(guitar playing) - When I get to drawing, I can draw about 12 to 15 pictures a night when I get in the spirit.

♪ My Lord and I ♪ ♪ You know it's my Lord and I ♪ ♪ My Lord and I ♪ ♪ Yeah, Yeah, Yeah ♪ - [Mary] The Johnson gallery was the crown jewel of the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center.

Johnson lived now- it was only blocks away from where his original faith mission was.

And, it was just an important story to share, not only with the community of Newport News, but with the world.

The intention was to try as accurately as possible to recreate his house.

Also, to imbue it with the sense and the vision of Elder Johnson.

♪ What He wanted me to do ♪ ♪ And He showed me how to try, ♪ ♪ I'm going to walk on together ♪ - [Anderson] I was born right here in Lunenburg County of Virginia of 1915, in the country on a farm.

I've been in church all my life.

I started preaching at eight and before that, I'd hear my mother praying down on her knees praying and I'd start right behind her.

(elegant music) - [Yvonne] He was working in the cornfield and the thunderstorm came up and he was struck by lightning.

And all of a sudden he saw a black cloud with two angels in the cloud and they came down and they showed the book of life to him.

- [Claude] And they said, Anderson Johnson, There's nothing bad written about you in this book and you are going to be a preacher.

- So I started preaching at eight.

And, the people heard that I was preaching, and then they'd call me from house to house.

Ministers then began to cheer me on at different churches.

And at 12 then I become known as the 12-year-old boy preacher in the bleachers and then they call me.

♪ Cause I'd be fire ♪ ♪ I was born in a shack.. ♪ We moved here to Newport News after I started preaching and I was, I used to shine shoes on Huntington avenue.

- [Andrew] My grandmother met this preacher who was preaching from a tent.

His name was Grace.

He was just starting the United House of Prayer for All People and Daddy Grace took on Uncle Anderson under his wing.

He honed his skills as a preacher.

He taught him how to conduct services.

Then Daddy Grace started sending Uncle Anderson to establish missions.

And Uncle Anderson was hard to get along with under his rules.

He was off and on with Daddy Grace because he'd get mad and go back on the streets.

- [Anderson] But I had this know, the Lord told me, go in the hedges and highways.

I did that for, I don't know how many years.

See, I mostly would want to travel.

I get a program at a church and then maybe they give me a place to stay.

Now, Reverend Revival, He won't say the buildings where I could move.

'Cause he wouldn't give me enough money from the church to move.

But I would go out on the streets preaching.

- [Yvonne] When he was traveling preaching one night, he said he just had an urge to draw.

And he went out and bought wallpaper and crayons, and stayed up all night long drawing.

That's when we started drawing.

- [Andrew] He came back home and he told my grandmother he said, "Mama, you going to spend that money on some more papers so I can draw pictures on the wall better than that."

He would draw like peacocks and other kind of wildlife.

And we told my grandmother, "We can't even have company because its embarrassing.

Look at him, all birds and stuff."

He would go down to a beach down here, used to call it "bay shore".

And, these people who used to work the beaches, they taught him how to do trick drawing.

- [Yvonne] He learned to draw with either hand and with his teeth and his feet.

And that was a part of his performance to draw a crowd.

And he always said, once he drew a crowd, he would edge in the word of God.

- [Anderson] Eleven chapter, Hebrews in sixth verse, But without faith, it is impossible to please Him.

For he who cometh to God must believe that He is.

And that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

(gospel music) - [Yvonne] After preaching and traveling for 40 years, he was living in Los Angeles at the time.

- [Anderson] Lord showed me the vision, my mother had passed and she was sick, I come here in '57.

And I didn't do more traveling then after that.

- [Yvonne] Where they were living was the family home place.

His brother had built that home and that's where his two other brothers and his mother were living.

- [Andrew] So my father told my mother and both agreed to sign the Ivy Avenue house over to Uncle Anderson so it would still be a home place.

- [Yvonne] He decided that he wanted to teach others to live by faith like he had.

And that's how he decided to start the "Faith Mission".

(suspenseful music) - [Mary] It was never a typical house.

He remodeled his home to be a church or what he called his "Faith Mission".

- So I had started preaching in the living room and then decided, a few more people come in and then I say, well, then we decided to tear the kitchen out - [Andrew] Then he started painting the house all over with murals and individual painting like this.

- [Anderson] They want to broaden the mission.

People admired one from the other.

I just kept drawing.

Every time I draw one, new one would be come in at Sunday and say that's a nice picture.

Then one night the Lord told me sitting here, you're drawing all inside, he said but take your pictures and put them on the front porch.

And I went outside and I said, it's a winter's day What I'm going to do?

So I said, well, the Lord told me to put them on the porch.

I covered the windows up and just kept painting the pictures and putting them on the front porch.

- [Claude] And the more he put out there, the more people came and I was one of them.

So I went down to Ivy avenue.

And if you had have been in his house, it was just mind boggling, the amount of artwork he had 'em three and four deep on the wall sometimes.

- [Mary] And then it was ceiling to floor, wall to wall coverage.

- [Vernon] His signature or his landmark was the round face of the women.

And the large almond shaped eyes and Anderson Johnson often said that he loved to paint women.

With the women he could dress her and put jewelry on her and he could use his paintbrush and it was just like combing her hair.

- [Yvonne] This picture, when I first saw it, I thought it looked like me.

And I noticed that Vernon picked it up right away.

So I figured he thought it looked like me also.

I had a green leather coat with a shawl collar and that's that coat.

- [Vernon] And I particularly liked these two paintings.

They're like companion pieces to me.

- [Anderson] Most of the faces that you see here is what I'm seeing in imagination or sometimes somebody I know.

And as I draw one picture, there's another one that somebody else appears on the next one.

And I guess that.

(guitar playing) - [Claude] He didn't have any way to get around.

And he needed paint, he needed things to paint on.

He liked to paint on wood, especially furniture.

He would pick up anything he could off the side of the road.

If he could get out.

This is a table I found on the side of the road.

He loved to paint on stuff like this.

- [Anderson] I learned to make something out of everything, not to throw away nothing, anything, old can anything I can take it with some paint.

- [Vernon] He felt that by painting on it he can improve it.

He painted on beach bottles, chairs, boards, tin, glass, mirrors, styrofoam... Anderson Johnson was very humble and he had a quiet spirit.

But once the Holy Spirit hit him, you saw a whole different character.

- [Anderson] You can work two jobs, five jobs, Hey man, you can do this.

Some people working, some of them have almost fell dead.

Amen, and still ain't got nothing.

But we don't want something from you because you won't obey God.

No one will call out your sins.

- [Yvonne] His music has been compared to Little Richard, the zeal that he plays and sings.

(Anderson singing) You know, a lot of people say they believe in God, but Anderson Johnson actually believed God.

And he really knew who God was.

And that's what really impressed me.

- [Anderson] These are the things that you see me trying to build in people because don't care who it is, what nationality or what race, praise God.

If he build this, he can get somewhere with God.

- [Claude] Anderson Johnson treated people with dignity.

And I had several times in my life when I had some traumatic things happen to me.

And I went right down there and talked to him.

He could explain a way with the scripture and he could help people and he helped me.

♪ Yeah, five, four, the Lord who cares ♪ - [Mary] The city had an urban renewal project in the Southeast community to build something called the "Achievable Dream Campus".

There were 14 properties going to be torn down, but his was of chief concern to folk art collectors throughout not only Newport News and the state, but nationally.

Debra McCloud, a local curator then had a lot of contacts and they all coalesced to create an organization to save the faith mission.

They were able to acquire grant funding to allow certain elements of the house to be saved in particular, the very important murals.

- [Andrew] The vice mayor of NewPort News, He came and got Uncle Anderson and carried Uncle Anderson to where the murals were stored and Uncle Anderson went around and just touched some of them up.

And I think he gave him a few hundred dollars or something like that.

He came back, he said "That boy alright?"

He said, "I ain't never made that much money with a paintbrush in such a short time."

It's the only time he had ever gone to an exhibit of his, this him and I down at Hampton University.

This was about a year or so before he died.

He said, "You had to be ashamed of yourself, I'm a preacher.

Lord, don't want me going to these shows" and stuff like that.

But he did go.

(nostalgic music) He would always dress.

He was a dressing guy.

- [Anderson] Preaching is an important thing.

If I was to stop me from preaching, that I couldn't preach, that's the the end of me.

I'd go home to the Lord.

♪ Oh, I'm going through ♪ ♪ You know I'm going on through ♪ ♪ I'll pay the price, whatever others do ♪ ♪ Now I'll just take the way ♪ ♪ With the Lord's despised few ♪ ♪ I started, I started with Jesus ♪ ♪ And I'm going through ♪ ♪ You know now I'd rather walk... ♪