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with Neil Williams
Cream: You didn't start painting until after retirement. Did you have secret dreams of being an artist before that?
Neil Williams: In High School I was an artist and I took art in college during the last 2 years. I minored in art and upon graduation, the university hired me to teach art during the summer sessions. During the last 2 years in college, in order to pay my tuition and other fees, I painted portraits. While in the army I did several paintings for exhibit in an art contest and I won several prizes. After leaving the army, I took a course in design at Chicago University Graduate School (I was thinking of teaching art). Failing to find a good job teaching art, I entered the Postal system where I worked my way up to General Foreman. During this period I used very little of my artist talent except around the house. I planned to go back into art after retirement. My secret dream was to do all types of art. I tried sculpture after I retired and found out I could do this pretty well.
Cream: You mentioned that you paint in order to document your life in certain ways. In what ways did you express this wish before you began painting?
Neil Williams: I would visit museums and enjoyed seeing others' expression of the times in my youth. I encouraged and helped others in the pursuit of their art (my nephews -one of them is a good artist, painting murals and all kinds of things).
Cream: What paint medium and application techniques did you gravitate towards as you began painting? Why?
Neil Williams: Oil painting. From my high school days I was an exceptional charcoal and figure drawer and cartoonist. Since the Depression was on, I had no money to buy oil or oil mediums. So I stuck to the cheaper ones which were pencil, charcoal and pastels. It was after I finished college that I could afford to buy oil. I was inspired by realism and I would attempt to put life into my paintings and drawings by doing figures and scenes of action and people doing lively things. Impressionism was a big movement during my early days - when the artists found out that the camera could make perfect pictures they began to change the style to impressionism - Monet and that bunch. I did dabble in this style as well as all of the different art movements until I found out I liked realism best. In the field of black art I did a lot of hip-hoppers. The Black Art Movement began after WWII and started influencing artists in America. I found out I liked this too. I've done quite a few pictures in memory of things that happened when I was young - as you see in that Old Barbershop painting I did. Black art depicts current urban scenes that go on in my world today.
Cream: Describe the most notable changes in African-American culture in your lifetime, as you see it.
Neil Williams: Art is part of culture. European art dominated American culture prior to WWII. After this, art changed toward modern art and African-American art that originated here. African-American artists began to be able to show their art with the decline in prejudice. They were able to present their pictures to the public on a freer basis than before that.
Cream: Your paintings depict everything from workers in the field, to hospital waiting rooms, to urban riots. In your opinion, what are the foremost concerns facing African American artists as they tell their story through creative means?
Neil Williams: Finding good sponsors to show their art and promote it. The most important thing would be to be able to share the African-American experience to as many people as possible. This way all people will have a better understanding of each other and an improved sensitivity to various experiences, through art.
doing my oil painting in the back yard, because of the fumes from the turpentine (turpentine
will weaken your eyes over of time). I like the landscape and the view - I have seven large terraces filled with trees and flowers; it's quiet, secluded and pleasant.
They call it "Patina". That means to give it color. I use burnt umber with a little balck and a little burnt sienna. This is the color nearest to his flesh color. I take acrylic to seal the pores of the clay, then I put on an oil paint with a lot of turpentine.
I work in my kitchen because I can do it at my leisure and watch TV at the same time. In case the phone rings I'm close; if I get hungry I can eat. It's just handy and convenient and the kitchen is fairly large.
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