Pens, Paints, and Creations

Poetry and Visual Art Event and Exhibition featuring poet Angela Ball and artists Emma French Connolly, Francis Lee, Susan Walck, Taryn Larremore Holzinger, and Thomas Jackson

This figurative exhibition features a dynamic group of artists, complemented by engaging poetry that invites creative exploration. Angela Ball’s poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Poetry, Oxford American, The Paris Review, Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, North American Review, The New Yorker, Field, Colorado Review, The New Republic, The Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Talking Pillow. She will read poems from her new poetry collection Steeplechase, which is forthcoming in February and was recently named one of the most anticipated poetry books of 2026 by LitHub.

Presented with support from Forrest County and the Montague Fund for the Arts

About Angela Ball

Angela Ball’s poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Poetry, Oxford American, The Paris Review, Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, North American Review, The New Yorker, Field, Colorado Review, The New Republic, The Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Steeplechase, published in February 2026 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The recipient of an Individual Artist’s Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, she teaches in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where she lives with her dogs, Miss Bishop and Boy.

About Emma French Connolly

Emma Connolly has led a diverse creative life, making her first doll at age 8. With educational backgrounds in Psychology and Theology, and certificates in Family Systems and Reality Therapy, she served for many years as Episcopal clergy, chaplain, and workshop leader in church settings. Emma served in Memphis for 10 years, and while there, she created WriteMemphis, a non-profit creative writing program for inner city teen girls. She began her full-time creative focus at retirement, opening Uptown Needle & Craftworks on Magazine Street in New Orleans, where she facilitated classes and engaged local artists in teaching everything from watercolor, art quilting, creative writing, and puppet design to carnival costumes and headdresses. Emma now makes her home in her birthplace of Hattiesburg, MS, a mecca of art and academia, where she serves on the board of the Hattiesburg Arts Council

About Francis Lee

Francis A. Lee (she/her) is a poet and multidisciplinary, mixed-media visual artist living in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her work explores personal narrative and reflection, moving visually from visceral abstraction to refined detail. Figurative abstraction, texture and layering are central to her practice. She often incorporates asemic writing and fragments of journals to create surfaces that are intimate, tactile and symbolic.

Guided by the West African principle of Sankofa—looking back to move forward—Lee reveals hidden narratives in expanses of color, line, form and contrast.  The images she creates emerge through an intuitive process.   

Each piece invites audiences to reflect on their own experiences and the layered complexity of humanity.

Her works have been displayed in several exhibitions and won awards in local competitions.  She has been a regular participant in annual artistic events, most recently The Artist Way, held in her hometown.  She was awarded a grant by the MS Arts Commission in 2024.  Her poetry has gained popularity on online forums, and she is slated to publicly present more of her writing in the coming year.

Rooted in ancestry and memory, Lee’s creations honor silenced voices and carry forward the dreamscape of those who came before. Through her practice, she creates spaces for emotional engagement, insight, and renewal, encouraging audiences to explore the transformative power of creativity.

About Susan Walck

Susan Walck is a ceramic artist and instructor whose work balances function and form. She uses different methods of firing, including wood firing, reduction, and raku, allowing surface, heat, and process to play an active role in the final piece. 

Teaching is an integral part of her practice. She has taught at the Mud Sweat and Tears studio and the Muddy Fingers studio, both in New York City. She worked at the Eastern Art Shore Association in Fairhope, Alabama, and at the Islip Art Center in West Islip, New York. She currently teaches at The Wheel in the Window studio in Hattiesburg. Her work reflects the places she has taught and the students she has worked with.

About Taryn Larremore Holzinger

“Ink is where my journey begins, where breath meets paper and a single line chooses to trust itself.” Drawn to themes of growth and natural interconnection, Taryn Larremore Holzinger’s work reflects the quiet intelligence of the natural world. She primarily works in pen and ink, drawn to its permanence and its ability to speak both intention and imperfection. The nib does not erase; it demands courage. Each mark transforms into shapes, and flowing lines mimic language before it is spoken, like fingertips tracing truths in the dark, or a tongue learning to name both fear and light.

As a mother, a biology teacher, and a former instructor of English and creative writing, Taryn’s work resides at the intersection of science and soul. Themes of growth, interconnection, and the quiet intelligence of the natural world shape her visual language. Alongside her husband, Chris Holzinger, she has co-painted murals in Hattiesburg and surrounding areas, bringing intimate ink language to expansive public walls. She is currently working to create a Center for the Arts in Lumberton, a space dedicated to growth, belonging, and collaborative creation. “We are all part of the same design,” she states. Her work holds the earth not as backdrop, but as breath itself, each line a quiet unfolding, a reminder that we are growing together, turning toward the same light.

About Thomas Jackson

Thomas Jackson is a full-time musician and artist based out of Hattiesburg, MS. He’s been performing a mix of finger style glues and Americana music all over Mississippi and parts of Alabama and Flordia for the past twenty years. He’s released several albums of music, available on most streaming platforms.

Thomas is also a successful visual artist. He regularly paints custom art for fans all over the world, and has done graphic design work for various businesses. He has painted three signal boxes and two murals in Hattiesburg. He self-publishes his own comic book series, ‘RIP RAYMOND’, a fun, retro, sci-fi adventure!