There is a place where people wake up hungry in the morning and go to bed hungry at night. These people are our neighbors. The place they live is called Trenton.
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A-TEAM Artists
Rosalyn Anderson
Born: October 13, 1960
Trenton, NJ
I like to do art because of the anger that I have inside. When I get mad, I use bright colors, and when I'm furious, I do dark colors. Altogether, it comes out to be a picture. I take my frustrations out on my paintings. Like yesterday, if I had black and purple paint, I would have taken a sheet outside and just drawn. It would have looked like spiders everywhere. I was furious.
Sometimes, I'm not mad. When I'm happy, I use yellow and orange. Then I want to make a beach and a sunset, and I'll be sitting on the beach. I'm really going to do that one day - sit on a beach and just color.
Matthew Lee Ashburn
Born: September 13,1958
Virginia Bach, VA
I started doing art at Christopher House. My counselor told me to try it and see how I liked it. I found out I liked it. It's fun; I just draw for fun. I think about what I want to do, what colors I want.
I don't do it fast because I'll be thinking. I like to be by myself when I do art so I can think.
Brook Beatty
Born: May 6, 1971
Trenton, NJ
Making dolls is the best talent I ever had. The dolls are like my children: there are so many of them, and they make me smile. I name them after people I meet or after famous people. I hope a lot of people see my dolls. I would like people to recognize me for my art, my dolls and my talent. Someone might want to use my dolls in a movie or on TV.
It makes me feel good to make dolls. They're my ideas, they come from me. I like to see other people enjoying my dolls. That makes me feel like I've done something nice for someone.
Nathaniel Booth
Born: June 8, 1963
Asbury, New Jersey
When I was a kid. I loved to draw and doodle. I was a big fan of Bruce Lee, and when the Enter The Dragon movie came out, there was a big poster for it that they were giving away. I didn't get a poster, so I went to school and got a big piece of paper from the teacher so I could make my own poster. It came out perfect. I was satisfied with it, and that's how I knew I could draw.
I draw how I feel inside. Most of the time I'm in good spirits. If I'm feeling not so good inside, I draw a dreary picture, like a gloomy day. After I draw it, it brings me back around because I've achieved something that came out all right.
I just got back into drawing this year. I have a very complicated life. The only thing I ever went to school for was welding. Everything else I just picked up on my own. I was blessed with very talented hands. I think that building houses and welding are art forms, too. Art is beauty so if you're building a beautiful house, you're doing art. In welding, the art is in the way you put the pieces together.
Patrick Bowen
Born: January 16, 1984
Trenton, NJ
When I was little, my mom told me I used pencils and crayons to draw on the walls. One Christmas, my aunt bought me a few sketchpads. Pretty much after that right there, I started copying cartoon characters like Tweety Bird and Sylvester. Then when I was about 15, I stepped up into doing self-portraits and landscapes.
I just stayed with it. I liked doing it. When I'd be painting or drawing at home where I was the oldest of five brothers, no one would mess with me. I'd be in my own little zone. I could create anything that came to mind.
I try to make my art realistic. I like things to be kind of perfect. In the next few years, I would like to have a store with all my paintings on the walls. As soon as someone buys one, I'll put another in its place, and I'll keep myself going that way.
My art expresses my feelings. I like the idea that when people look at my art, they get the feelings, too.
Derrick Branch
Born: May 4, 1963
Trenton, New Jersey
I was born doing art. I'm the last of ten kids and my brothers and sisters were already drawing pictures, so I picked it up from them. My mother took up architecture in high school. I was inspired a lot, too, by Marvel Comics. The Marvel Comic characters are more dynamic than the DC characters.
I continued to draw in school, and I made a lot of friends through my artwork because I would draw things for all the kids. Basically, I was the most artistic boy in school during my elementary school days.
I grew up and started getting into my own art. I practiced and practiced until I got comfortable drawing anything, like buildings, animals, people, and anything abstract. I have a great love for animals, especially cats, and I always try to incorporate animals in my art and into my writing and poetry.
I feel my art is unique to my perspective. I fall in love with all my art. I have an intimate relationship with all my pictures. At times, I have felt that my art was my only friend.
Willie Mae Carroll
Born: April 16, 1950
Trenton, NJ
I started doing art 'cause Susan kept bugging me. Well, she persuaded me. I just happened to go home and kept thinking about what she said," All you have to do is try. You'll see, you can do it."
I had the pencils and paper, and I was staring at a photograph of my Pastor. That's how I got the first idea. The picture was of my Pastor and her husband on a cruise, and I drew the sunset. I enjoyed doing the picture. It took a lot of stress off me. I liked the picture. Then I looked in my prayer book, and there were pictures in it.
Something told me I could do that. I started drawing again, and I drew a country scene. I love going out in the country and looking. It's so much beauty out there. Even the cows and horses are God's work. The air is more fresh out there.
I draw whatever comes to mind. I even surprise myself. I loved doing art. I do, I like it now.
Ron "Nikon Ron" Carter
Born: May 29, 1945
Richmond, Virginia
As a kid, I thought about art a lot but I decided that I had no drawing talent. When I was 21, I bought a little spider camera on the street. It fascinated me. Six months later, I bought a Polaroid. I liked that I could get pictures instantly.
When I worked at Champale as a machine operator, one of the security guards suggested that I take a photography course. After the first lesson, I wanted to quit. I didn't understand the multi-syllable words and I didn't feel I had enough prestige to be a photographer, but the professor told me to give myself a chance and that I could be a good photographer. I did the first assignment and fell in love with photography. I didn't have much education, but I've always been a reader so I started reading everything I could about photography.
I was always an introvert. I'd walk into a social gathering and head for the back corner, but I realized that if I wanted to be a successful photographer, I'd have to converse with other people and get well versed socially and intellectually. I'd never had those skills before.
I worked hard on my own, but I didn't feel like an artist until the winter of 2009. I had just started messing around with computers and I discovered my art in Photoshop. When I started digitizing my photos, I rediscovered the feeling I had had as a kid trying to do art. I felt good!
I wanted to be involved with an art community. You can learn from other artists. I like looking at artwork and talking to other artists. I had read about the A-TEAM in the Trentonian newspaper and someone on the street told me that the A-TEAM could help me sell my art. The artists of the A-TEAM try to help artists and other people in their community. I like to do that, too. What can I contribute? I have so much to give artistically.
Carla Coleman
Born: July 23, 1968
Trenton, NJ
I started doing art in junior high school at art class. I keep doing it because it's fun. You can mess up the whole room; you can leave the kids at school or home while you go to art class at the soup kitchen.
Doing art makes me feel happy. It comes from my heart. Sometimes my pictures remind me of the outside. Sometimes, they remind me of my nieces and nephews when they were little because then I always brought them with me to the soup kitchen. I especially think of Tareek. He is nice, and he gives me respect. He asks me for money, but he gives me money, too. He's the first one I brought to the soup kitchen.
I love making collages. I can put a lot of things in them. I get to pick whatever pictures I like, and I can put them together any way I want.
I thank my dad for first bringing me to the soup kitchen. I was about 12 and the soup kitchen was still over on East State Street. My dad passed away six years ago. He was kind and he made me happy. If people messed with me, he backed me up. I miss him a lot. When I do art, I think about him.
James Coleman
Born: November 14, 1970
Somerville, NJ
As a beginning artist, I never thought I could actually draw. As I came to the art room at the soup kitchen, my fiancé encouraged me to start drawing. Most of the time, I draw things that make me happy. I draw things like hearts, animals in harmony and sometimes just happy people. I would like to continue to draw and see if I could get better.
Jean Davis
Born: March 24,1947
Dallas, Tx
I've been doing art on and off all my life, but I never did have any formal training. I just do what I feel that day, and I mess with it until I get it how I want.
Doing art relaxes me and occupies my mind. It keeps me level. I came here from Texas when my dad was sick, and it was like coming into a box with no real scenic beauty to it. In Dallas, I could look out my window and see a lot of open space. Now I take those memories and put them into my pictures.
I use acrylic paint, and I build it up layer by layer to give it shine and texture so that it doesn't look flat on the paper. The first layer is always light, so I put more layers on until I get the balance I want. I know a picture is done if I like it. If you notice, most of my pictures are very colorful. I like color. West of the Mississippi, all the colors are very intense.
I am a very straightforward person. I tell people exactly what I think, and my pictures are like me. They are bold. Also, I can do a scene over and over, and it will never be the same. That's like me, too. I'm different each day.
Tammy Terese Faulkner
Born: January 2, 1961
Panama City, Florida
I have always done drawing. I've never taken art lessons except for what they taught in public schools. I first did cartoons. I liked Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Winnie-the-Pooh. You know how your mother always tells you not to draw on the walls? Well, I always did it, and I still do it even now.
I have three daughters and whatever they were into - Strawberry Shortcake, the Smurfs even - I'd draw them right on the walls of my kids' room.
Now I draw everything, mostly for my family and for the children of my friends. When I look at a space, I imagine what would look good in that space, and then I draw it. For my artwork, I use whatever is available. Usually that's a pencil.
Art fills my time. I always have to be active. I get a feeling of accomplishment when I finish something. I know a drawing is done when I think it looks right. If I see something in my head that I like, I draw it or paint it. What other people think about my art is not important to me. Everyone does something different. Art is just what I do.
Steve Fortune
Born: July 27,1975
Riverhead, NY
I've been doing art since I was a kid. It was something I was born with. My dad was an artist and his dad was an artist, too. My dad said it ran in our family. I started with pencil and I drew guns and karate figures. My dad was showing me how to draw.
When I was in elementary school, I was in the "I Have a Dream Program" and they told me that I was one of the top artists in the class. My art was entered in a lot of contests. I've kept doing art all my life, in hospitals, in college and in technical school.
These days, I'm doing a lot of abstracts and portraits. When I look at a picture or listen to music, I get a feeling for it, so I put the feeling on canvas. I know when the picture is done just by looking at it.
Doing art makes me feel better after I'm done. It's good for my brain. It releases stress to draw a picture.
Lonnie Green
Born: August 25, 1956
Trenton, NJ
I like beautifying things, but I'm really more of a builder. I guess art is something you get better at as you go along. I'm just starting.
I started doing art to pass the time. Now, it relaxes my brain. When you focus, it's beneficial. It's pleasurable.
I think I'll keep doing it. I like to create. Art is peaceful and develops the ability to express yourself.
I'll get there one of these days - to a place of peace and love.
Randy Harms
Born: May 4, 1956
Alton, Illinois
I've done art since I was a kid. My parents told me I used to bring art into Sunday school before I even went to kindergarten. I've always loved bright, intense, rich colors. When I was a kid, I would start and stop doing art depending on my moods and confidence.
Recently, I had a hospital stay that brought me back to art, and I've been doing more in the past year than I'd done in the last ten. I'm extremely happy about this. There was something there, a fear I think, that was getting in the way and then it just was like my expressiveness just exploded. I don't know why things changed.
Now, my art is just flowing through me. I feel a lot more relaxed. There are things coming out in my art that I don't recognize. It kind of astounds me.
It's nice that other people like my art, but that's not the point. I'm glad they like it but just producing artwork is the best part of life for me. It gives my life meaning.
John Hayes
Born: November 10, 1966
Trenton, NJ
I was in sixth grade when I first did art. We had art in school and I liked it. I liked the colors and the things we had to draw, especially still life like fruit in baskets. I used pastels, and the grapes actually looked like grapes. Then, I just kept going.
I feel like I'm escaping when I do art. I lock myself into whatever picture I'm drawing. The house could be burning down, and I'd still be drawing.
John Hendryx
Born: February 28, 1959
Trenton, New Jersey
When I was eight years old, my father drew a picture of a teenage devil. I picked up the drawing and drew it also and my drawing looked better than his. That was the first time I understood what art really is.
I love colors, especially pastel colors, and texture. I like to use graphite and charcoal, too, because I think black and white gives a picture more of a real look. I love the planning that goes into making a picture come complete.
When I do art, I focus totally on it and forget about everything else. I love the time by myself. I might have problems bothering me but I don't think about them when I'm doing art. It's like fishing for me, like being one with nature. That's why I love still-life. It has to do with nature and you can look at one small section of a scene - like a corner of a kitchen or half a table - and still make a beautiful picture out of it.
I do art for myself. It's like praying. I get visions of how a picture will look when it's finished. I believe these visions come from God.
William Hodges
Born: January 2, 1961
Trenton, NJ
My art is almost like a spiritual part of me. to draw a portrait I have to be in a different state of mind, like I see the soul of the person. The image isn't naturalistic, but like I'm coming in touch with things beyond what you can see, sometimes I doubt that I can produce anything artistically. I have to let it come naturally, not by analyzing.
I hope through my ability that I will be successful. If this is my calling, I'd like to reach out and help people like they've helped me regain some self-esteem. I'd like to feel that I don't have to have someone else make me feel like a whole person, but that I have some self-love. I'd like to make people happy and to make something unique. People will appreciate seeing something that I make using my own creativity.
In Memoriam
Antoinette Ingram
Born: December 31, 1959
Asbury, NJ
I started doing art when I came to the soup kitchen. I wanted to find peace inside myself. I like using paint and feathers and some pastels when I want to. I like to do art so I don't take my anger out on Susan or the other people at the soup kitchen. My favorite colors are green, yellow, red and black.
It feel like your body is clearing when you do art. At first, you feel heavy and then once you start, you get light. I take the art skills as they come to me, and I try to take opportunity when it comes, too If someone wants a picture, I do it.
It feels like your body is clearing when you do art. At first, you feel heavy and then once you start, you get light. I take the art skills as they come to me and I try to take opportunity when it comes, like if someone wants a picture, I do it.
I like my art to be in art shows because I like the people I meet there. I like to know their opinions of my art. That helps me get more ideas, and I like being around different kinds of people.
I hope the people who see my art get joy and peace.
Carol Johnson
Born: March 1, 1943
Lambertville, New Jersey
I had art class in elementary school in Lambertville and I liked it a lot. I always told my mother that I wanted to be an artist, but she told me there was no money in it. She wanted me to be a hairdresser because there were no black salons in Lambertville and I was very good at doing hair, but I had seven sisters and I always did their hair. I didn't like it.
I put art in the back of my mind and forgot about it until the earthquake that happened in Haiti in 2009. My ex—husband is from Haiti and two of my children are half Haitian. My granddaughter's father also lives in Haiti. His leg was broken in the earthquake. I felt a lot of love for the Haitian people and all people.
As a child, I wasn't hugged a lot. I felt like I was the black sheep of the family. With my artwork, I feel loved. When people enjoy my work it gives me a good feeling, It's like being loved. It's overwhelming.
I like making people smile. It makes me feel appreciated and warm inside. Now that I'm on the A-TEAM, I can have that feeling all the time.
Lorna Lorraine
Born: February 24, 1953
St. Andrew, Jamaica
I started art in elementary school, but I was never formally trained. It was just a hobby. I appreciate beauty so I would do things just for my enjoyment.
I also write poetry. I express myself better in writing than I do verbally. It comes easier for me to put my thoughts and feelings on paper. My expression flows more freely. As a poet, I decorate paper with my words just as I use a brush on canvas when I paint.
Writing and art are therapeutic for me. Poetry is like a quick way to say what I want to say. In visual art, the colors and the images that dance across the page have a therapeutic effect that puts me in a mellow mood and sends me to a different place and time.
Frankie Mack
Born: July 23, 1963
Trenton, NJ
I've been doing art ever since I was a little boy. I even did it better when I was small. I used to draw better. Now, I don't draw at all. I just put colors together - it's much easier. really, it's not that easy because you have to know which colors to put together. I try to match them up using different shapes.
I would like to paint a really big picture. It would be colors and shapes, and it would cover a whole wall.
James "Tex" Mentis
Born: December 14,1949
Trenton, New Jersey
I started doing art about six years ago. At the time, I was driving go-go girls to work. I went from place to place, from bridge to bridge, from river to river. I started seeing lots of different scenes. I just took a piece of paper and started sketching. It was something to do. I was tired of being bored while I waited for the go-go girls to finish.
I just picked art up. I never went to school. I do art from my imagination. It's like going into another world. I work with colored pencils because they're easier than paint - simpler, too. I'm used to holding sticks because I used to work on a farm in Pennsylvania putting fences up and barbed wire.
I would like people to see my talent. I don't know what makes me a good artist, but I've had a lot of compliments from my art. I used to sit in different restaurants and bars in Trenton and do my sketching. People, even with college degrees, would sit and watch me and ask me if I draw people. I'd say, "FNo, I do not." I look at it this way: to draw people, you have to go to school. It's hard to draw people. With buildings, you can use straight lines. I'm just not into people. I'm quiet mostly.
I have a Yamaha 650. I like to get on my bike and get lost.
Taron Nelson
Born: March 16, 1986
Trenton, New Jersey
I've been doing art a long time ago, since I was five. I love art because it's fun. Mostly I draw with colored pencils. I don't like crayons too much because it's too easy to mess out of the lines and you can't erase wax. I figured out how to do art by myself. Nobody taught me. I used to draw Ninja turtles but now I draw different kinds of things from my imagination.
Being an artist was my step pop's dream for me. I was 16 when he started dating my mom, and he knew I had talent because he had seen me draw. After he died, I saw his spirit. It woke me up one night when I was asleep. I was scared, but he told me it was him and that I didn't need to be afraid. He told me to follow in his footsteps and be an artist.
When I came to the soup kitchen in September, 2007, I saw the art on the walls so I went to the art group. That afternoon, I went to the cemetery and told my step pop what I did. I told him, "I'm following your heart right now. I'll make you happy."
Dennis Randall
Born: June 16, 1951
Trenton, NJ
When I was six years old, my mother gave me a camera for Christmas. It was a red box Kodak. She had a camera and liked taking pictures so she thought I would, too.
The first roll of film I didn't know anything about it! When I came to the end of the roll, I just took it out of the camera, exposed it to the light and tried to develop it in a saucer of water. My mother told me that you had to take the film to the store to get it developed. She took it for me to a hardware store named Blake's on North Clinton Avenue. When I was at Mercer County Community College, I learned to develop my own film. I was taking a course in communications then, and I was very interested in movies.
I liked movies even when I was in grade school but not the kind of movies that most kids liked. I loved the photography in foreign films; especially one film by Frederico Fellini called La Strada. The photography was like a painting, a live painting in black and white. Fellini and Truffaut made films about childhood from what they saw around them. I try to do that, too.
I think my style is impressionistic. I try to capture emotions. I want my pictures to help people bring back their own memories and feelings.
RavenFeather
Born: October 17, 1963
Trenton, NJ
I do art to express whatever emotions I'm going through. The first interest I had in art, I received from my father. He used to do sketches of whatever came to his mind. He passed away from cancer when I was in my twenties, and I became determined to one day share my love of art with others.
I didn't really take art seriously until I was in my mid-thirties. After lot of stress was taken out of my life a few years ago, I had more time for art. One of the things I love is seeing colors coming together. I used to hide my paintings but now I have learned to enjoy showing them. I volunteer in a friend's fifth grade classroom. She teaches social studies, and I help her to create art projects for the children.
I like to find out what people think and if they can figure out what I was feeling when I was done. I learn things about myself from making art and also from what other people say about it.
People often ask me about my name. My heritage is one-quarter Native American. Once, on my way to a social gathering called a pow-wow, I had to choose a Native American name for myself. If I didn't choose one, I would be given one at a name-giving ceremony, but I wanted to pick my own. Driving through the mountains of Pennsylvania, I saw a raven flying toward the truck I was in. It flew head-on straight at the passenger side window. The raven and I looked at each other, and in that moment, the name came to me. Just then, the raven flew up and over the truck and disappeared. The raven brought me my name, and now I've had it since 1994.
I promised myself and my father that I will keep doing art, without a doubt.
Walter Roberts, Jr.
Born: March 19, 1975
Riverhead, NY
Art was always -- since I was born. I just molded it to what I just molded it to what I wanted it to be.
The first art I remember doing was making wiremen out of radio wire and aluminum foil. I had no toys, like GI Joe, so I made my own. I had drawings. I didn't learn how to do shading until I went to Alfred Reed School where my math teacher in 6th grade showed me how. His name was Mr. Kessler and he showed me how to shade as a way of getting me to sit down and do my schoolwork. He was the start of everything.
In Junior High School, there was a kid who drew people, and that's when I started doing people, to I liked using black and white -- and I still do -- because it gives more life, more emotion. It's like you're right there.
I do art because it's a challenge and it's like being able to beat the person you used to be. It's a competition between the "old" me and the "new" me. the new me is winning because I keep getting better. I'm actually better now than I was a week ago, I need to do art to feel complete. Once I finish a drawing, I sit back and feel, "Now I can rest."
I want to see the A-TEAM artists become something. If we keep turning out good art, eventually somebody is going to like something. If we work hard enough, we will succeed.
In Memoriam
Annabelle Rose
Born: November 13, 1951
Died: February 19, 2006
Trenton, NJ
I started out drawing cartoons when I was four or five years old because I was depressed a lot coming up as a poor person living in the ghetto. A ghetto child has a lot of experience. It's like being raised up in a jungle. Your mother raises you up as a mother and father, and she's taking care of other people's children, too, and you're living off of five pounds of chicken backs for 49 cents a pound.
The best things we had to read were cartoons in the newspaper - Snoopy, Peanuts, Nancy. You had to steal the papers off people's porches. Everything I did as a child to occupy my mind goes into my art and it made me a happier child.
If I knew then what I know now, I'd probably be a better person, and my name might be up in lights. I might have been in the Hall of Fame. I know I could have written a poetry book * or had my art recognized. Maybe I still have time.
Today, art eases my mind. I'd love to get a group together of troubled kids with a bad outlook like I used to have.** They get incarcerated 'cause they don't know they have talent, and no one gives them a chance to show it. If I could help them, they wouldn't have to go through the trials and tribulations I've had to go through in this life.
* Annabelle did succeed in writing and illustrating a book of poems. She titled the book "Climbing the Mountain."
** As a memorial to Annabelle, the A-TEAM established a program called "Annabelle's A-TEAM Kids." In which the A-TEAM artists take children in the TASK community to art shows, dance performances, concerts and other cultural events in and around Trenton.
Herman Rose
Born: August 10, 1953
Trenton, NJ
I have been making art for more than twenty years. A white dude on death row when I was in jail in my twenties taught me how to make frames out of cigarette packs. Now, I also make crosses and boxes. I do my own style.
I use any kind of paper and plastic garbage bags and tape. I sew the frames together with string and a needle I made from a piece of plastic. Glue would mess up the pictures. I pick pictures that I think go well with the frames, and I coat them with clear tape so they last. Making frames lets my mind set on one thing. It keeps me out of trouble. Ever since I've been weaving frames and crosses, I've been glad. When I'm doing art, I feel perfect.
Mary Shannon
Born: February 6, 1950
Bronx, New York
I always liked clothes, textiles and color. Color is wonderful. It can bring beauty, warmth and it reflects a person's individuality. I love apricot and celadon, together or separately. They remind me of California, the tropics and the ocean. I painted all the walls and ceilings in my house apricot.
I used to belong to a photo club where I saw pictures of the sky and buildings in Greece. I thought they were beautiful, and I wanted to see if I could paint things that I thought were beautiful.
One day a friend of mine, who is a member of the A-TEAM artists, showed me a painting he'd done that I liked a lot. I went with him to the A-TEAM art room at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen to see what the artists were doing. When I got there, I felt like I couldn't draw, but I got encouragement, so I kept trying and finally my persistence paid off. It felt good to get something down on paper that started out as just an idea in my head.
I started with watercolor paint. I like the way watercolor looks. It seems real to me. I think I'll keep doing art because I have a lot of pictures in my mind that I want to express. There are some things that I want to get out that I can't make yet. They don't come out of my hand, but I'm going to keep trying.
Charles Smith
Born: March 20,1951
Jersey City, New Jersey
My art came to me in 1970. Why it did…that's the part I can't figure out. It just popped up. When I was at Junior 5, an art teacher showed me how to do stars and that was that, but by the time I was 19 and trying to learn to read, I started scribbling and scrabbling. I learned to draw just by doing it.
I do space pictures. At first, I did cities, then I caught on to space ideas. I made space ships. I can also make cars and robots. I make some crazy robots – weird faces and crazy hats. I draw robots that look out-of-this-world and cars that could be on the moon.
I was always into space because we're living on a planet and we're in space. I'll always have my space cities. You can't get no further out than that.
Art makes my mind bigger because it shows me something I've never seen before. I'm not getting it from nowhere else than from my head….and God. This art right here, it's all about God. He's giving me all the visions I see. One day I'm gonna make a whole world and it's gonna be a space ship. We'll have our own sun.
In Memoriam
Macon Tanner
Born: August 26, 1945
Trenton, NJ
I started doing art when I was four years old. It was my hobby. I did clay sculpture, oil painting, finger painting, and I made all kinds of models: airplanes, cars, boats. I always, always got "A's" in art in school. In the early 60's, when I was 18, I started selling my sketches on the street. These days, I still do sketches on the street. I use graphite instead of charcoal because it shows up better.
For 41 years, I worked in restaurants. I started as a dishwasher and ended up as a head chef. During this time, I learned how to make ice sculptures. Now, I have stopped cooking to go back to school. I hope to be an engineer in prototype car design. I already have made more than 300 prints. They are up for sale.
I do art for enjoyment. I always have liked it and I can make money at it. It holds my composure together. Knowing how to do something worthwhile with my skills makes me feel good, and I think it makes other people feel good, too.
Kevin Waverly
Born: August 30, 1974
Trenton, NJ
When I was in Trenton High, I used to take up art class. It was a fun thing to do. I used to draw a lot. It kept me from getting bored. Mostly, I drew house and cars. When I got out of high school, I stopped drawing. I just stayed home and watched TV.
Then, my friend Shorty told me to take up art again at the soup kitchen. I said, I'll be there" but I didn't go. I thought I might have lost my touch. I was scared and shy. I wanted to see what the other artists' meeting was if I did some art. So, I did a picture and showed it to Susan. she said, "That's good. You should keep drawing."
When I went to the next artists' meeting, they talked about how they do their art, like Shortly told about how learned to make frames and stuff. Listening and seeing the art brought ideas into my head - " I could do this, I could do that."
I feel good about doing art again. I feel peace and quiet when I do it. I do whatever comes out brain. I know how my hands are, and I want to see what my hands are going to do. If feel bad about what come out, I know I messed up. Then I go back over it until it makes me feel good.
My goal is keep getting better at drawing. I know I'll be getting better when I'm not nervous about it anymore.
Demond Williams
Born: October 20, 1974
Trenton, NJ
I started doing art when I was two years old. The first thing I drew was a Mickey Mouse placemat. My mother saved it. Ever since then, I've had a love for doing art, and I was always encouraged by my parents.
I expanded on my art when I was coming up as a kid by doing graffiti and defacing buildings. During those times, I had a love for comic books and cartoons. I wanted to be a cartoonist.
Then, it came to a time in the mid-80's when I started working on cardboard. I used cardboard as my canvas because I couldn't afford any other material to draw on. I would design the cardboards that break-dancers would dance on. I would decorate the cardboards with graffiti. That right there, was when something just popped with me. I loved the texture and the way the colors looked on cardboard.
From that point on, I've been doing all kinds of different things and using all kinds of mediums. My way of doing art is to create images from positions that seem odd and hard to capture. I try to draw images at strange angles that make a two-dimensional picture appear to be three-dimensional.
Art gives people a feeling for how I view the world. It has always been my first love, after my family and God.
Dlaby Hodges-Woods
Born: August 13, 1962
Trenton, NJ
I learned how to knit when I was nine or ten years old and how to crochet when I was twelve. I saw afghans - they were beautiful - and I wanted to make my own. A girlfriend's mother taught me how to crochet, and my mother took me out to buy supplies.
I also used to sew and draw and play the piano. My brother William and my sister Tina and I even formed our own band called the Hodges Power Three. We played R&B. Out of all the talents I used to do, crocheting became my love when I was fourteen.
I feel that my art today has greatly improved. Now I make pictures. I make things that mean something, not just blankets. The ideas for my work just come to me. I look at yarn in a certain color and right away different patterns come into my head. I really don't know how this happens.
Doing art makes me feel great, like I've accomplished something. I like creating things. I really, really do.
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