Her work is in public and private collections in the United States and abroad. Her studio/gallery is open by appointment.