(gentle music) (mallet banging) - I had all of this civil rights around me every day, so I found a way to be a part of it by creating my wood carvings.

(gentle music) I'm Wilson Lee.

I am a wood artist and woodworker.

My first steps as a child was toward a bowl of shellac in my father's shop.

So I've been around woodworking and wood all my life.

About 15 years old, I knew how to restore antique furniture, refinish and repair, and I came from a family of woodworkers.

In '68 through '70, I was working.

We had Negro History Week at my high school, and I entered three of my works into a Black history art contest, and I won first prize.

I knew that God has given me a gift.

It was also at that time that I created my trademark which is the hair.

I wanted to create people that looked like me and my cousins, and I wanted to develop a hairstyle in the work that looked like my hair.

(gentle music) For me, the process starts when I see the piece of wood, and that wood tells me what it wants to be, you see.

So the wood is actually working with me.

It's a dance that occurs between me and the piece of wood.

The wood guides me in terms of what I'm going to create.

Although I have an idea in my head of where I want to go, sometime the wood takes me in a different direction to get there.

One of the series of pieces that I'm dealing with the subject of gentrification.

But, as a sociologist, my question is, "Where do those people go?"

I am concerned about that because it touches my neighborhood.

It touches my people a lot.

So that's an issue that I felt very strong about, that I had to create three pieces of work.

I hope future generations will look at the work and say, "This is a capture of the time."

(gentle music)