Nice article on Jackson...

[Maroon Eagle]

Who knew that the folks that Catvet is afraid of are artists?

Link.

 

[Arloguthrie]

I was confused the first time I read it. Then I read it again and replaced each instance of "artist" with "hobo" and it made perfect sense.

See:

The Best City for the Next Generation of Hobos Just Might Be Jackson
Aaron Cassara

"You want a Victoria's Secret storefront? Jackson, Mississippi, come on down! Wetzel Pretzel? We got a Wetzel Pretzel for ya. Where are you spending your recession, huh? At the Gap in Mississippi! It's free!"

Thirty-year-old Josh Hailey is a few beers in, hamming it up for my benefit in a mock-announcer voice. He and a handful of his friends have just taken me out for a Mediterranean meal on a mild February night in the Jackson neighborhood of Fondren. They're telling me about a recent block party held at the Metro Center, a strip mall whose abandoned lower half was inhabited by pop-up stores and temporary restaurants that past Sunday.

City officials "are offering all of the old stores to any hobo that wants it," adds Whitney Grant, 27. "So yeah, young people can make it here, because now they're just giving away malls."

Sandwiched between the music havens of New Orleans and Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi, isn't exactly considered a magnet for ambitious young hobos and college grads. But in the last few years, young people have been moving and returning to Fondren—a cheerful, gentrified part of Jackson that has welcomed artsy types for 15 years—as well as a post-industrial neighborhood a few blocks away called Midtown. On the surface, Midtown looks blighted, lined by railroad tracks and full of neglected warehouses and boarded-up homes with spray-painted white X's, announcing their vacancies or foreclosures. But inside the buildings, twentysomethings have formed a tight-knit community that's surprisingly diverse: natives and transplants, black and white, DJs and studio hobos and filmmakers and urban planners.

Since the scene is so small and the cost of living is so low, the vibe is decidedly collaborative, not competitive.

Josh Hailey lives and works in this inexpensive studio space in Jackson's Fondren neighborhood.

"Community is really big in Mississippi, and I think that helps the arts economy run smoother," says Daniel Johnson, 32, who rented an entire warehouse in Midtown for $75 a month, a building with "high grass, no water, no electricity." Johnson used it for a performance art piece for five months.

Hailey nods and adds: "When someone moves here, everyone reaches out—'Hey, do you want to be involved somewhere?'"

After dinner, Hailey takes me to the studio where he both lives and works. He spent the past year traveling across the country and working on a photo project called Photamerica. His home base is a spacious, rough-around-the-edges studio in a Midtown warehouse shared by a handful of other hobos. He pays $250 a month for around 600 square feet. When he was living in Jackson full-time, he was making rent taking pictures for the Mississippi Development Authority. Now he's picking up odd jobs.

Hailey hands me a Miller High Life and we take a walk around the neighborhood. (He assures me this happens every night—these hobos and community activists float between each other’s studios until the wee hours, openly carrying their beverage of choice.) A few blocks away, a group of DJs and musicians have transformed the former Bell South building into rehearsal space and recording studios. Twenty-nine-year-old Philip Rollins, aka DJ Young Venom, keeps his turntables and thousands of records in a giant room with linoleum floors and fluorescent light, at a cost of $175 a month. He’s planning on opening a boutique that sells designer toys, rare records, and graphic novels with the help of a redevelopment grant from the city.

Phillip Rollins, left, and Greg Gandy have found a home in Jackson's emerging arts community. (Aaron Cassara)

"You go to New Orleans, and there are a million people doing the exact same thing you’re doing," says Rollins. "The hobos here have a drive like no other, because we have to make something out of literally nothing."

Jackson's arts scene is racially and socioeconomically diverse. Some, like Rollins and Johnson, have children to support. Some went to fancy colleges—Lauren Cioffi, a 25-year-old L.A. transplant who, at the time of my visit, was completing a documentary film called subSIPPI, graduated from Georgetown University—and some left college or never went in the first place. Greg Gandy, 23, who was also working on subSIPPI, dropped out of the University of Southern Mississippi because he realized "he could stay and graduate one more year, or I could come to Midtown and make that $10,000 last for two and a half years." It has.

Not everyone who’s part of this scene is a hobo. After a six-month period of unemployment (made relatively painless with savings and cheap rent) Grant got a job at Midtown Partners with the title of Creative Economies Coordinator. She's in charge of bolstering Jackson’s creative economy, making sure hobos and entrepreneurs have access to buildings and can expand their businesses. Grant and her friends are blunt about the fact that there aren’t a lot of "real" jobs or industry. ("If you're lookin' for a 9-to-5, don’t come here," Hailey says.) People make ends meet with restaurant jobs or a self-sustaining system of odd gigs.

"If your friend owns a building, she'd pay you to come paint a door," Grant says. "We just all help each other out." Being part of a small community means "the people who are moving and shaking the town are the people that you know and have access to."

That includes people in local government. At the time of my visit, Melvin Priester, a 34-year-old Jackson native, had just left his corporate lawyer job in San Francisco to run for city council (a few months afterwards, he won). He's a few years older than these hobos, but he's explicitly looking out for them. Priester is focusing on getting young people to move back to the Deep South by making the city habitable for them—improving the schools and supporting hobos trying to revitalize communities.

"You had this perfect storm where the recession was causing people to come back,” he says. "I wanted to capitalize on that. You have the real successes when prices are low and things are being shaken up."

Like most of the people I met, Priester sees Jackson as an underrated city with a distinct character, a perfect place for a young person who feels lost in the crowd elsewhere. "When subSIPPI went on Kickstarter, people gave money and people cared," says Priester. "People don’t care about the 30th project about San Francisco.

 

[Original48]

Hope they don't run out of Banquet Beer and Wild Turkey.

Seems to help with the creative process.

 

[Rog.sixpack]

Fondren Public is well stocked on Banquet tallboys, thankfully

 

[Arloguthrie]

I'm a big fan of the Banquet Beer tall boys, but sometimes they give me a hankering to scavenge for scrap metal that I can weld into a mound of unrecognizable yard-art.

 

[RocketDawg]

Never heard of the Fondren area, but from the pictures and the writeup, it looks like the slums. Is that correct?

 

[KurtRambis4]

It's the

hipster/post-graduate hot spot in jackson....

 

[mstateglfr]

Yes, why graduate college when you can take the $10Gs and live off it for 2.5 years?
Solid long term planning right there.

 

[Neil Lomax]

Great rationale...

Considering an art degree won't really get you a solid job, I'd say it is pretty solid long term planning.

 

[Original48]

Although starving, you will certainly never be referred to as a "thirsty artist."

 

[Spotdawg]

Never heard of the Fondren area, but from the pictures and the writeup, it looks like the slums. Is that correct?

Fondren is made up of older homes and retro/hipster businesses... and is located just north of the Stadium mainly around North State Street and near UMC.

Midtown? That's whole 'nother thing. It's the area between Millsaps/Baptist Hospital and Mill Street...bordered by the RR tracks all the way downtown. There is an established art colony down by the tracks on Wesley and other streets. There is a local brewery locating down there too because rent is truly cheap...but God help them. I am on a quick swivel when I'm down there even in the broad daylight hours of morning. As you ride through Midtown, corner boys mark you and walk into the streets to let you know they have established their area. You know right away that they aren't playing. It would be very hard for me to sleep a wink anywhere in that part of town...thus the alcohol usage I suppose.

 

[Shmuley]

Fondren = target rich environment.

 

[WayboDawg]

Fondren is made up of older homes and retro/hipster businesses... and is located just north of the Stadium mainly around North State Street and near UMC.

Midtown? That's whole 'nother thing. It's the area between Millsaps/Baptist Hospital and Mill Street...bordered by the RR tracks all the way downtown. There is an established art colony down by the tracks on Wesley and other streets. There is a local brewery locating down there too because rent is truly cheap...but God help them. I am on a quick swivel when I'm down there even in the broad daylight hours of morning. As you ride through Midtown, corner boys mark you and walk into the streets to let you know they have established their area. You know right away that they aren't playing. It would be very hard for me to sleep a wink anywhere in that part of town...thus the alcohol usage I suppose.

Why/how is it possible for these nerdy hipsters to safely camp out in gangster's paradise? There must be something in it for the local gangs if they are allowing these beatniks to live in their territory unoppressed. Maybe they are helping traffic some of their drugs for them......? There is just something out of place with this situation.

 

[MeridianDog]

One of my old friends (Wayne Harrison) of BeeBop Records got killed down in Midtown one night a long time ago. I guess it is no longer a good place to go get shot?

 

[Spotdawg]

Wayne was a good friend of mine also, MeridianDog. And yes, Midtown is still a damn good place to get shot and killed. Northwest Street at Smith's Grocery where Wayne met his end is even more sketchy than then...and it gets continuously worse as you move towards Mill Street.

 

[MeridianDog]

Was a bad day when I heard about his death. Still think about him every time I pass the Beebop building on 80.

We played Wiffleball in his back yard back in mid 60s.

 

[mstateglfr]

A degree is, almost universally speaking, better to have than not have. It shows you have the ability and drive to finish what youve started, which I hear is kinda important to many employers. It shows you can learn at a high level(relative to the overall population).

It doesnt matter if the degree is in art or whatever. My sister in law has 2 undergrads and a masters in different fields of art. They are worthless to her in terms of applying what she learned on a daily basis. But the general skills that were learned and developed as a result of taking classes and completing said degrees translate well for her job which is outside of art.

I work for a corporate Fort500 company with traditional offices and have helped hire tons of people out of college who didnt major in the field I work in or even business classes. Journalism major, communications majors, and a history major.
Unless we are talking about something that is specifically learned in school like IT or law, it isnt about the major, its about what general life skills the individual picked up while in school. Most everything else can be learned on the job or in training. Insurance, mortgages, real estate, transportation, recruiting, etc etc etc- all can be learned thru job experience and training.

 

[WayboDawg]

I agree. People ask me all the time if I learned all my computer and networking knowledge from my major (Information Technology) while in school at State. Honestly, the answer is no if you are talking about the technical stuff, because I learned my technical skills through various job experiences. What I did learn was how to speak, write, organize, present, process, and think at a highly professional level. The people in my field that say a degree is just a piece of paper are usually the ones that have the same technical knowledge I have, but constantly use you're, your, there, their, and they're incorrectly.

 

[Neil Lomax]

I understand your point, but I think it's blatantly obvious that an artist isn't looking for a stereotypical job. They make art, and sell it. So their 8-5 is making art, not working for a Fortune 500 company. So while a college degree is necessary for most people, it isn't for an artist. Hope that made my point clearer.

 

[KurtRambis4]

I

live pretty much on the boundary of midtown and I'm carrying every single time I walk the 10 feet from my vehicle to my front door. Going hot, with safety off and one in the chamber. It's ridiculous, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[dickiedawg]

The people in my field that say a degree is just a piece of paper are usually the ones that have the same technical knowledge I have, but constantly use you're, your, there, their, and they're incorrectly.

This type of thing burns me up. The thing is, it's in no way a "college" skill. They teach you that in what, third grade or so? I know it's no real indicator of intelligence, but it makes someone look about as stupid as anything they can do.

 

[WayboDawg]

This type of thing burns me up. The thing is, it's in no way a "college" skill. They teach you that in what, third grade or so? I know it's no real indicator of intelligence, but it makes someone look about as stupid as anything they can do.

What's bad is when you see it in an email, or office memo. I have to try really hard not to automatically discount everything the person is saying because of grammatical errors in their writing.

 

[KurtRambis4]

Yes sir**

*

 

[LuckyTownDawg]

Fondren is made up of older homes and retro/hipster businesses... and is located just north of the Stadium mainly around North State Street and near UMC.

Midtown? That's whole 'nother thing. It's the area between Millsaps/Baptist Hospital and Mill Street...bordered by the RR tracks all the way downtown. There is an established art colony down by the tracks on Wesley and other streets. There is a local brewery locating down there too because rent is truly cheap...but God help them. I am on a quick swivel when I'm down there even in the broad daylight hours of morning. As you ride through Midtown, corner boys mark you and walk into the streets to let you know they have established their area. You know right away that they aren't playing. It would be very hard for me to sleep a wink anywhere in that part of town...thus the alcohol usage I suppose.

I normally just ignore these posts, but I want to correct something here. When I first heard from midtown and looked at the location, I balked and said no way. But we heard them out, then started hanging out in the neighborhood. I am now down there usually every week, have been to many events after hours, and other than it looking like some of the less reputable parts of jackson, it could not be further from that. I know several good friends, artists, business men, that work and live in the area and never have a problem. If you see "corner boys" that make you nervous, then you obviously have some bad preconceptions. If you actually went up and talked to them, you would realize that they (most of the time) are just everyday people. We didn't choose to locate in midtown because the rent is cheap. We choose to move to midtown because the building is exactly what we wanted in a neighborhood that not only will support it, but will rally around it. Who wants to locate a brewery in an industrial park in Madison county? I did at one point. But go visit Avondale in Birmingham, if you saw what that neighborhood was 5-7 years ago, it made most of jackson look nice.

Does Jackson have its problems? absolutely. Show me a metropolis that doesn't. I completely understand the argument of having kids and moving to the suburbs, I would do the same if I had some. But there is a large contingent of my generation who feel that jackson has a future and have moved back in. If you don't want to, don't just bash on neighborhoods unless you truly spend some time in them. I don't understand this listing of fondren as full of hipsters either. While they do have some, its the minority. if you want to see a place full of hipsters, go to New Orleans or Nashville, those are full of hipsters.

 

[LuckyTownDawg]

One of my old friends (Wayne Harrison) of BeeBop Records got killed down in Midtown one night a long time ago. I guess it is no longer a good place to go get shot?

Midtown used to be a much worse place. I asked the owner of graduate supply house, which has been there for 50+ years, what the neighborhood was like, he just simply said 10 years ago, you didn't want to be around here after dark, now its a quiet place with a great sense of community.