- [Jason] Next on "Curate".

- One night, the Lord told me he said, "Now you drawing all inside.

"Simply take your pictures and put 'em on the front porch."

- I'm a religious person so I feel like God didn't give me this opportunity just for me to go back to posting and pictures of my family.

- My focus is on creating something that has some sense of timelessness.

- This is Curate.

Welcome, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for being a part of Curate.

As we come to you this week from the Downing Gross Cultural Arts Center.

- Downing Gross is a burst of creative energy in Newport News.

As you can see behind us, it houses the Ella Fitzgerald theater, but it also houses a rotating art gallery and one very special permanent gallery.

- [Jason] That's right.

The Anderson Johnson Gallery is an incredible exhibit dedicated to the life and work of legendary Newport News folk artist, Anderson Johnson.

The gallery features elements of Johnson's home, which was also where his Faith Mission was located.

Johnson preached passionately to his followers and created a legendary collection of distinctive artwork.

This is the story of Anderson Johnson, our 757 Featured Artist.

(folk guitar strumming) - When I get to drawing, I can draw about 12, 15 pictures a night.

When I get in the spirit.

- 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 we wanted me to do ♪ ♪ When we showed me how to try` ♪ (soft music) - [Anderson] I was born right here in Lunenburg County, Virginia of 1915 in the country on the farm.

I've been in church all my life.

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

- He was working in the corn field and then 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.

- And they said, "Anderson Johnson, "there's bad written about you in this book "and you are gonna be a preacher."

- So I started preaching at eight.

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

The Minister then began to carry me on at the different churches.

And at 12, then I become mean as this 12 year old boy preachin' at beach church to begin with.

(blues music) I was born in a shack.

We moved here to Newport News after I sttarted preaching and I used to shine shoes on Huntington Avenue.

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

Whose name was Grace.

He was just starting The United House of Prayer for all People and Daddy Grace took on 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 room.

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

- When I hit this door, the Lord told me go into to haters and highways.

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

See, I mostly when I'd travel and I'd get a program at a church and then maybe give me a place to stay now.

Run revival.

(indistinct) That said the only honest way I could move cause was he wouldn't give me enough money from the church to go home but I'd go down the streets preaching.

- When he was traveling and 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 he started drawing.

- Came back home and he told my grandmother said, "Mama, you don't wanna spend that money on the wall paper.

"I can draw pictures on the wall, better than that."

He would draw peacocks and other kind of wildlife.

And we told my grandmother, we can't even have company cause it's embarrassing, look at them old 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.

- 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.

- [Narrator] 11 Chapter Hebrews, sixth verse.

"But without faith, "it is impossible to please Him.

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

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

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

- [Anderson] The Lord showed me in a vision my mother was in pain and she was sick, and I come back here in '57.

And I didn't no more traveling then after that.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

(jazzy piano music) - 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 to preaching in the living room and then that if a few more people come in and I said, well then we decided to tare the kitchen up.

- Then he started painting the house all over with murals and individual paintings like this.

- When I brought it down through the mission, the people admired one from there and I just kept on drawing and every time I draw one the new one did come in at Sunday and say it's a nice picture.

Then one night the Lord told me and said, "Now you drawing all inside, "but take your pictures and put 'em on the front porch."

And I went outside and I said, there are the windows there.

What am I gonna do?

So I said, "Well, the Lord told me to put 'em on the porch, I covered the windows up and just kept painting the pictures and putting them on the front porch.

- And the more he put out there, the more people came.

- And I was one of 'em.

So I went down to Ivy Avenue.

And if you had been in his house, it was just mind boggling, the amount of artwork.

He had 'em three and four deep on the wall, sometimes.

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

- 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 woman he could dress her and put jewelry on her and he could use his paintbrush and just like combing her hair.

- 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 cobra shawl collar and that's that coat.

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

They're like companion pieces to me.

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

And as I drove one picture, there's another one that somebody else appears on the next moment and I get to that.

(banjo strumming) - He didn't have any way to get around and he needed paint.

He needed things to paint on and 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 nothing.

Anything, old can anything I can with some paint.

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

He painted on beach bottles, chairs, boards, tin, glass, mirrors, dye foam.

Anderson Johnson was very humble and he had a quiet spirit but once the holy spirit hit him, you saw a whole different character.

- You can work through your side job!

Hey man, you can do this!

(exclaiming) Some people work still to almost themselves dead, amen and still ain't got nothing but get worser for you because you won't obey God!

You won't come out of your sin!

- His music has been compared to Little Richard.

You know, the zeal that he plays and sings.

(enthusiastic singing) hallelujah 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.

- 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 away with the scripture and he could help people and he helped me.

♪ Yeah if I fall to the Lord who cares ♪ - The city had a 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.

- The Vice Mayor of Newport News, he came and got Uncle Anderson, and carrying Uncle Anderson to where the murals were stored and Uncle Anderson went around and just touch 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, all right."

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

This 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.

Said, "You ought 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.

He would always dress.

He was a dressing guy.

- [Anderson] Preaching is the important thing.

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

I'd go home to the Lord.

- You can see Anderson Johnson's feature again on our website whro.org/curate.

There you'll find our entire collection of curate history, all of our 757 featured artists, full episodes and lots more.

Great art doesn't have to happen on a canvas or a sketchpad.

It can turn up on just about anything, including a pair of Nike's.

Hampton Roads' sneaker-head, Kenny Jones has hit the big time.

Designing a pair of limited edition kicks that honors his hometown.

And they sold out in 15 minutes.

- My dad was in the Navy, so we moved all over the country and finally settled here in Virginia Beach.

I immediately fell in love with the ocean and the waves and the boardwalk and the beach.

The vibrancy and the people and all the colors.

The Pharrell's, the Timberlands, the Clipse, all the people who made it from here.

I mean, how could you not be inspired by this place?

(inspiring music) I've always been amazed by skateboarding.

It's a beautiful thing.

When I was getting into the skate scene, Nike SB Dunks were coming into popularity.

I fell in love with trying to figure out what these designs are based off.

Cause it wasn't just some random color where they thought was cool.

There's stories for every single shoe.

I love Pharrell, so then I find out he had a skate team and then he had his own shoes.

And then I found out about BPC and Ice Cream.

All the stuff that I liked, kind of came together.

Had a clothing brand right out of high school called X Society.

It was me trying to get my creativity out there a little bit.

I joined the Coast Guard and at that point I wasn't really putting designs out on paper, but I was always designing stuff in my head.

Everything changed when I got the opportunity to design my first sneaker.

Scrolling through Instagram.

And I see NikeSBornothing, post something about a contest.

It's about your city and you can win your own shoe.

I was like, "Dang this is made for me."

Cause any shoe design I ever thought of was always based off of where I'm from.

I wanted to do the waves.

Cause that's like the first thing I think of is the Virginia Beach ocean front and the King Neptune statue as well, which is such an iconic thing at the beach.

I knew I'd want to give ode to the military cause I'm in the military.

And also my dad was in the military.

And then the swoosh, not only was it a nod to Nikki Diamonds who designed my favorite SB Dunk of all time, it was also that big Navy ships that are steel.

Wanted to obviously give note to the music because that's one of the things that kept me excited about living here.

I put it out there just like any other post.

You're hoping a whole bunch of people to see it.

After that first day I had like a thousand likes on 'em.

I was like, "Dang!"

Way more people were sharing it than I ever thought, Virginia Beach and all Virginia backed me so hard with the whole contest it was almost surreal.

I never really thought I was gonna win.

I just wanted to put something out, cause I haven't put something out and this is my dream.

Once I actually won the ReverseLand people hit me up like, alright, we're gonna get started as soon as you can.

It was the longest couple of months of my life.

It was just like a waiting game.

I knew they were coming at some point.

I just didn't really know when.

- [Kids Singing] Happy birthday to you - When the shoes finally came, it was actually on my birthday so that was even cooler.

♪ Happy birthday dear Daddy ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ - Do you like the cake?

- Yeah, where'd you get it?

This is cool.

- Mom I like the cake too!

- You do?

My friend Samantha made it.

- To have the box in hand was an unbelievable feeling.

- Look Daddy's surprise is here?

- Look!

I think I know what it is.

Look.

(gasps) - What are those?

- Your shoes are cool!

- Dang.

It was just crazy to see my design on a sneaker and not just any sneaker.

My favorite sneaker of all time, the Nike SB Dunk.

They look like the picture.

- Mm hmm.

They got the waves on it.

- They got the waves on it.

ReverseLand did such a great job of putting the shoes together.

The manufacturing, the colors pop.

The attention to detail.

It was amazing to see how it all came together.

Even the sneaker box was dope.

- [Mom] Can you find daddy?

- [Son] That's daddy!

- As soon as I signed off on the design that went into manufacturing and since they were custom, there wasn't a whole lot of pairs that were going to be made and the process takes a little bit longer.

But once the day came to put them on sale, I got a notification and it said they sold out in 15 minutes and I was like... dang.

To sell out and to sell out in less than 30 minutes is a dream come true.

I'm a religious person.

So I feel like God didn't give me this opportunity just for me to go back to the posting pictures of my family and the shoes that I'm wearing that day.

As soon as I won the contest, it really rejuvenated me to be able to let that creativity out.

And now that I have like a platform to do it, it's almost like I don't want to buy clothes from anybody else.

I'll just make my own shirts.

So if I can actually live out my dream of becoming a designer or working in the industry in any way, I need to jump on it and do as much as I can, as quick as I can.

This opportunity's not gonna always be there if I just, rest on my laurels.

You got to strike while the iron is hot.

And that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

I have a lot of eyes on me and the attention of a lot of people that I've always wanted to work with and looked up to.

There's a lot of pressure on myself but I also feel like I'm on top of the world.

- Muralist and graffiti artist, Myles McGregor known as El Mac creates a huge, impactful art.

His paintings speak volumes to the communities that host his work and everyone who sees it.

- With this piece, as with most of my pieces, my focus is on creating something that has some sense of timelessness.

My name is Miles McGregor, also known as El Mac.

I'm an artist and muralist.

That's something that I take very seriously as a public artist painting these big, large public murals.

There's something very powerful in that because of that power.

There's also kind of a responsibility that comes with that and hopefully something that the community can connect with and something that's relevant to the history and the culture of wherever the mural is.

I think it's important work to make these kinds of monuments to normal people.

The young woman, her name is Mandolina and she helps manage a nearby community garden.

The figure next to her, his name is Jamai and he's a ballet dancer.

The third figure he's Seminole and he's the youngest figure that I'm painting.

The way that I paint, it's all lines and circles lines and circles and patterns.

And the hope is that that kind of consistency it does something for the viewer or can the same way when we hear some music that we like, there's something about the pattern it's appealing to the brain.

From a distance, these images hopefully look representational and realistic and accurate.

And at the same time, I hope that when people actually are in front of them in person and can see the details that that can work on another level.

And it's almost abstract.

When I paint, I'm putting my paint in ice to cool the cans and lower the pressure.

I'm using certain kinds of caps, and if it's hot out, it'll change the pressure of the can.

And there's so there's a lot going on there, but at the same time, I'm also kind of using the paint in a way that comes out of what you would call a traditional graffiti aesthetic.

Like I'm using these caps that are known as New York fat caps.

And they were kind of like iconic paint caps in graffiti, historically, and the way that they make the paint spray out in this kind of hollow circle or ring of paint, but I'm kind of stretching it to its limit.

I think the challenge of painting these pieces and constantly trying to figure out new ways to make them more beautiful is this kind of never ending task for me.

The first time, I actually heard the term street art here in Miami in 2008.

And we were all just like, what?

What is that?

Cause we were all coming out of a background in graffiti and you know fine art, but we were, we called it graffiti.

I think from my own experience that was a turning point in this whole movement.

I never really liked the term street art.

I never really embraced it but you know, it is what it is.

So much goes into it.

You know, I really see it as I'm putting love into the art, which sounds very fuzzy and cliche.

But it's really sincere.

It's almost spiritual.

It's almost religious.

It's my life's purpose.

- [Heather] Curate is on the web.

Find us at whro.org/curate.

- And follow us on social media.

We're on Facebook, YouTube, and you can find lots of Curate content on WHRO's Instagram.

Thanks for spending a little part of your day with us.

- We're going to leave you with more from Anderson Johnson.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros, and we'll see you next time on Curate.

♪ Well now ♪ ♪ Little baby ♪ ♪ Is my (indistinct) ♪ ♪ With a smile ♪ ♪ He done healed my ♪ ♪ Baby ♪ ♪ We gonna pray ♪ ♪ Aint gone give my soul away ♪ ♪ (exclaims) ♪ ♪ (indistinct) ♪ ♪ Till I die ♪ ♪ I ain't seen nothing ♪ ♪ But I'm going ♪ ♪ If you going let's stay together ♪ ♪ Cause I'm waiting for the Lord ♪ ♪ And I promise ♪ ♪ In July ♪ ♪ I'm gonna serve Him till I die ♪ ♪ And I'm- ♪