FAYETTE, Miss. (AP) - A shaded tunnel of lattice ends in a world of beady-eyed creatures frozen in time, all with stories of their own. Imagination takes hold and the small adventures of the wooden carving seem to come to life.
“To the right are the Mud Rockers,” Louise Cadney Coleman said.
There stands an eye-level diorama. A three-foot, red wooden frog plays steel drums in the forefront backed up by a lime-green frog on guitar, a peach-colored one plays a drum and a forest green amphibian, with a yellow belly, cuts up the keyboard.
“If you listen really good and use your imagination, you’ll hear them playing the Blues,” Coleman said with laughter in her voice.
Originality and resourcefulness run wild at the Frog Farm in Fayette, Mississippi, as does the welcoming, warmth of the exhibit’s creator.
Folk artist Coleman - who started the Frog Farm in 1999 on a three-quarter acre patch of land that was once her husband’s deer-hunting camp and later what she called her garden - began by woodcarving dolls.
A doll lover as a child and no money to buy them, Coleman started making stick figurines. Her father, a carpenter, taught her how to drill the holes and put the wood dowels in to secure the pieces. Later she used screws so the arms and legs would move.
She made the clothing from scraps of cloth left from her mother sewing clothes for 11 family members.
The woodworking skills learned as a girl serve her well.
Fallen limbs and branches are transformed into colorful characters - primarily frogs at first and later birds, alligators and more.
“I don’t know how I see (a creature in a log or a branch); I just see something in it.”
The children near her Fayette home loved to play with the frogs that favored the low area of her yard - the garden.
“Children love frogs for some reason,” Coleman said “We might not be able to see them, but the kids can find them. They named it the Frog Farm.”
It didn’t immediately become the attraction it is today, though.
Coleman, who would create her frogs, birds and alligators from branches and small logs, just for fun, started putting her sculptures in the garden as decorations, never imagining anyone else would be interested in her carvings.
A visit from someone with the telephone company changed that.
“She was the first person to let me know it was interesting to someone else,” Coleman said. “I just started decorating the garden for myself and people started to come.”
And visitors do come.
The Frog Farm, listed on at least three online travel sites including onlyinyourstate.com, www.roadsideamerica.com and roadtripper.com, draws visitors across the United States - mostly outside Mississippi.
Coleman has guestbooks filled with signatures from people from Africa, Australia and Europe.
So, if you’re ready to hit the road and enjoy a Mississippi folk treasure go visit Louise Cagney Coleman in Fayette. She’ll introduce you to a few characters at the Frog Farm.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.