FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Mardi Gras has begun on the Gulf Coast, and there’s an extra reason to celebrate. This year marks the 25th anniversary of carnival parades along the Eastern Shore. The Knights of Ecor Rouge first tossed beads and MoonPies to happy crowds in Fairhope back in 1985.

To commemorate the occasion, artist Jim Wainwright has produced a colorful detailed print highlighting the many organizations which have paraded here since then. It is being sold in area stores and frame shops.

The theme and event artist will be on hand at the French Quarter in downtown Fairhope on Wednesday, Feb. 18, from 4-8 p.m, to celebrate the print’s release. The appearance will immediately follow a procession that will begin at the Fairhope clock on the corner of North Section Street and Fairhope Avenue. The Olympia Brass Band will perform.

Wainwright, 61, is a Mobile native whose Mardi Gras roots run deep. His family is carnival royalty across the bay, with a member of his mother’s clan having been chosen as King Felix in 1929.

Marynelle Dumas Wainwright, an artist and writer who once created renderings and wrote for Reader’s Digest, was married to Marion Wainwright, known by many as the Pete Fountain of Mobile.

Wainwright’s dad is honored as a vintage musician in that city’s Carnival Museum. His son said, “he played his special Dixieland clarinet to the crowds at many Mardi Gras balls throughout the years from the ’40s through the ’80s.” The elder Wainwright died 20 years ago.

“My family has been deeply involved in the Mardi Gras thing as long as I can remember,” Wainwright said. He added, “My mother was really the inspiration for my artwork.”

The festivities are certainly in Wainwright’s blood to this day. He and his wife, Cheryl, attend a handful of balls each year, and he parades during Joe Cain Day activities on the weekend prior to Fat Tuesday.

He said, “I make sure everyone who I can throw to gets a trinket.”

In addition to the Eastern Shore Mardi Gras print, Wainwright has also created a 25th anniversary KOER commemoration for members of the mystic society. He is a talented artist who painted a fairly realistic peach at age 4.

After graduating from Murphy High School in Mobile, where he excelled in art and drafting classes, he attended the American Institute of Art and continued feeding his creative spirit.

“I focus on themes such as Mardi Gras, fishing tournaments, national sports tournaments and birthdays,” he said. He produces posters and limited edition prints from his originals.

Wainwright began painting Mardi Gras scenes 10 years ago. Among those are his popular Joe Cain Day prints, of which he recently released the fourth in a series.

“I made a concerted effort five years ago to pull together a tribute print to symbolize what Joe Cain meant to the resurgence of Mardi Gras (after the Civil War),” he noted. “I said what I would like to do was a five-year series. None are dated, but they are in sequence.”

Wainwright begins each piece as a detailed pencil sketch before using acrylics to bring it to life with warm colors. He said, “I put on Dixieland jazz and carnival blues, which brings out the essence of Mardi Gras. I look at the image, and it inspires me.”

Sometimes his imagination is the genesis, while others are commissions from groups.

“Each print is packaged with an overview that dictates what the painting is about, and what’s in the thought process and historic reasoning behind the piece,” he said. “Thinking about what you’re going to do as an artist with the theme is sometimes dictated by the (commission).”

He drew pen and ink sketches while in Vietnam serving 13 months in the U.S. Navy’s Military Sea Transport Service, before again picking up color in 1985. He retired as an associate engineer after working 25 years at Teledyne Continental Motors in Mobile.

Both he and his wife are avid divers, and Wainwright uses the opportunity to photograph the marine life they see. When not painting, he also photographs fine art figures and still life works.

“This is something I like to do, and it’s making me money,” he said. “As long as I can do something I like to do and make some money, I say ‘what the heck.’”

Last year, Wainwright earned $10,000 from the sale of Mardi Gras prints alone.

For more information about Jim Wainwright’s Mardi Gras work, visit www.mardigrasprints.com. To learn more about his photography, click on www.jimwainwrightart.com.