The Hon. Alfred G. Nicols Jr. (BA 63, JD 65) has a long list of impressive judicial appointments on his biography. The last is U.S. magistrate judge, a position he held before his retirement in 2006. Add to that list his two years in the U.S. Army and a career as a general practice lawyer. However, it might be his latest endeavor that he ends up best known for.<\/p>\n
His web address says it all: www.southernlandscapeart.com. The website features his biography as well as a portfolio of his paintings, works for sale, and how to order prints.<\/p>\n
Since retiring from the bench, he is able to devote more of his time to painting the landscapes around him. He said he used to paint other subjects as well. The other subjects, however, didn\u2019t capture his interest for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomehow I always seem to come back to the Southern landscape, back to the images that haunt me: images of fall fields and meadows following my Dad quail hunting as a boy; of fishing small farm ponds during my college days; of duck hunting cypress brakes and Delta marshes; of sailing the reservoir and Gulf Coast; of canoeing Strong River and Black Creek; of walking the gravel bars and roads of my Copiah County farm,\u201d Nicols said at the 2004 Art for Heart event in Jackson.<\/p>\n
He has been painting now for more than 45 years. His works have been hung in places such as The Inn at Ole Miss, the Federal Courts of Mississippi, the National Advocacy Center, the Mississippi Bar Center, St. Dominic Hospital, Rankin Medical Center, Regions Bank, BankFirst, and The Mobile Press Register<\/em>. The Mississippi Supreme Court has more than a dozen of his works hanging in its chambers, several of which Nicols says are \u201creally big works.\u201d There are also pieces in Ole Miss\u2019 art collection and in private homes. Both former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (BPA 63, JD 67) and current U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (BA 73, JD 75) have Mississippi paintings by Alfred Nicols hanging in their Washington offices.<\/p>\n In 2010, International Artist Magazine<\/em> named his work \u201cWhere Wagons Carved the Land\u201d as a finalist for the 2010 worldwide landscape competition. Nicols was the only artist from the Southeast to be a finalist in the competition.<\/p>\n Nicols said his painting isn\u2019t for relaxation, and that anyone is crazy if they think standing in front of an easel painting for 12 hours a day is not exhausting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard work, very stressful, tedious hard work, but it is extremely rewarding that someone thinks it\u2019s good enough to pay substantial money for today, and that it may be on someone\u2019s wall somewhere a hundred years from now,\u201d Nichols told Mississippi Courts<\/em> for its April 2011 newsletter.<\/p>\n Nicols recently told International Artist <\/em>magazine for their April\/May 2012 publication that while he has had no formal training, he has studied the works of well-known artists to figure out if what works for them is something that he could use.<\/p>\n \u201cMy approach to improvement has been methodical,\u201d Nicols told the magazine. \u201cI see a great painting and I say: \u2018what is this artist doing that makes this painting better than yours?\u2019 There are probably many things, but there is usually something clearly better: values; composition; drawing; brushwork; use of texture; edges; color harmony; and the list can be extensive.\u201d<\/p>\n The magazine article also featured Nicols\u2019 technique of painting from the preparation of the canvas to the fine details.<\/p>\n Nicols also credited the Internet with allowing more people to view his work.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point (over a two-year span) I have had over 5,700 visits to my website from 61 countries around the world, all 50 states, and they have looked at over 67,000 pages,\u201d Nicols said in the magazine. \u201cThe world wide web is truly amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"