Some children have their mother's eyes or their father's nose, but one of the most prominent traits Jeff Allen and his father, Jere, share is their love of art.
In the Allen family, art - more specifically painting - is a gene that has been passed down for generations. Jere's grandmother and Jeff's great-grandmother, who died in 1918, was an artist.
"During that time women didn't really paint," said Jere. "But she was always a working artist."
She was a traditional artist, far from the style Jere would grow to paint, but he grew up trying to copy her deer and landscape pictures.
Jere's mother also painted when he was growing up.
But Jere didn't know he wanted to be an artist until 1966.
In 1965, he was working as a commercial artist - better known as a graphic designer - at a TV station in Montgomery, Ala.
"I really enjoyed it, and I thought I was going to do something in that field," he said.
A year later, Jere was taking an art class and said he became "dead serious" about art.
"I was inspired because I was encouraged," Jere said. "It was all I wanted to do."
Forty-four years later, the retired Ole Miss art professor is still doing what he loves side-by-side with his son - literally.
Not only was Jere his son's professor at Ole Miss, the duo of artisans have a studio in Oxford.
Although they share a workspace and genetic code, their styles differ quite a bit from each other.
Jere describes his work as figurative but wants his work to be more about the meaning each person interprets.
"I would like for it to get someone to use their imagination," he said. "In my experience if I say too much, I take away from my observer."
Jere finds inspiration from social and political realities but every work is different.
"I get an idea and I start, but I let the work take its own direction," he said.
Neither Jere nor his son, Jeff, can pin-point their styles easily.
Jeff considers his work divisionism - similar to pointillism but with strokes - and a colorist.
Jeff's works feature highly-textured, specially-glazed landscapes, many Delta-inspired. To find inspiration, he will take out on foot across a field, in a boat across a swamp or even across the country.
"I painted the Bad Lands, Mount Rushmore, the rolling plains of Wyoming," he said. "It helped me discover the beauty of Mississippi."
While he was traveling the country Jeff would paint out in nature but now he rarely takes his paints along.
"The light is changing every hour and if it is hot out your paint gets runny and if it is cold, the paint gets hard," he said. "There are a lot of variables to contend with."
So he heads out with his camera in hand and is able to be a participant in nature instead of standing in the middle of it disrupting its flow. He is able to discover many interesting places instead of painting one all day.
Jeff is constantly trying to find ways to stretch himself in art.
"I recently started experimenting with glazes and aerial perspective," he said.
Aerial perspective is when the foreground objects are clear and has things get further away they become darker and less detailed.
Jeff achieves this by using a milky glaze he has created by mixing white and blue or white and yellow. He has been working on the technique for about five to six years but says he is still learning and evolving his artwork - something important to both father and son.
"I am constantly working and questioning," said Jere, who paints everyday. "If I run out of things to do, I keep painting and something will happen."
He asks himself questions like "what if, which takes the painting one direction or "I wish" and takes it another. "I just keep on going."
Jeff is part of the permanent collection at Turnrow Book Co., and Jere was recently featured in Delta Magazine, so many Deltans are familiar with their work.
Jeff has exhibited throughout the South and Nebraska. He has studied and exhibited in Cortona, Italy.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi where he received a bachelor's degree in painting, Jeff's work is part of permanent collections in the Mississippi Delta including the Pluto Plantation Mississippi Fine Arts Repository and also in the Nall Hollis Nature and Art Lovers League in Nice, France.
Originally from Selma, Ala., Jere received his bachelor's degree from the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and a master's degree in 1972 from the University of Tennessee.
Jere has exhibited in 40 states from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., and internationally from Germany to Southeast Asia. He received the 1993 Visual Art Award of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and an Individual Artist fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Jere's work hangs in such permanent collections as Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon; City of Hameln, Germany; Huntsville Museum of Alabama and Robert I. Kahn Gallery of the Temple Emanu El in Houston, Texas.
The father and son exhibit will open Saturday at Gallery Point Leflore with a reception for the artists from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The Allen Exhibit will hang through Aug. 21 and is the first time that the father-and-son artists have exhibited together in the Delta.
To complete the evening of "Fine Art, Fine Music," the public is invited to the Episcopal Church of the Nativity. It will have an organ recital featuring new choirmaster and organist David Williamson at 7:30 p.m.
For more information, contact Gallery Point Leflore at 455-0040.
•Contact Andrea Hall at ahall@gwcommonwealth.com.
