Bay St. Louis artist commemorates Amtrak’s return with hundreds of handmade medallions

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (WXXV) — After months of waiting, Amtrak is set to make its inaugural journey on the Mardi Gras Route on Saturday, August 16th.

In true South Mississippi fashion, it won’t come without fanfare.

Bay St. Louis potter Steve Barney is playing a major role in the celebration by sharing his works of art with the 385 elected officials and VIPs that are set to be on board. He’s creating ceramic medallions — a centerpiece of the gift bags that will be given to inaugural riders.

“The Southern Rail Commission didn’t know that they needed to make ceramic medallions for [the inaugural ride], so I came to them with this idea, and they said, ‘Well, Steve, that’s a great idea! Can you make some prototypes?'” Barney explained.

Barney certainly went above and beyond on those prototypes. He spent months creating the design and preparing for the mass rollout of his ceramic medallions, hoping to capture the spirit of the Mardi Gras Line in his work.

Barney and his assistant logged roughly 200 hours, from stamping the clay, to painting the intricate details and finally boxing the medallions up to be transported to New Orleans.

“I wanted to come up with a design which both featured the cultural history — kind of the retro look of train travel — as well as kind of contemporary,” Barney said. “[I] worked on the 3D printer to develop this model: the stamp with the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service with the Southern Rail Commission logo. It took quite a while to do the design, but once we got the design, it really came out. So, we used a little slab roller to roll out the slabs of clay, then we stamped them with the little stamper made out of the 3D printer, then we baked them in the kiln, and then each one is hand-painted with seven different colors, then they get fired again.”

Amtrak was an important part of the Coast before it suffered damage during Hurricane Katrina. Now, its return just ahead of the 20th anniversary of the storm’s landfall is just another example of South Mississippi’s resilience.

Barney said he’s thrilled to be part of showing what the Magnolia State is all about.

“You know, a lot of this train is about the cultural heritage of South Mississippi, and I’m so honored to be an artist that was selected to create these little artifacts as part of this historic event.”