At 112, artist recaptures days of his youth on murals
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Bending over a table or sitting at one, gripping a ballpoint pen, marker, or crayon, Frank Calloway spends his days turning visions from his youth into lively murals - and at 112 years old, the images of his childhood are a window to another time.
Drawn on sheets of butcher paper and sometimes stretching to more than 30 feet long, the works mostly show rural agricultural scenes, with buildings, trains, and vehicles straight out of the early 20th century. And his colorful creations are gaining more attention in the art world.
The works by a man who has lived about half his life in state mental health centers will be part of an exhibit this fall at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. His caretakers have suspended sales of his artwork until after the show after finding out some of his drawings could sell for thousands of dollars.
"They are unique in that they are of a rural, agrarian South, and they speak to a time gone by," said Sara Anne Gibson, executive director of the Kentuck Museum in Northport, Ala., which hosted a monthlong exhibition of Calloway's works two years ago.
Calloway views art as his job and sits at a table by a window drawing for seven to nine hours a day, usually wearing blue denim overalls and a crisp dress shirt, said Nedra Moncrief-Craig, director of Alice M. Kidd Nursing Facility, a state home where Calloway lives.
"He draws all day long except for the time that he spends in activity and eating his meals," Moncrief-Craig said. "That's what he loves to do."
He was born on July 2, 1896, and has lived in mental health centers since 1952, when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Moncrief-Craig said that patient confidentiality prevents her from discussing his condition in depth but did say he shows signs of dementia. He lives in the geriatric division of the home on the Bryce Hospital campus in Tuscaloosa.
Details about Calloway's youth are few. He says he remembers growing up with brothers and, as a "little, bitty, little boy," playing under the quilts his mother made as if they were tents. He has no known family left and there is no record of his being married.
He talks frequently about working hard and mentions laying railroad rails, cutting lumber, farming, and working for a blacksmith, but there are no records of his life before he entered the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation system.
"I couldn't get time to go to school much, stopped in the third-grade reader, that's all I could get, third-grade reader," Calloway said in a recent interview. "A schoolteacher put me to drawing a long time ago, drawing pictures."
But aside from the occasional drawing, his talent lay dormant until he took an art class in the 1980s and began to draw again, which has continued to this day.
Calloway still has a full head of closely cropped white hair, gets around on his own, and goes on excursions and restaurant outings organized by the nursing home, Moncrief-Craig said. He is content being quietly absorbed in his work, but he also enjoys talking if people ask questions.
Calloway's circle of admirers extends outside Alabama.
"There's a presence with him, I'm telling you, that feels angelic," said Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, which will borrow 18 scrolls from Calloway for an exhibit in October called "The Marriage of Art, Science and Philosophy."
Hoffberger said she was charmed by Calloway's personality when she met him earlier this year and equally impressed by his artwork.
"I was very dazzled by his choice of color," she said. "Also, there's a rhythm, maybe dictated by the long sheets of paper that he works on, that makes it seem like he's just going on and on, recording the memories of his life."
