Jackson Free Press

Wasabi Sushi & Bar (100 E. Capitol St.), which first opened in the Jackson Place building downtown in 2010, closed its doors on Friday, Feb. 22.

Lina Lynn, the owner and executive chef of Wasabi, told the Jackson Free Press that the Jackson location closed largely due a lack of nighttime traffic for a restaurant its size. The restaurant's second location in The Township at Colony Park (1107 Highland Colony Pkwy., Suite 111, Ridgeland), will remain open. The restaurant has a full sushi menu, a hibachi grill, a full bar, and items such as Japanese breakfast crepes and traditional Japanese ramen.

A new restaurant, Holy Crab Seafood Sushi and Bar, will open in the Jackson Place space on Friday, March 1.

Wei Huang, a friend of Lynn's who lives in Oxford, is the owner of Holy Crab (705 Sisk Ave., Suite 101, Oxford). Lynn told the Jackson Free Press that Huang and his family lived in Louisiana for 20 years before moving to Oxford. Holy Crab opened in the city in December 2018, and Huang plans to open another location in Tupelo by July.

Holy Crab's menu includes traditional maki, a type of sushi, in varieties such as snow crab, shrimp tempura, spicy salmon, barbecue eel, crawfish and more. The restaurant also has dumplings, spring rolls, oysters, lobster bisque, fried seafood baskets, chicken and seafood po'boys, and more. Holy Crab also has a special called "Seafood Market," in which customers choose a type of seafood, a sauce such as lemon-pepper butter or Holy Crab sauce, and the level of spiciness for their dish. The price of the special varies based on the market price of the seafood used.

The Huang family developed their own sauces during their time in Louisiana and prepares all of them from scratch, including honey mustard, tartar and cocktail sauces.

For more information on Holy Crab, call 662-234-4666, visit holycrabms.com or find the restaurant on Facebook. For information on Wasabi Township, call 601-898-8849 or visit wasabitownship.com.

Arts Day at the Capitol

The Mississippi Arts Commission will host its annual Arts Day at the Capitol on Thursday, March 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the first-floor rotunda of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson (400 High St.).

Arts Day serves to highlight the contributions of the arts in Mississippi and the importance of arts education in the state. For the event, organizations from around Mississippi gather at the Capitol and set up tables to display information on themselves, the individual arts disciplines, and pieces for members of the state Legislature and the public.

"This event serves as a chance for arts organizations in Mississippi to come together and show our state legislators that the arts matter in our communities," Anna Ehrgott, communications director for the Mississippi Arts Commission, told the Jackson Free Press. "It's also an opportunity for art lovers to come out and show their support for the arts."

Participating organizations include the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience, the Craftsmen's Guild of Mississippi, New Stage Theatre, the Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center, the Mississippi Presenter's Network and the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education.

Arts Day at the Capitol is free and open to the public. For more information, call 601-359-6546 or visit arts.ms.gov.

After the day ends, the Mississippi Presenter's Network will host its own social event at Cathead Distillery (422 S. Farish St.) from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. as part of MSPN's annual Mississippi Gathering, which features an awards ceremony for the winners of MSPN's Day for Art vote. Day for Art honors organizations that preserve and pass on traditional Mississippi art forms or bring innovative new arts to the state. For more information, visit presentmississippi.org.

"Visual Voices" at the Mississippi Museum of Art

The Mississippi Museum of Art will host a traveling exhibition called "Visual Voices: Contemporary Chickasaw Art" from March 2 to June 2, 2019, in the Gertrude C. Ford and Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries.

"Visual Voices" includes 57 art pieces from 15 Chickasaw artists, which highlight the relationship between contemporary Chickasaw life, and the tribe's history and culture. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Participating artists in the exhibit are potter and sculptor Joanna Underwood Blackburn; jewelry artist Kristen Dorsey; painter Brent Greenwood; painter Billy Hensley; painter Lokosh (Joshua D. Hinson); watercolorist Norma Howard; photographer Lisa Hudson; painter Brenda Kingery; painter and sculptor Paul C. Moore; painter Erin Shaw; textile artist Tyra Shackleford; textile and handbag artist Maya Stewart; textile artist Margaret Roach Wheeler; bladesmith Daniel Worcester; and painter and mixed-media artist Dustin Mater.

The museum will also host special programs for the exhibit, all of which are also free and open to the public. The programming includes gallery talks and tours of "Visual Voices," workshops of dance, music and crafts related to the exhibit, meeting sessions with the artists and more.

For more information and a full list of events for "Visual Voices," visit msmuseumart.org or call 601-965-9916.