Thursday, December 11, 2014

Meet Highwayman Artist Al Black

On October 4, 2014, Al Black, an original Highwayman artist, gave a live painting demonstration, talked about his life, and offered a Q & A session at the Lee County Alliance for the Arts on McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers, Florida.

The Highwaymen are 26 black artists, a small group of self-taught African-American artists from the area around Fort Pierce, Florida, who got their start selling vivid landscapes — speed-paintings — from their own cars because, in times of segregation in the 50s and 60s, galleries didn't allow them in. Al Black was a salesman extraordinaire, and he offered his services as a salesman on their behalf.  In the 1960s and 1970s, the Highwaymen painted tens of thousands of oil paintings sold up and down Florida's East Coast. Black was a bit of a wheeler-dealer and would make more money than the artists would make by hiking the price of the painting and pocketing the difference. Just as things were really taking off, the group's 29-year-old leader, Alfred Hair, was murdered in 1970. Many of the Highwaymen stopped painting altogether, and Black was left without anything to sell. However, he had learned the tricks of the trade from repairing paintings he'd thrown in his trunk and began painting originals himself. 

In the 1980s the demand for landscape paintings had dried up and crack cocaine moved across the country, leaving devastation in its path.  In Black’s own words, “You can have foot trouble, back trouble, neck trouble, all kind of trouble. You ain't had no trouble until you have crack cocaine trouble.” He eventually worked himself into a habit that cost him $1,000 a day. Al began owing money and paintings to people everywhere. In 1997, Al Black was found guilty of fraud, in connection with a wealthy patroness who befriended Black,  and possession of drugs. When asked about his white, elderly patroness, Al says “she loved art and a black man.” He spent ten years in correctional facilities, but when it was discovered that he was a Highwayman, the warden of his prison gave Black permission to paint murals throughout the facilities. He painted hundreds of murals throughout the state penitentiary system, in prison hallways, offices, waiting rooms, dining halls, dorm rooms, and chapels, as other wardens requested his services. By 2007 he was out of jail. Being locked up had been a blessing and Al credits it with saving his life.


On stage at the Alliance for the Arts, Al Black shows the audience one of the giclée prints  that he sells. The giclées are signed and numbered on canvas. They are limited editions and cost $100-125. Framed, their value becomes $200.


The giclée print is on canvas that can be rolled up for portability.


Al Black’s pitch to potential buyers: “ ‘Good morning. Sir, my name is Al Black. I have some oil paintings. I want to know if you all would be interested if it wouldn't take up too much of you all's time.’  And most of the time, they would say yes, I'll look, and once they look, I would sell them something.”


His painting demo begins. 



The demo continues. "I can be down and out," he says, "feeling bad that morning. But if I can make it out to where I paint, everything picks up ... and makes me feel real good."


“Carrying them around, paintings would get scarred and I had to fix them. By me being the salesmen, I'm walking around watching the colors that they mix, and I can mix that color, and I would fix them. And so after I learned how to fix some of the stuff, I started to paint myself.” (He learned to paint partly from repairing damaged works that had been loaded into his car while still wet.)


Question: do you paint real scenes or from memory? 
Answer: “I been there, I don’t have to go there no more.”



Question: Do you always have water in your paintings? 
Answer: “Water sells


Question: How do you know when a painting is finished? 
Answer: “When it looks pretty good, I know when to stop.”


Black considers the work  finished because it’s been sold to a member of the audience.


Black’s demo painting

The three birds he places in his landscape signifies the Trinity. It is a sure way to identify Al Black’s paintings. On occasion, he will paint a fourth white bird lagging behind. That bird, he said, is him.


The demo painting close-up


Black is a salesman

“Al Black is still a salesman who could snatch you breath away and sell it back to you.” Highway woman artist Mary Ann Carroll describes him this way. “He would sell a mosquito a jacket in the summertime. The only paintings he didn't sell was the ones you didn't give him.”


Black now makes use of modern technology when selling his artwork.


Black’s assistant helps with the sales of his artwork.

 Now the paintings are sought after, some fetching prices of between $3,000 and $4,800 each from an online art dealer who sells Florida Highwaymen works.


After the demo, interested audience members gather around Al Black.


The Highwaymen works of art on display 

The works are  classified as “Outsider Art,”  or "Folk Art. They honed techniques to rapidly produce their paintings and developed strategies to sell and market their artwork outside of the formal world of art galleries and exhibitions . 

The Highwaymen were rediscovered in the mid-1990s and today are recognized as an important part of Florida culture and history. Al Black, and the other 25 artists known as The Highwaymen (18 of whom are still alive), were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004.  Black is back in Fort Pierce, painting in the old Highwaymen style: outdoors, several canvasses at a time. He paints traditional Highwaymen subject matter: rivers, beaches, waves, sunsets, and varying kinds of foliage. And how does he know when a painting is finished? In his own words, “A painting isn’t finished until it’s sold.“  Now people come to him to buy artworks and he sells with the same smooth talking finesse and enthusiasm that he has always used. Al is proud to report that he has been drug free since his early days in prison. 

It has been said about Al Black: “His ability to charm a prospective customer or journalist, even while you know you may be hearing exaggerations (or maybe lies), is what marks his personality.”  In his presentation at the Alliance, Al told his life story truthfully, without glossing over the demeaning parts, but he’s a storyteller and there’s something about his manner of speaking that draws in his audience completely, and we in the audience at the Alliance that morning were no exception.









Thursday, January 2, 2014

V. Fort Myers Beach in Photos: Manmade and Natural Beauty


MANMADE BEAUTY: MURALS
 
Wherever there is a wall expanse on Fort Myers Beach, there is an opportunity to add a little more beauty to our lives.
 
 
Grecian mural on the side of a store in downtown Fort Myers Beach
Unfortunately, murals can come and go, and this one is no longer there, but it surely was a treat while it was. It has been replaced by a solid blue painted wall.
 
 
Grecian mural close-up
 
 
A condo wall
 
 
Even a garage door can get a mural
 
 
The Lani Kai annex
 
 
The Lani Kai annex after a heavy rain storm
 

The side wall of a coffee shop
I think Tinker Bell is on the upper right hand part of the mural, and I especially like the way the artwork is carried through on the utility boxes.
 
 
A mural with a message
Strong house/restaurant/bar lights on the beach disorient newly-hatched turtles so that they go toward those lights rather than toward the water and the moonlight.
 
 
A store wall mural
 
 

The Surf Club mural encompassing the whole building
This mural is no longer there, either, because the Surf Club is now located across the street.
 
 
The "Love" mural, one of the few murals with an abstract design
 
 
Another whole building condo mural
 
 
 
The Fish Monger Restaurant
Check out the fish-themed benches and mail box.
 
 
The parking lot side of The Fish Monger Restaurant
 
 

 
A Fort Myers Beach Public Works Building on Lenell Street across from Santini Plaza 
This whole-building mural shows it all: sun, sea, birds and mangroves.
 
 
The Public Works Building
I was told it houses a sewage tank.
 
 
A detail of the mural
 
NATURAL BEAUTY: SUNSETS ON FORT MYERS BEACH
 
People assemble in the evenings to watch the sun set
over the Gulf of Mexico from Fort Myers Beach 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE END
 
 
My husband Robert and I took all of these photos over a period of years, from 1998 to 2013.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

IV. Fort Myers Beach in Photos: Hurricane Charley

Hurricane Charley was the second major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. Charley hit Fort Myers Beach on August 13, and at its strongest, it reached 150 mph winds, making it a strong Category 4 hurricane. Fortunately for Fort Myers Beach, Charley was a relatively small storm; it was confined to the center and extended no more than a couple of miles around the center of that storm. A real true Category 4 storm is much, much bigger, but it was the strongest hurricane to hit southwestern Florida since Hurricane Andrew twelve years before, in 1992, and before that, Hurricane Donna in 1960.

Meteorologist Robert Van Winkle compared Charley to the devastating Hurricane Katrina. "If Charley would have been one of those kinds of storms, the storm surge would have been 17 feet. We would have had serious problems, and I think we still probably could have been picking up the pieces today had that happened," he said.

Charley rapidly intensified from Category 2 to Category 4 in the few hours prior to its Florida landfall. My husband and I might have left the island before the hurricane hit if we had known it would go to a Cat 4. As it was, we stayed with our cat, Shadow, who panicked when the wind picked up. She jumped up to the highest shelf in our storage closet and wouldn’t come down. The water in the closet went to two feet deep, and the shelf was six feet high, so the cat was never in any danger, but she didn’t know that. She meowed pathetically from her perch until I was able to grab her and keep her safely with us on stairs to the second floor. From there, we watched the hurricane winds and storm surge hit Fort Myers Beach.
 
 
Times Square was deserted in the calm before the storm.
 


Businesses were boarded up in preparation for Hurricane Charley.
 
 
Red Coconut RV park was also deserted.
 
 
Charley’s winds got up to 150 mph.
 

Hurricane winds blew the water towards shore, creating the surge that covered the island in some places.


My street, Andre-Mar Drive
 
On one end of our street, the water from the Gulf of Mexico rose over Estero Boulevard, and from the other end of our street, water from Estero Bay rose to meet the Gulf water. The water just kept rising relentlessly--not violently, just steadily, and the wind blowing in from the Gulf was just as unrelenting.


Andre-Mar Drive from our house
The waters from the Gulf and the Bay met on our street.
 
 
My plant arbor and parts of the fence were both blown away by the wind and washed away by the surge. Surprisingly, plants in pots turned out to be OK because the salt water could be washed out with fresh water. We had running water, but that's about all we had in the way of utilities.


Mango Street Market
 
 
The Newton House on the beach side
The vegetation was destroyed and screens were blown in.
 
 
The Newton House facing Estero Boulevard


The Newton House didn’t weather Charley very well.

 
Matanzas Pass Preserve


Robert on the beach after the water receded
 
The wind of a hurricane causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea level and causes flooding problems. Storm surge on Fort Myers Beach was six to seven feet and, together with sustained winds, caused all kinds of damage. The salt water corroded electrical wiring in cars, homes and appliances, ruined upholstered furniture, and caused mold to start climbing up drywall in a matter of hours. The wind caused damage to roofs, lanais, fences and less substantial structures.
 


Ruined bedding from Howard Johnson’s
 
 
Andre-Mar Drive was lined with ruined household goods ready for garbage pickup. 

Everything touched by salt water had to be discarded. Drywall and insulation had to be torn out and thrown away and walls treated with an anti-bacterial spray. Then everything in our house had to be dried out with huge hot-air fans running for 24 hours straight.



Vegetation was put in black plastic garbage bags for pickup.
 



Times Square in the aftermath of Charley
 


Old San Carlos Boulevard practically empty
 


Kind folks at the Beach Theater had a cookout for the stranded islanders.
 

The folks in line stayed on the island; they didn’t want to leave because they couldn’t get back on. The authorities closed down the island so that no one could get on or off. They kept it closed down for a week, ostensibly “for our own good.” After a week’s time, people came back to a bigger mess than we had because we got started on cleanup right away. We managed without electricity, but we always had running water, or we probably couldn’t have stayed on the island.
 
 


The Southern Baptist Convention from Kentucky set up shop at the Fort Myers Beach Baptist Church. The Red Cross assigned this group to come to Fort Myers Beach. The church members go wherever they are told to provide relief services.
 



The Red Cross supplied food and water. The volunteers on-site did the rest. 
 

 
Red Cross trucks rode up and down the streets of the island passing out meals.


 
Free meals were offered to anyone who wanted them in this makeshift cafeteria under the Baptist Church. This was a godsend to us because we had no electricity, no food and no appliances to cook food in anyway. Members of the Convention are in the yellow T-shirts. They are not youngsters--mostly they are retired folks who travel far and wide to help their neighbors, as Christ instructed them to do in the Bible. (I know this because I asked a number of them why they did it.)
 
 
Meals were handed out-- no questions asked, no donations solicited, no proselytizing done-- and they were quite good meals, as I remember
 
 
The Reef Restaurant before Hurricane Charley

The Reef was a small, unimposing restaurant, but it regularly offered three All-You-Can-Eat specials consisting of steamed snow crab legs, deep-fried frog legs or crunchy grouper. And you could alternate any of these entrees--if you had a big enough appetite, that is. That was one special restaurant.
 

 
The Reef Restaurant after Hurricane Charley
The “X” on the window means it was deemed uninhabitable.



The Reef Restaurant after Hurricane Charley
 


The Reef Restaurant was demolished.
RIP