NATCHITOCHES – Mayor Posey would like to notify the public the City of Natchitoches will declare Sunday, March 24 as “Clementine Hunter Day” per the request of the Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell.
On Sunday, March 24 a locally produced filmed documentary, Clementine Hunter’s World will be screed in the Oprah Winfrey Theater at the National Museum of History and Culture in Washington, D.C. where the museum’s current exhibition is Clementine Hunter: Life on Melrose Plantation. Following the screening, there will be a Panel Discussion featuring the filmmaker Art Shiver, along with local resident, Tom Whitehead.
The film combines vintage photographs with Clementine Hunter’s images to bring her story to life through a cinematic tour of the African House murals. The film has won first place for short documentaries at film festivals in Lake Charles, Louisiana and Kilgore, Texas.
Clementine Hunter is known on a local, state, and national level. Picking up her first brush in the late 1940s, Hunter painted thousands of images recalling her life on a 20th century plantation. Hunter quietly painted depictions of plantation life in Melrose, Louisiana by the light of a kerosene lamp. Hunter painted life as she knew it and in doing so left a visual diary of colorful tales of plantation life in the Cane River Country.
For more information, contact the Mayor’s Office at (318) 352-2772.
You written a certificate. Where is the celebration located?
As one of her great-grandchildren, I am extremely proud. Our entire family is proud. It would however, be nice if someone would notify our family when she is being honored or when something is being done in her honor. I feel that if the National Museum of History and Culture in Washington, D.C. was able to contact a family member about her work being presented there, then surely the city of Natchitoches could have contacted one of us about this honor. So, for future reference my name is Stephanie Sewell and as I stated before I am her great-granddaughter. My mother Delores Davis-Sewell is the daughter of Clementine’s daughter Mary Hunter-Davis. I can always be reached at stephanie1920@yahoo.com.