One of the holiday highlights for locals is a visit from Clinton artist Wyatt Waters.

For the past 14 years, Waters has been making his way to Vicksburg to sell and autograph his calendars, which feature watercolor prints of his artwork.

This year was no exception as many made their way to Lorelei Bookstore on Washington Street Thursday, to purchase Waters’ 2019 calendar.

The idea to create a calendar, Waters said, came to him during a visit to a frame shop.

“I was going to Neblets to get glass, because I don’t cut glass, and two people were there with books, and they were cutting the books up and framing the imagines in the book. I thought it felt kind of close to book burning, which is a pretty bad thing and so I thought the way to get around this was to do a calendar with different images in it and they can cut that up,” Waters said.

That didn’t seem near as severe, he said, since at the end of the year a calendar, for all practical purposes is worthless.

And to make framing simpler, the images in Waters’ calendars are made to fit nicely in a standard size frame.

“I made it where you could put it in a 16×20 frame, which is the most common precut size,” he said.

The calendar is also printed on nice paper.

“When you work in watercolor you kind of become paper obsessed,” Waters said.

The images used in the calendars, Waters said, are new images.

“The images have not ever been used before in reproduction, they are new images,” Waters said.

Some years, Waters said, his calendars have had themes, but the 2019 calendar did not. The images are just of paintings he has done this year, he said.

The popularity of Waters coming to the River City has remained over the 14 years, Lorelei Bookstore owner Kelle Barfield said.

“I was really surprised when I got the store last year and people began asking at the beginning of November when I was going to get Wyatt’s calendars.”

Barfield, who purchased Lorelei Books from its previous owner Laura Weeks, said Waters’ autograph calendar signing event is something many of her customers look forward to attending.

“They either get it (the calendar) for gifts or they get it for themselves,” Barfield said.

And in addition to people loving his artwork, Barfield said, she thinks what makes the signing fun is the little extra special touch he adds to each calendar sold.

“He will ask ‘who is the calendar for’ and ‘is there anything special about them,’” Barfield said. If the person receiving the calendar likes to cook, “he will draw a little spatula or frying pan. He really goes beyond just autographing it and handing you a calendar,” Barfield said.

The Wyatt Waters calendar includes 13 original prints — one for each month as well as the back cover.

“This is a rare example of a calendar you can actually enjoy long after the year is over,” Barfield said.