- Will you consider this?

He works with wood in three dimensions.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds.

Join me as we explore the vision and creations of Spart.

(upbeat music) He takes a piece of wood, examines the grain, the color, and then he whittles, well sort of, then he adds another type of color of wood and he does the same thing.

Then he sands and sands and sands away.

Mr. S. Lamont Waithe spent a few years in Peoria, where I first met him and he makes a return visit quite often and here to share what you do, Lamont.

How you are?

- I'm fine, Christine and glad to be back in central Illinois and with you a coworker.

- Yeah, yeah.

We go back a long way.

So first of all, you're from Centralia.

- Yes, true.

- Born and raised there.

- And when did you come to Peoria?

- I came to Peoria in 1973 to transfer from Kaskaskia College to Bradley University in the art department.

But fortunately, I had three children in high school, had twins and another daughter so I had to get a job and got employed by the School of Medicine.

And at that time I was taking my artwork as a hobby.

After I was working until I met people like Preston Jackson and some of the art people at Bradley and I decided to make it a business.

- When you came to work for Channel 25, you weren't doing this at first though, were you?

- I was doing it pretty much on a hobby type procedure.

I didn't really try to make money off of it because as I realized as years go by, I wasn't as good as I thought I was.

It was marketable, but not marketable to support a family.

- Mm hm, okay.

Where, let's show real quickly.

Which one should we do first?

This one?

- Well, this is a project I got coming up in Las Vegas.

It's the Siegfried and Roy sculpture that I'm doing a life size sculpture of, which actually last week I did it and the arena where I'm at is larger than what the picture was made so now I gotta take it from eight feet, four feet to 16 feet by eight feet.

So I gotta double its size and these were the prototypes I showed them.

And this is the one they really liked.

This is the one we selected to do.

- Here, let's put this on this camera.

Let's try this.

- Okay.

- And if you can see, when I enlarged this sculpture four feet to four feet, it was missing two sides to balance it out.

So on the original sculpture now, I have a lion cub on each side to accent it.

And it's in Las Vegas and on my return trip in June, we're going to do some business.

- That's just incredible.

But now, what was your first piece or how did you decide that this is what really, what you wanted to do?

- That's a very good question, Christine.

I expect that from you.

I was in the 60s and everything was black power this and black power that, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis.

So I kind of fell into like what black power.

And one day my older brother came home and he was working with a contractor that does house repairs, build houses.

He say, my boss' brother is an artist.

I said, "So what?

I don't wanna meet no white dude."

Well, we've been friends for 54 years.

I met him.

He showed me some of the ways to do wood.

And he never takes the claim that he showed me, but he said, I took it to another level.

- Really?

Now each individual piece, these look similar, but you really do take a piece of wood and examine it and look at the grain and figure out how it's gonna work in there.

They are just magnificent.

- Well you know, this can be considered intarsia and intarsia is a relief type sculpture like this, but I do mine on a numerical system.

Now keep this in mind.

If I do something that's one inch, I make that 1.0, if I do something that's three quarter of a inch, that's .75, a half inch, .50 and a quarter inch becomes .25.

So I do this mathematical equation so I can make sure each piece flows and no two pieces are the same next to each other.

And that gives us continuity and good observation about the grain line, it's very important.

'Cause I want the grain line to move it with the movement of the subject is like a tie.

It was a straight tie.

I want the grain line to go down.

If it's an animal, like the lion here, I want to lion go the same shape, direction of the stripes.

- How long did it take you to perfect that?

Were you screwing up there in the beginning?

Or did you do all of that examination being an artist and having an artist mind, you probably did take that into consideration.

- It did.

But just like in any field, endeavor in your profession, you know, you have to make mistakes to learn how to correct them.

And there were several mistakes after I would do a piece.

I said, "Oh, that don't look right.

I don't wanna do it that way again."

So if you know, I call it Spart IV, the four is Roman numeral four.

So I do every piece four times till I get it right.

So you take the analogy, if I can do it once, let me see if I can do it twice.

And when I do it a fourth time, I'm really pleased because I've made the changes.

- That's fascinating.

What was the first piece you ever did?

- Black power, a Angela Davis and H. Rap Brown.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And it was a very classic piece in 1969.

And I'd just go to the football stadium.

I was on the football team and I see myself a little bit too radical.

You know, I said, "All these guys are friendly with me.

Why should I be a radical?"

So my prejudice ways were changed just because of my art.

And it just didn't seem right.

It wasn't no fun.

So I've noticed over the years that each piece I do has five colors, red, black, brown, yellow, and white.

- Okay.

- A tree got a lot of sense.

- And so I use it as my statement of prejudice against prejudice and when I do shows, I tell jokes.

Like I say, when a tree sees me, it leaves.

- Aha.

It figures, that I didn't expect anything different from you.

I remember you did a Michael Jordan, I think when we were at the station, because he was really big then and... - Yeah.

And you know what, as fate have it, I got to meet Michael Jordan because of the piece.

Bradley University helped me transport it up to the stadium and he got a chance to see it.

And he had mentioned he was gonna come to Peoria to do a exhibition game.

Well, you know, I got the VIP seats 'cause I do all the Bradley games at court side with a pencil and paper.

And he nodded over me to come and let him see the piece.

Now I did a large piece, four feet by eight feet, but also had a smaller piece that he autographed for me and we had a little chat and he gave me some autograph.

He said, "Don't sell these autographs."

And I did.

I gave 'em all away.

- [Christine] That's good for you.

- To people who enjoyed them.

- And you've had shows all over.

- [Sydney] 'Cause I've been all over.

- [Christine] Okay, so tell me about that.

- San Bernardino, Los Angeles, mostly California, San Francisco, Oakland, and all those northern cities they just appreciate art.

The wine country.

I do a lot of wine country show because the wineries like my work 'cause it's different.

And I travel places and I meet these people and they say, can you come back?

So over the years I would say Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Oakland and LA are my favorite cities.

I go a lot.

And I'm getting ready to branch off into Houston and down south.

- And you said that, about how many shows have you had in Las Vegas over the years?

- Oo hundreds.

Because I lived there for 10 years and I do a unique thing.

Now I do my show live, you know, you'll see a blank piece of plexiglass and then I take the pieces like a puzzle.

I still can bust a move or two.

And of course I gotta have the pretty girls accenting me.

So the girls will gimme a piece and we dancing and then we put a piece on and we actually do the piece upside down.

- Okay.

- When it's finished, we flip it up.

- So this is just something that evolved.

Entertainment because it's Vegas.

- You know what, Christine?

I'm gonna be honest with you.

When I'm at home, I'm doing it.

I'm jamming, I'm dancing.

I'm listening to music.

And I said, "Man, this would be good for a show."

So now here you go.

- So then you spin it around and people are in awe.

- [Sydney] Oh yeah.

- Do you sell it from there?

- No, I'm not into the thing of trying to sell my artwork because one thing, if you know about artwork, it gains value.

The pieces I got belongs to me.

When they wanna negotiate a sale, I'm all ears.

- Okay, but not just from an audience member who might wanna see it or... - Well, I have duplicates.

I have a pattern.

If somebody really want to have something, I just do another piece for them.

And they get charged by the all and by the material.

And it's, I'm getting pretty good up there as far as pricing my work.

- Okay.

Well, tell me about, we were just talking before the cameras came on, about the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, you had a show there.

- Oh yeah.

I'm a avid reader.

I read the newspaper, like my friend Bert over there, we love to read the newspaper.

I don't know what it is.

And I was reading the newspaper and USA Today came out and they had this picture of the Stratosphere of the world's biggest tower in Vegas and that's my city, right?

I said, "The Stratosphere, man if I had to show there."

Six months later, I got 200 pieces in the Stratosphere because they had never seen anything like the three dimensional work and I guess they liked my personality and I brought a part of an entertainment theme to the casino.

- Well, so where do you get your inspiration for your different pieces?

I mean, this is Siegfried and Roy, that makes sense 'cause it's Vegas but- - [Sydney] Current events.

- Okay.

- When you guys do the news, I was there when you Mac and I was always on the current event thing.

You know, Katie, Hugh Simon and you guys.

And of course Gary and Mac and you and I was always what was happening.

I'm gonna do a picture of it.

Peggy Fleming, Nadia Comaneci, so I said, "I gotta do it," because I love the beauty of the flow of the gymnastics and the ballerinas and the figure skaters.

So if Barry Bonds hits a home run, I'm gonna do a picture of Barry Bonds.

Kareem's sky hook, bing, bing, bing, you gotta do it.

- Who, other than Michael Jordan, who's the most famous that has come into possession of your Spart.

- Hands down A-L-I, Ali.

Ali really inspired me.

As a matter of fact, I got a really good story.

I was at the Northwest Mall, November of 1980, doing a life size sculpture of Muhammad Ali.

And when you go up the elevator, the first thing you see me working on the sculpture and I had several pieces on display and I did it by hand then.

Well, Christine, I would take a piece of wood and I would sit on it, and firm it up.

And I was cutting it by hand to give the people the idea how much work is involved.

I break a little sweat.

So if I'm gonna say I want 300, they said, yeah, he did a lot of work.

And so while I'm working, this guy came by.

He said, "Man, you sure doing a lot of work.

You should get a machine."

And me being an artist, I said, "No, I want everybody know it's done by hand."

And this guy's wife says, "Come on, leave that guy alone.

Let's look at some of his artwork."

And they bought a few pieces.

On the way out he said, "Well, if you had a machine, how would you hold the wood?"

With my hand.

I bought a scroll saw the next day.

The rest is history.

- Really?

Really?

So how long does it take to do a piece like this?

- You're not gonna believe this, but minutes overnight.

I mean, I can start a piece of you right now and tomorrow it'll be sitting on the table.

- Really?

And you said that, well let's talk about the Olympics.

- [Sydney] Yes.

- Because there was a chance for you to be represented at the Olympics that were here in the United States.

- That's true.

Well, you know, we both was working at 25 north Philly up at NBC and Joanne Wineike made it possible so I can contact the person of operation in New York.

And they wrote me a letter and they talked to me and one thing they wanted to know, what was the turnaround time?

Turnaround time and how long from piece of paper to a sculpture is it going to take?

And I'm thinking, I'm gonna say one to two days because I figured in one or two days, the Olympics are weeks.

- [Christine] Right.

- He said, "No, we need these right after, like if a guy wins the 100 yard dash, we want to shoot the scene to you of you with this sculpture.

Well, physically it's impossible 'cause it takes the glue time to dry, two hours, so I didn't get the job.

But fortunately, you know what happened?

We invaded, Russia invaded Afghanistan and Carter made us boycott the games.

There was no Olympics for Americans in 1980.

- Right, okay.

Well see, just one of those things, right?

Right.

And then do you specifically, like this is Serena Williams?

- Yes.

- So which one should we look at first?

The black or white.

- It doesn't matter.

- Okay.

- This is actually one piece of wood and I just cut it in half.

- All right.

- So one cut, two pieces of wood, which I thought of that.

I said, hey this is too much work and I wanted to use the acrylic background because it has a better sheen to it than natural wood.

So the custom aspect of my work is that you tell me what you want and that's how I do it.

If you want a wood background, you want a shadow box.

If you want it 10 feet tall, you want it earring size.

I'm the man.

- Then you sand it and you sand it and you sand it.

So that's all hand sanded, right?

- Yeah, oh yeah.

Well, most of it's hand sanded, but let me tell you the rest of the story.

I had a student that came in one day after class after the weekend and showed me his work.

It looked better than mine all because he sanded it not once, not twice.

He sanded it three to four times to get that polished look.

I never did that.

All I did was boom, put 'em together, sand it maybe once and just like life, if you put a little more TLC to it, you gonna get the results.

- And then you put a varnish on it or what?

- Yes.

Polyurethane.

I don't use much stain.

This is walnut and hickory.

And I think this is walnut and mahogany and hickory.

And I use the hardwoods 'cause they shine up better.

And what I've done, I've gotten pretty good, I guess.

I can take some Home Depot wood and shine it up so much and put the stain on it, it looks like ebony.

So you get people sometimes that's trying to be cost effective and say, well, I don't wanna spend so much to do that.

I say, "Well, you can get it done in real wood, like your furniture or you can get it done with a stain."

- Okay.

What do they prefer or what do you- - [Sydney] The real wood, the real wood.

- Okay and you prefer that as well?

- Well, it's easier to do it real wood.

It has a better look.

- [Christine] And just the grain.

- And the grain too, you know, but with the wood, the jig that I gotta work with, I gotta work it harder.

Like you said that sanding, I mean, I'm talking about 20, 30 minutes at one time, one piece because you wanna get that grain line to really bust out.

And with the natural wood, two or three swipes and there it is.

And it's heavier and it looks better.

I mean, if you got a Basset furniture, you want Basset furniture, you don't want no run of the mill or something done by the Amish.

- Right, exactly.

- They do do some great woodworking.

- Yeah, they really do.

Now you've done, well when you're looking at the grain and everything, you also are seeing the musculature and things.

And I think I saw one on Facebook where you did a ballerina, a prima ballerina and it was a pretty tall piece.

- Yes, actually, when I go to the scene, I seek out the arts and people in the business and I met the first African American Prima Donna in Houston, Lauren Anderson, who trained Misty Copeland and she was so nice.

And she really got me known in the area and everything, said this guy does this.

So I had mothers and parents asking me, could I do sculptures of their daughter and sons.

And that was a form of income for me.

And it went over real well.

But with her, I was at the Peoria library.

I think it was about 81, 82 and Dance Magazine had her on the cover.

- [Christine] Wow.

Just one of those serendipity things, huh?

- And I met Beth Ann Miller and she was a beautiful lady.

Very talented.

- What's the most challenging for each of your sculptures?

- The most challenging thing is now doing the smaller ones because see, I'm getting them like I'm 69 today.

So my arthritis in my hand it makes it difficult to do smaller pieces.

And fortunately, now what I do, I do large pieces.

I did one for the expo in Sacramento that was 10 feet tall, over 2000 pounds.

It was so big we had to prop it up against the wall because it would've crushed somebody.

- 2,000 pounds?

- Well, it was 10 feet tall.

- All right.

- And I had the pieces also enlarged to scale.

So if I had something that was one foot now it's four foot, it's a piece of wood.

And when I adhered it to my background, when you lift the whole thing up, it was immense.

- Did it have a crane?

Did you have a dolly to wheel it in?

- We was at the convention center in downtown Sacramento and they took care of all that, but they was amazed and it was one that I couldn't take apart.

It was permanent.

The ones that I do now, I could take a piece out at the time and put it back on so I could do my show.

- So where are any of your pieces on permanent display?

- Sacramento, all over Las Vegas, my hometown Centralia, Bradley University, Peoria library, let me see here.

I've just been invited by Jonathon Romain, another prominent successful artist.

- [Christine] At Art Inc, yes.

- Oh, he's done so much for the community and I'm coming back in June to do a show with him and course Preston and the Art Guild, I've worked with them.

I got some pieces here, pretty old that I didn't realize it till I got back in town.

- [Christine] All right.

- With Gary Moore.

- And then you look at 'em with a critical eye.

- Very critical because I don't do that no more.

I mean, if I knew what I knew now then I would've been worldwide known because it's that extra work you put into it to get that extra look.

And I was just going on just the creation itself not the finish.

- What's been the most fun that you know, I know you like to do musical instruments and some of the jazz greats.

- The most fun is, I did a live TV show and NBC in Sacramento, they came to the house at 6:30 in the morning and didn't leave till about four.

One of them live four hour shows and I was the whole thing.

And I actually cut stuff right there in my backyard on the patio and oh, it was amazing.

'Cause I drew something, dissected it, traced it and cut it right there on live TV and got tons of response.

Tons of response.

- So you make a pattern for everything first?

- That's another good question, too.

Christine Zak, I should've know.

Copyright infringement.

I never copy anything and make it the same way.

If it's a picture, this is not a picture of Serena with- - With her foot on a- - I put that on there.

- Okay.

- So I change the dynamics of the picture now and if somebody's playing basketball, I move the basketball differently.

You know, you can't take my work and put it on top of a photograph and that was one main thing I wanted to do.

And that's the fun part because right now my arm is next to my body.

There's no gap there.

So my body look like it's one whole piece of wood.

- [Christine] Correct.

- But I do that.

- [Christine] And then you've changed it, changed the angle.

What do you think you wanna do?

Is there anything you haven't done yet that you really wanna do?

- I would think that would probably be Leroy Neiman.

I got a chance to meet Leroy Neiman in New York.

When I got there, he had left to go to a fight in Las Vegas, but he had invited me there and when I got there, other artists was there to greet me and he inspired me 'cause he's a sports artist and hence the name sport art for Spart.

- Okay, yeah.

So, okay.

So that was your original sport art, but now it's specific art.

Is that what you said?

- Well, 9/11 did it.

I had to do the Twin Towers.

And so that was special to me, that disaster that happened connected me with everything ain't about sports.

I'm gonna try to do the picture of the Twin Towers and two of my best pieces, I did it in clear acrylic, but for the buildings and with the black background and a white background.

Before I had it done, they were both sold.

- Really?

Where are they now?

- [Sydney] In New York.

- In New York.

- Yeah, one of the council, I can't think of his name offhand and a down a library in Harlem.

And that was about a year after the disaster happened, but it inspired me so much and I'm trying to, how can I exemplify that the the towers are not there.

So I used that clear plexiglass.

- Aha, interesting.

So your inspiration just kind of comes to you.

- Well, now that I'm getting older and crazier, I have fun.

Christine, you know anything you do that's work, it becomes stressful sometimes.

So I'm cutting and sanding all day.

That's no fun.

I put some music on and I'm dancing.

I can cut blindfolded.

I can do a show.

I can cut on the saw with my feet, my elbow.

I'm thinking of new ways to entertain and I can take my finger and put it on the blade while it's moving.

And it just goes up and down.

- Oh my word.

- [Sydney] Don't do this at home.

- No, exactly.

Kids don't do this at home.

- Well, actually I did it last week at Crest High School and I was telling the kids, I said, "What I'm getting ready to do now is really an illusion."

And I took a piece of wood and cut it.

Then I put my finger up there.

All I did was just kept going them down with the blade.

But the kids didn't know, they were like.

- [Christine] No blood, no blood.

- [Sydney] Just actually having fun.

I'm having fun with it now.

And it takes away the stress of work.

And I'm more careful about what I make and I mean, just I've done some things I have so much fun, Christine.

It'll be like eight o'clock in the morning when I start.

It'll be noon and I didn't realize it was that late.

- But your stomach starts rumbling so you gotta eat something.

- That's what happens.

(chuckles) - Interesting.

Did you ever, ever, when you were growing up in Centralia and you liked art, did you ever think that you would be a significant artist?

- No way.

And the reason is 54 years, I've been doing this.

Anybody doing anything, you'd have to agree, for that many years, you gonna get good at it.

From the mistakes you made, the people you meet and people ask me, are you still doing your artwork?

I've heard this for 54 straight years.

So yeah, I'm at the best place of my life with my career, but with my creations.

So when somebody said, man, you gonna be famous.

I don't want to be famous.

I want the pieces to be famous.

I'm not for sale.

- Well, there you go.

That's a good way to look at it.

Now the big piece that you have to do the 10 foot by... - 16 by eight.

- 16 by eight.

How long will that take you to do?

- I'm thinking right now I got a team of helpers.

So it's gonna take about seven to 10 days because we gotta import the wood.

- [Christine] Yeah, where do you get it?

- Woodcraft.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And I found something interesting about Africa.

In Africa, they don't sell the ebony to everybody and they make pallets out of ebony.

'Cause it's the hardest wood and it lasts longer, but it has the best look.

So I was able to help Woodcraft get a contract with this company in Africa.

As being an African American person.

And I enjoy it because you get five inches of ebony, that's 50 bucks.

It's $10 an inch.

- Really?

Well then prices will probably go up on that too.

Just, do you have a problem with supply chain?

- No and that's a good thing.

I get all my wood ahead of time and everything is with my business is self-sufficient.

I don't have to wait for somebody to do nothing.

I ain't got get anybody to okay it.

Everything it's on me.

I'm the boss of me.

And I'm the worst boss I ever had.

(Christine laughs) - But you have staff meetings probably every day when you look in the mirror and brush your teeth.

- Well, it's mostly people who know what I do because I can't afford to pay people like a publicist or a agent now, but it's coming.

It's coming.

The people in Las Vegas was telling me now, you gotta get a lawyer.

You gotta get a, hey we like what you're doing but we want to work with you and my thing to them, I said, "Well, let's go."

- [Christine] There you go.

- So June the 12th, I'll be telling you we got a contract and everybody who I do business with, Woodcraft, they'll you know, DWALK, I'm gonna have the charge on the stage.

I fly Southwest.

I bank at two different banks, Regions and US.

All these people I do business with- - [Christine] Will be represented.

- Oh yeah.

- [Christine] Good, good job.

Well, thanks for sharing with me again.

So great to catch up.

- Yes.

It's a pleasure.

- Just delightful.

- Delightful pieces of work.

So now we can all go around the Peoria area and check out some of your stuff.

- Appreciate you.

- Thanks Lamont for being here.

Thank you for joining us.

Stay safe and healthy and hold happiness.

(upbeat music) (music continues) (upbeat music) (music continues) (upbeat music) (music ends)