North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic Sponsor Spotlight: MAC (Mississippi Arts Commission)

Interview with Maria Zeringue, Folk and Traditional Arts Director

As the official grantmaking and service agency for the arts in our state, the Mississippi Arts Commission provides financial assistance for programming and education throughout Mississippi. We recently spoke with Maria Zeringue, the Folk and Traditional Arts Director at the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC).

What can you tell us about MAC’s involvement with the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic?
MAC has been involved since almost the very beginning … through our grants program. We offer grants every year to organizations who do arts-based activities for the community, and festivals are a huge part of our grants project applicant pool. We love funding these types of festivals.

The North Mississippi Hill Country picnic falls in my program, which … highlights Mississippi’s heritage and culture, the traditional art forms. Hill Country Blues, of course, falls under that.

Have you ever attended any of the Picnics?
Yes … and I had a great time. It’s such a beautiful part of the state … you’re just surrounded by nature. Your cell phone doesn’t really work all that well—at least mine didn’t—which allows you to be present and tune into the music.

I really got the sense that they treat their musicians and all the artists, everyone involved in the festival really, really well. I was very impressed. Something else that I noticed, being backstage and being behind the scenes, is how important the festival is for the musicians and the performers. Because they get a chance to just hang out with each other. You know, they’re chatting. They’re sharing stories. They’re making memories. And I think that’s a huge part of the preservation work that goes into the festival. It’s not just showcasing this on stage for the audience—they do a great job of that—but I also think it’s that time backstage where the musicians can just hang out and chat with each other and just kind of catch up. I just thought that was really special.

It is. That’s what a lot of the musicians have told me, too, when I ask them about what makes the picnic special. There is a family atmosphere almost like a reunion.
Yes, and while I was there I was … also out in the audience, too, because I wanted to check out the festival just as an audience member. And the stage area is nice. There’s a lot of tree cover to cool off in the shade because it is during a hot part of the year. You know, it’s just a great place to spend the weekend.

Absolutely. The festival has been getting, in my opinion, better and better every year thanks to support from folks like the Arts Commission and the many sponsors they have.
We’re proud to support things like this. Kenny Brown being a founder … [he] grew up in this tradition, you know, learning from RL Burnside and a lot of the other legends of Hill Country Blues music. He has an intimate knowledge of this. He’s a musician. It’s really important for them to carry on this tradition and they have a lot of respect for it. The lineup is the second, third generation of all these legendary Blues performers. So they’re keeping the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren of these musicians there, keeping their story alive through the festival. I just think it’s really cool.