ELLISVILLE- Jones College art instructor, Mark Brown revealed the two traveling trophies he was commissioned to create for Laurel Main Street’s new event, “Wing Wars” with his sophomore art sculpture students getting a lesson in the unique style of 3D art. With chicken cooking related objects he found, like tongs, whisks and spatulas, mixed with some paper mâché’ using vintage newspapers, chicken wire and Brown’s creative knack for making art out of various items, the traveling trophies for the chicken wing cooking competition, sponsored by Wayne-Sanderson Farms were revealed before sponsors amidst praise.
“We’ve got some cool trophies that travel for all the Laurel Main Street’s other cook-off events, and we were trying to look for something a little bit different,” said Wayne-Sanderson Farms Communications Specialist, Marissa Landon. “Mark actually did a sculpture for us and it’s sitting in the Wayne-Sanderson Farms lobby. He made a sculpture out of chicken house parts after (Hurricane) Katrina and when I saw that sculpture, I knew that’s what I wanted for this cooking event.”
After that summer meeting with Landon to discuss the project and the Wing Wars event, Brown spent about 30 hours actually constructing the two trophies, and about the same amount of time looking for interesting pieces to use.
“It’s an honor, first of all, and I love doing things for the community,” said Brown. “I believe, and I try to demonstrate this for students, how important it is to get out in the community and be active in whatever role that might be. So, I was very honored that Laurel Main Street and Wayne-Sanderson Farms asked me to do this project.”
During the creative process, Brown decided to use the opportunity to inspire his students as it came time to work on their found object art projects. The sophomores learned creating 3D found object art was a true hands-on lesson.
“Mr. Brown was very clever at creating those chicken trophies! I like how he used random objects that go together and turned it into something. I really liked seeing the newspaper with ‘Lunch’ on the side of the chicken, which made me a little hungry this close to lunchtime,” said Precious Perkins of Laurel.
Some of his students were also intrigued by how Brown approached the art found object project with very little planning.
“He taught me that sometimes we overthink stuff and it’s really just a simple process to make art. I learned not to overthink and sometimes simple, is more,” said Zykeria Coleman of Laurel.
Getting out of her comfort zone with this found object art lesson, Lillian Barnett said she was amazed by how trash can become a masterpiece.
“I’ve never done anything like this before and it taught me, anything can be art. You can take nothing and make it into something. I have a new perspective on how I look at the trash on the floor now,” said Barnett.
Also collaborating on the Wing Wars chicken trophy project was the Scotsman Co. who made the wood trophy bases. Jones College’s culinary art students will additionally have two teams competing thanks to Magnolia State Bank who is sponsoring the student teams for the November 9, competition in downtown Laurel.
“Laurel Main Street encompasses a little bit of everything,” said Director of Laurel Main Street, Caroline Burks. “We are the ‘welcome mat’ for visitors to downtown and we try to be the economic engine for downtown, where our businesses are champions. We wear a lot of hats, but this is just one manifestation of us trying to do all those things rolled into one and we’re very excited to partner with Wayne-Sanderson Farms and Jones College. It’s also wonderful to see all the community participating in this new event.”
More information about the Wing Wars chicken wings cook-off can be found at the website, https://laurelmainstreet.com/pages/signature-events
