[MUSIC] Lester Willis was a prolific folk artist, who would paint on wood that he would carve out images on. He would paint on paper. And he often did portraits of his family and friends in the community, of people who he had admired like Reverend Martin Luther King. And his paintings were his way of telling the story of his life. And of his community. And he gave these paintings to family and friends, to put on their wall, as you might put a photograph on the wall. As a reminder of the story of people in his community of Terry, Mississippi. [NOISE]. >> I first began when I was in grammar school, as a little, small kid I always liked to draw. I just want to be drawing something, and, from then on up, I could, just continued on until this period in time, just. Drawing something. Even I could close my eyes and just imagine a certain feature or something, and I could draw it. Going to school, I always liked to, you know, draw, make some little sketches. Lots of time that were, they didn't teach that subject in school, and I. I did just try quite a few times with drawings in school, but that didn't discourage me, I just continued to, you know, sketch. Some of them were my school mates that I used to go to school with, I used to practice barbering, I would cut hair. And seeing them, I could just to try and imitate. In other words, it's a sin that a, a picture would speak louder than words so to speak. You can show through a picture sometime, what you can never actually bring into words. Now this was my cousin. she, after graduation, she had one of those little small clips. And I tried to see if I could sketch out how she looked on her graduation day. And this what I came up with. Pretty good likeness of her. I'll tell you about the walking stick. When I went to school, I used to read about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and all those fellas back then. So George Washington got his name in Cutting down his daddy's cherry tree. He cut down a cherry tree and, become the Father of our Country. Abraham Lincoln made a record for himself, by splitting rails. He got out and, split rails and after all he finally become to be president. And I said to myself, if these fellas. And do something why? I started out to see what I could do with a pocket knife so I take a pocket knife, see when was it, 19, and I believe it's about '36, '34 and I begin making walking sticks. And I tried to place a stick in the hand of every. body around through this community, which I did. But, yeah. Of course, they sold, I sold it very cheap. I got as low as maybe 75 cents for some. And I got as high as 5 and 6 dollars, for some. But I placed a stick in everybody's hand that wanted one. That's what I got some I put the names on. Some I wrote little, you know, phrases and different things. Little glasses. And then little Bible verses. But they sold. They're nice. Sold them til I just got tired of making and see 1933 when the Panic was on. Most all everybody in the community was welfare, you know, the bucket begave, but I kept the wolf away from my door with a walking stick. And that's the truth
