We were asked by the local Dallas PBS station to let them do a bit about us as Texas Art pioneers. Well, I’m really unsure it is pioneers or just folks and places that have put in time in the Texas art scene, but either way I guess later this year marks 40 years of putting art on the walls and rounding up celebrations for the creative human spirit.
You know that is what an opening is all about, the celebration. Artists rarely are comfortable in the setting of being the center of attention amidst all of their creative outputs, but get a room full of artwork, the artist and people wanting to see and talk to the artist and each other about the joys of expression, then the world opens up.
I will never tire of that celebration of human spirit. You wanna talk about freedom? Even in times and places of repression and banning, you can not hold back the creative expression. It is the fuel of humanity in so many forms.
As we work with the producers for this honored spot, we have been going through our documentation of years meeting and visiting artists. There are many memories we treasure of visits to artists and James Harold Jennings of King, North Carolina is one of the favorites.
King, NC was a long way from Texas, but when we made it to his place the skies always opened up with sunshine and joy. We would let him know we were on the way by sending is sister-in-law a letter with a window of our arrival.
James Harold Jennings made his lair a circle of school buses with carved and painted elements. Within the circle Jennings made his home with his cats. He mainly worked outside on cutting, carving and painting his bright colored and joyful constructions.
When we drove up, Jennings would meet us at his handmade colorful wooden gate and whirligig construction. He would lead us inside his lair and we’d sit for the next few hours visiting on big stones fashioned as stools for us all.
Conversation was slow paced and slowly the shy kitties of James’s world came out from every hidden spot in the lair of school buses. They came to James like he was the Buddha and they worshiped at his feet.
One of gifts we received from James besides the obvious calming of the soul as the world outside halted and the world inside Jennings’ world slowed to a pace of simple treasures and bold expressions, was the sweet life of of his pets.
We too gathered to James as a guru of the honored things in life. Creative expression, nature, slow thought and sincere conversation, plus the world of craft beers. Yes, craft beer.
In those times, w\our budget didn’t warrant fancy craft beer, as they were our lean years of tongue swelling beer. It was what we could afford. But James loved good beer and taught us about craft beer before it was hardly a thing. He liked to start out his day drinking something light in some form of dark beer and he in no way drank to get drunk as he savored each sip.
We one time brought him our proud Texas beer of Shiner and his answer to the gift was “Thank you but not much beer”. So we searched to find something he liked that we could offer, finally hitting on Mackeson Dark Chocolate Beer as our gift each visit.
Our stories and loving memories of James Harold Jennings and his artwork are numerous, but all include craft beer and the love of his cats.