OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi (AP) – A southern Mississippi art store ships artwork across the United States and to Canada and Germany after a Walter Anderson print was featured in the HGTV show “Hometown”.
Hosts Erin and Ben Napier help owners renovate historic properties, The Sun Herald reported. They brought a film crew to visit Realizations Ltd. in Ocean Springs last summer to learn how to screen print with Anderson’s iconic designs, boutique manager Mary Jo McCollins said.
Napier was trained by Carolyn Anderson, Walter Anderson’s daughter-in-law, who has been making prints with her designs for five decades.
Since the show aired earlier this month on HGTV, McCollins has said business hasn’t stopped during what is traditionally an off-season at the store.
The orders “are just bananas,” McCollins said. Achievements shipped 93 orders via UPS on a recent Wednesday, and McCollins said that did not include local orders.
This isn’t the first time that Walter Anderson’s art has been featured on “Hometown,” but the extra airtime with Erin Napier has really helped the business ramp up.
The storefront typically closes after the holidays for a thorough cleaning and inventory, but high demand meant more work to fill orders.
“Instead of counting and cleaning, a lot of our effort went to packing and shipping,” McCollins said. “We continue to connect.”