For over 18 years, our non-profit Art Gallery oversaw programs in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Those teaching programs ranged from the west end of the city where children learned to paint in oils in the Portland Library to the east end of town where seniors used brushes to create canvas oil works In the center of the city,
Physically challenged learned the enjoyment of working on pottery at the Cain Center.
I taught participants at Senior House on Muhammad Ali Boulevard and enjoyed the opportunity of guiding the small hands of young children at The Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel. Classes at the Chapel were held in the summer. The Chapel was located across the street from the Clarksdale Housing Project which at the time, was considered a ghetto area of town. We felt the need for the children of the Project to have more in their lives than the crimes they so often witnessed on their street corners.
The Gallery was located a few blocks from the Chapel and during the year I would see some of those children walking down the street. I was proud to see them grow and happy to hear their greetings with the title I had been given in my first weeks at the Chapel, “Paint Lady’.
On the first night of class, I had told the children that they could paint whatever they wanted as this had always been my opening remark to all new students. My next phrase has always been “I never touch your painting. You paint it all.”
The Reverend walked around the room watching the progress of the group and I noticed a look of surprise on his face. A young boy was painting a pair of dice. But in the basement of the Baptist Chapel, a lesson would be learned that night. Before we could get that painting to the drying room, it was stolen.
The uproar that followed the theft ranged from shock to loud indignation. “We know who did it!” “It was wrong to steal that!” “We will make him bring it back!”
And they did. The next week the painting was in the hands of the little artist who was able to complete the last touches on his masterpiece.
One evening in the third summer of classes I arrived at The Chapel and stood with a group waiting for the Reverend to meet us and open the door.
After a few minutes, Emory walked over to me and said, “Paint Lady, I can get us in there.”
“No, Emory, we will wait for the Reverend,” I told him.
I thought about how well Emory worked with his hands in painting and also in showing the other children how to reach up into the down slot of the soft drink machine and pull out a free drink.
To avoid that temptation, the Reverend turned the soft drink machine to the wall during our painting class.
When the Reverend did not appear after another ten minutes, Emory again approached me with his offer.
“Emory, even if we did get in this door, there are doors inside there where our paints are locked up.”
We had to skip classes that evening. The next morning as I was teaching a Senior class in painting at The Chapel, the Reverend came over to offer an apology for the mix-up and lockout. I told him of Emory’s comment. He laughed and with a flourish of his hand dismissed the idea.
In a few minutes, after thinking better of the comment, he returned and asked me, “Did Emory say HOW he would get you inside the Chapel?”
I managed to keep a straight face as I replied, “No. He did not.”
Soft drink machines have haunted me since the Chapel classes. Every time I see one I think of Emory and the Reverend and many young children and then in my mind, I hear their endearing greetings when they saw me walking on the streets of the Phoenix Hill Neighborhood, “Hey, Paint Lady!!”