And Bishop James Bailey shares his wealth of experience with his paintings, books and charity work.

- So today I'm talking with Bishop James Bailey.

He's a lot of things, I even have to refer to my notes.

He's an author, an artist, a poet, a songwriter and a resident of Kalamazoo since 1961.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- My pleasure to be here, thanks for inviting me.

- So you've been an artist pretty much for all of your life, right?

Tell me a little bit about that.

- Well, it started with my mom, I was about six.

She was good at drawing the "Cracker Jack" man and I wanted to do that too.

I got frustrated, threw my paper away.

She made me go get the paper and come back and practice until I could get it right.

And since then, I mean, I've improved.

I was able to beat her drawing the "Cracker Jack" man, as a matter of fact.

- And do you remember when others first recognized that you had like the special gift for art?

Like you weren't like everybody else?

- Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, when I was, I think I was around 11 or 12, they asked me to participate in an art contest for our school system.

And Minneapolis Art Institute was sponsoring it.

And so I won the contest for our school and we got a bunch of supplies, which was wonderful.

I was upset 'cause I couldn't take 'em home.

- And going through all of the beautiful art that you've created, it seems like there's kind of like more of like a Bible theme to it, right?

- It is, there is.

- And when did that journey begin with you, you know, becoming a Christian and expressing that through art?

- Well, that's kinda got a little bit of a history to it.

The Christian part of it, I'd say, I always believed there was God but I had a personal experience with Him when I was 25.

I was an alcoholic until that point.

And I fussed Him out, I chewed Him out royally because I've been in this planet 25 years, I've never seen you, I've never encountered you.

If you're for real, you show me that and I'll live for you.

He showed me, boy did He show me.

So I got to studying the word of God.

And the more I studied is the more I can envision the scenes that I read about.

And when I can envision a scene, I wanna paint it because I want other people to see it too.

We might not see it the same, but if I can put it out there some kinda way graphically, and you can, maybe just stir you a little bit to maybe study it some more or take another look at it or something.

- I wanted to talk to you about a few of your paintings.

Okay, because they're so intriguing.

Let's start with this one right here, what inspired that?

- This, there was some postings in different places I saw, and it says faith over fear.

And I thought, what would that look like if you really had that on display, what would it look like?

- Yes.

- The scare crows design and purpose is to scare the crow.

But if the crow is not scared and he take control in the environment of the scarecrow, he can live on top of them and not worry about 'em.

- [Kim] I love that.

How about this one right here in the middle?

- Okay, these are like village children.

They say it take a village to raise a child and this one was related to poverty.

And I did this specifically because I signed up with the United Way to give them 10% of the proceeds from my art sales on Saatchi.

And I look at all of that that they're trying to do.

I don't have enough money to do at all, you know, to help but to contribute to something.

And that one on the end, that little guy on the end is just saying, all I need is one of you, just one of you to support.

And of course prayer in the middle and all referencing that little cross with the blood running down and saying that this goes all the way back to Christ, come to help everybody, including the depraved.

So it takes prayer and reaching out to get support.

- So you're not only an artist, you also write, you're a songwriter, you've written books and you also have a bachelor's degree in Biblical Counseling, master's degree in Biblical Studies and a doctorate in Theology.

So you know, your stuff.

One of your books is called "The Blood Throughout the 7 Dispensations."

How did that come to be?

- This one right here kinda shocked me.

I had just graduated from a Ministry of Training Institute, got home, and these scriptures started coming to me and I couldn't sleep.

So I got up and started writing them down.

So this book took me 18 hours of nonstop writing, some of the words I didn't understand, I had to look 'em up later, I mean, they were just words coming.

- Oh, I know.

- So I looked 'em up to find out what they meant and then I had to go back and study the book again to see what did I actually say?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- So yeah, this is the very first one after I graduated.

- "The Inducer."

- "The Inducer," okay, this book is talking about that thing that would make you make your mind up.

Residents stay halfway in between, I should do this or I shouldn't do this, I probably will, maybe I won't.

The inducer is the spirit that make you decide and do what you need to do or really want to do, and you're suppressing it rather than go ahead and do it.

So this, it's actually a fictitious story, but it's designed to help you to understand that the resident.

The Bible says in a, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

Well, the inducer takes out the instability.

It says, "Okay, this is what you need to do.

This is what you wanna do, do it."

- So Bishop, tell me what, like the art culture in Kalamazoo mean to you.

- Okay, I think Kalamazoo really has a lot of undiscovered talent there.

You know, they're painting the buildings.

You see murals on buildings now that they've started doing that, which really adds, I mean, some of it is like a throwback.

You look at that and go, oh my god, I can remember.

So, but it really, it changes that feel for that community 'cause most of the time communities, it's like that there's bags all on the ground, plastic, glass.

But once they put that painting up there, that stuff, it goes away.

- Yeah, the beauty, the beauty has to pour in once you have art around you.

- Yeah, I think so.

- James, thank you so much for talking with me.

Man, you are like an artist, just an artist of artists.

You're just a creative spirit.

So I appreciate you taking some time today.

- No problem, if I may say one thing is, the Lord gifted me with a lot of different gifts.

And I had prayed and prayed and I still do that I don't go to the grave not using what He gave me.

So the painting, the writing and all these different things that I do, I wanna be a help and a blessing, you know, and use all that He gave me so nothing is left behind.

- I think you're off to a great start.

- Perfect, thank you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.