[upbeat music] - In this edition of WLIW Arts Beat, [gentle music] the visionary life of a folk artist.

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

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

[gentle music] - [Diane] Colored pencil drawings.

- I enjoy being able to kind of come up with different characters in my head of who these people are or what their personalities are like.

[gentle music] - [Diane] Exploring identity through illustration.

- [Artist] I use things which are in my day-to-day life or how I live my life.

[upbeat music] - It's all ahead on this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Welcome to WLIW Arts Beat.

I'm Diane Masciale.

In this segment we learn about the life and art of Elder Anderson Johnson.

A preacher, musician and visual artist, his work has found a permanent home at the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia.

Take a look.

[cheerful music] ♪ My Lord and I ♪ - When I get to drawing, I can draw about 12, 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 ♪ ♪ My Lord and I ♪ - 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 imbune it with the sense and the vision of Elder Johnson.

♪ He told me ♪ ♪ What he wanted me to do ♪ ♪ He showed me how to try ♪ ♪ I'm gonna walk on together ♪ [gentle music] - [Anderson] I was born here in Lunenburg County, Virginia, of 1915 in the country on the farm.

I've been in church all my life, I started preachin' at eight.

And before that, I'd hear my mother praying, down on her knees praying, and I'd start right behind 'em.

[gentle music continues] - He was working in the cornfield and the thunderstorm came up, and he was struck by lighting, 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 nothing bad written about you in this book, and you are gonna be a preacher.

- So I started preaching at eight, and the people who heard that I was preaching and they'd call me from house to house.

Minister then began to carry on to different churches.

And at 12 then I become known as the 12-year-old-boy preacher, and the big churches began to call me.

♪ 'Cause I've been fine ♪ ♪ I was born in a shack of- ♪ - We moved here to Newport News after I'd started preaching and I was used to shinin' shoes on Huntington Avenue.

- 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 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.

- But I'd just know that the Lord told me to go into hedges and highways.

[blue music] I did that for, I don't know how many years.

See, I mostly would not travel.

I'd get a program with a church, and then they would give me a place to stay.

Now I run the revival here on Saturday.

This'd be honest way I could move, 'cause he didn't gimme enough money from the church to move on, but I had go down the streets preaching.

- When he was traveling and preaching, one night he said he just hadn't 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.

- He came back home and he told my grandmother, said, "Mama you gonna spend that money on some wallpaper?"

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

He would draw that peacocks and other kind of wildlife, and we told my grandmother we can't even have company 'cause it's embarrassing him looking at them old birds and stuff.

[laughs] 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 drawings.

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

And there was a part of this performance to draw a crowd.

And he always said once he drew a crowd, he would edge in the word of God - [Anderson] Eleventh chapter Hebrew in the 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."

[blues music continues] [gentle organ music] - [Yvonne] After preaching and traveling for 40 years, he was living in Los Angeles at the time - [Anderson] The Lord showed me the vision.

My mother was [indistinct] and she was sick.

And I come back here in '57, and I didn't do more traveling in 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.

- 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.

[cheerful organ 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 to start the preaching in the living room and then decided that a few more people come in, and said well then decided to tear the kitchen out.

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

- And when I brought them to the mission, the people admired one from the other one.

I just kept on drawing, and every time I'd draw one new one, they'd come in next Sunday and said it's a nice picture.

Then one night the Lord told me, sitting there, "Your drawing's all inside."

He said, "But take your pictures and put 'em on the front porch."

And I went outside and I said, "There's the windows there.

What am I gonna do?"

So I said, "Well the Lord told me, put 'em on the porch."

I covered the windows up and just kept painting the pictures and putting 'em 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.

- And when 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 it was just like combin' her hair.

- This picture, when I first saw it, I thought it looked like me, and I noticed that Brendan 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 the coat.

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

They're like companion pieces to me.

- Most all the the faces that you can see here is that 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 get to that [gentle music] - 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 that, you know, he could get out.

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

He loved to paint on stuff like this.

- I learned to make something out of everything, not to throw away nothing, anything, old can, anything I did with some paint.

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

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

[gentle music continues] 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 two jobs, five jobs, amen.

You can do this.

Some people working so much until all of sudden fell dead, amen.

And still ain't got nothin'.

But it wasn't for you, because you won't obey God.

You won't come outta your bed.

- [Congregation] Amen.

- [Yvonne] His music has been compared to Little Richard.

You know, with the zeal that he plays and sings.

[Anderson singing gospel music] - Hallelujah!

[singing indistinctly] - 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.

[gospel blues music] - 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, that's all the Lord who cares ♪ [gentle music] - 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.

Deborah McLeod, 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 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 all right."

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

[gentle music continues] This is 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.

[gentle music continues] He would always dress up when he was aggressing God - [Anderson] Preachin' is the important thing.

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

I'd go on home to the Lord.

[gentle music continues] [gentle music] - For more information, go to downinggross.org/anderson-johns.

And now the artist quote of the week [gentle music continues] Art Derin Fletcher works with colored pencils.

During the pandemic, she gained attention on social media for her striking monochromatic portraits.

Up next, we meet the artist in Ohio and hear about her creations.

[smooth music] Colored pencils are a staple for Derin Fletcher.

They have been for years, since picking them up in high school.

- I went to Firestone, which is a performing art school and I had a really awesome art teacher, Mr. Dolphin, who pushed me and saw the potential in me.

And he was actually the first person to give me colored pencils - [Diane] In 2020 as the pandemic was just getting started, video of her colored pencil portraits took off on Instagram.

- It came about because I could not find brown pencils during the pandemic.

- [Diane] So she turned to greens, blues and other colors for her drawings.

She ended up creating a series of monochromatic portraits resonating with tens of thousands of viewers on social media.

- That's when I was like, oh wow, okay.

Yeah, this is happening.

Okay, well let me keep it up.

[laughs] Because I just wasn't, I wasn't expecting the reaction.

I was just doing what I usually do in creating, and I created the green image.

Had to be like maybe a midnight.

[laughs] Took me a couple hours and just kind of experimenting.

But I was not expecting it to go the way it did.

- [Diane] Fletcher says she's always been drawn to portraits.

While she does commissions of real people, her preference is to use her imagination and create freely.

- So I enjoy being able to kind of come up with different characters in my head of who these people are or what their personalities are like.

It's kind of like creating a different character who doesn't exist, really.

- [Diane] Since sharing her portraits on social media.

Fletcher's landed work for Hulu and Akron Metro, and now she's creating art full-time.

- It jumpstarted with the monochromatic drawings.

It was like, okay, I can do this.

I can become a full-time artist, and that's where it began.

- On a recent afternoon, Fletcher was working outside of her comfort zone on a larger piece featuring two women connected by a braid of hair.

- My goal is just to do more drawings of that style, bigger color pencil drawings and push myself on a bigger scale, 'cause I'm used to working small.

I don't usually go beyond the 9 x 12 or like 11 x 14.

So I'm trying to push myself to work at a bigger scale.

- [Diane] Fletcher seems to enjoy new challenges.

Last summer, she opened her own gallery near the campus of the University of Akron for both teaching and displaying art.

She says before opening the gallery, she struggled to get her art on view.

- It was hard finding a space that would either accept you.

I know a lot of different galleries you have to have, they want you to have at least so many solo shows under your belt.

And it's like, well, I'm trying to get one.

[laughs] And you know, before opening a gallery I only had one solo show.

- [Diane] Part of Fletcher's vision is to help others exhibit their work.

- [Derin] It shouldn't be that hard for artists to showcase their artwork.

So that was a goal of mine.

Like when I get a gallery, it's gonna be so easy.

- Fletcher's work as an artist has been a bright spot in what's been a tough time for people in general due to the pandemic.

She says Art provides her a break from all of that.

- Things are starting to get worse before they're going to get better.

So that's kind of, that can be tough, yeah, to think about on a daily basis.

So having an outlet like art to kind of escape that reality sometimes is amazing.

[gentle music] - [Diane] Discover more at instagram.com/baldartist _.

[upbeat music] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Zahra Marwan is an illustrator based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Working with watercolor and ink, she tells stories, connects with her ancestors, embraces her cultural roots and explores her identity.

Here's her story.

[gentle tinkling music] - I use things which are in my day-to-day life or how I live my life.

About people I love and what they do, or things I dream about and memories.

[gentle music continues] In a lot of ways, I feel like I am from two deserts.

There are similarities between the cultures in the way people are generous at heart.

I have some drawings I can show you.

I made this after visiting an island off of Kuwait and seeing the ancient Greek and Dilmun ruins, and thought I'd feel closer to ancestors in that way, [gentle music] When I learned that lucha libre were making masks in me Mexico instead of wrestling.

My dad and the upside-down palm trees, revolving around an old gulf song about wondering if people still remember you.

[gentle music continues] And other things like stories about other people who I'm not related to, like Federico Garcia Lorca and making art in times of fascism.

Or wrestling my own thoughts like the old Persian miniatures.

Or my grandmother who, at the time, seemed very modern to have smoked cigarettes.

[laughs] Another story, again revolving around my dad, who I miss very much, and one thing to be a photographer, looking closely at the negatives.

[gentle music continues] I'm just usually talking about what I know and what I've lived, and it becomes sort of an identity issue, I suppose.

I still have very deep connections to Kuwait.

My mom lives there now.

I have very fond memories of my childhood there and I go back every summer.

One thing we would often do is eat watermelon after lunch.

Family afternoons last into the night.

It's loud.

The food's good.

And people take naps while you're sitting with them, and nobody leaves.

[laughs] [gentle music continues] Sometimes it's hard to explore the stigma of identity.

You acknowledge who you are and you like being who you are, but some people don't agree, or they find reasons to tell you why you're not the story which you're presenting.

Being stateless means you're born without any recognition from sovereign nation.

In my personal case, my mom is a citizen and my father wasn't.

So I was born stateless like him.

Although they were both from the same communities of southwestern Iranians who migrated into the Arab Gulf.

I use a lot of imagery or things I see around Albuquerque or stories of friends and their families to show that I'm also home here, that I'm embraced here, that I've become a person who feels like they're from here.

A fellow artist at the Hardwood Art Center came to my studio one day and asked if I wanted some pears.

So my friend, Eric Romero, we went downstairs, he climbed the tree and started chucking pears down.

And I suppose that's what it feels like to feel welcomed.

[laughs] [gentle music] When I immigrated here as a child, I was lucky to be in a public school where educators told me I should be proud of my language and my culture.

I've made so many good friends here who are so different than me culturally yet tell me things like "You're one of us."

[gentle music continues] An acquaintance I met, a musician named Noah Martinez who played the guitarron, and I read an article about him, and he had mentioned that he likes to walk from Albuquerque to Chimayo to feel closer to his ancestors, and I obviously resonated with that in a lot of ways.

Like you feel so extracted that you try to hold onto whatever you can to feel closer to your family or who you are.

[gentle music continues] I keep creating art because it helps me connect to these larger ideas and feelings.

[upbeat music] - Find out more at zahramarwan.com.

And here's a look at this week's art history.

[upbeat music continues] That wraps it up for this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

We'd like to hear what you think, so like us on Facebook, join the conversation on Twitter, and visit our webpage for features and to watch episodes of the show.

We hope to see you next time.

I'm Diane Masciale.

Thank you for watching WLIW Arts Beat.

[upbeat music continues] Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

[upbeat music continues]