by Sandy Cenac

It started out as a personal challenge. While in Bay St. Louis at an art walk, Mary Beth Landry viewed and purchased inspiring works and wondered to herself, “Could I do this?”

Well, it turns out she can. Mary Beth, who says she has always been a creative person, expresses herself through several different outlets. While she feels that most of her innate talent lies in her musical abilities, it is visual art, her most recent endeavor, that now occupies most of her time.

Combining her new artsy talent with her love of turning “found,” or otherwise ordinary, objects into conversation pieces, Mary Beth has created Sista Slick Acrylics to showcase her quirky and cheer-inducing artwork. She avoids discrimination when choosing a canvas; painting on anything from wine glasses to stools. She greatly enjoys revamping chairs so that you not only want to sit on them, but talk about them, too. In addition to painting, Mary Beth also dabbles in decoupage and has a penchant for writing amusing and thought-provoking quotes to accompany her art.

Through her artwork, it’s obvious that Mary Beth is inspired by life and the environment around her. Perhaps it’s that she purposefully surrounds herself with people and objects that stimulate her creative tendencies. Whatever the reason, she certainly contributes to the liveliness of her surroundings.

Some of her work is displayed at local establishments, including Bilello’s Cafe and the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum in downtown Houma. She also participates in Houma’s Art After Dark. Often, Mary Beth develops such a connection with a piece that she can’t bear to part with it. The works she has chosen to keep are displayed throughout her home—in her upstairs art studio, in the pool house and in the little sanctuary that she endearingly refers to as her “happy deck.”

Mary Beth enjoys seeing her art in any venue; however, one might suspect that she takes particular pride in displaying her work at the Bay St. Louis Art Walk, where she now joins those artists who first inspired her to try painting on her own. PoV