| Show negro painter Is a real genius sees pictures in air and impulse forces him to paint them washington ue bees pictures in the air and Is possessed by some demon or uncontrolled force until be puts them on canvas all his life he lias been seeing pictures and has felt the urge to paint them into the corn weave of his being run dark and bloody threads the murder of his father the cruelty of a stepfather the benign influence of a catholic who tried to teach him painting icv oral attempts at suicide the death of die halde of Is youth mw at alfr a in on apart ment hanse here jesse oliver ford B uneducated untutored in the of his art Is producing oil paintings that have been exhibited by he washington arts club noted artists were unwilling to believe that tace were the work of an untrained roan until iliev visited him in the basement of lie apart ments seventeenth and R streets and him at work A modest man Is jese ford quiet mannered courteous kindly disposed he has a keenly intelligent mind how did you happen to take up painting he was asked 1 I coulden couldn t help it the thing comes on me when I 1 am eating mopping up a floor or walking the street sand I 1 must go to my room and the picture in all of its infinite details Is fixed in my mind I 1 see it before my eyes staring steadily at me and all I 1 have 0 o do Is to copy it as I 1 see it visions bright on rainy days on rainy days hey are very bright like a rainbow sometimes when I 1 am out walking in the rain and I 1 happen to look at a damp wall I 1 see alve or six pictures each one clearly defined how does the power affect you it comes down from above like slipping something over your heid 1 can see it coming he made a gesture with both hands as if pulling something filmy over his head and ders and I 1 break out in a cold kweit as it envelops me then something inside of me tells me to go home and paint he brought out three of his can one a scene in algeria an old monastery in moorish spanish architecture with borth african set ting another was set in atu north carolina mountains the third was a simple countryside scene ills life story as he tells it Is high ly colored with drama ills father was in the dunlop army ills mother was a native of winchester va and at the close of the war she and her mother followed the union army to pittsburgh ten years after the war his parents met by chance at the phil centennial married and went to pittsburgh to live there jease ford was bom hen he was five his father was doorman tor a big gambling house run by a roan named john robinson one night a gambler nathaniel fords full of arsenic and he died horribly soon the widow married again to a man who was not kind to the boy in school he was taught drawing and then without instruction he began to the stepfather thought this n waste of time he threw out the paints thrashed the boy and biad him taken out of school and put to work arouses priest interest before lie was jesse mar aled in rapid succession he lost two babies he had just begun to again his sorrows broke his health and like many other geniuses he tried to kill himself cach effort ended in failure during the dark period an old ger man priest faglier karl attner of tarentum Taren tum allegheny alleghany Alleg hany county touched hla life ne was an artist skilled with brush and violin he visited in all the homes where there was cr death end thas he met jesse ford ahe youth was recovering from bis last attempt at eul clde this excited the priest s sympathy on his visit to the lowly cottage he was shown the top of a cigar box on which ford had painted a picture who did this he ached with excited interest 1 I dd eald the sick youth my boy when you get well come to ray house and 1 will give you lessons in paint ing you are nn artist and so it began negro boy and german priest the boy n methodist by rearing and baptism the priest of the roman faith the lessons in painting came to naught the boy was dull be could not grap a single thing the priest showed him for several years he was a janitor and an engineer alie urge to paint neer bulled him but he resisted the power for five bearo lie neica tool up the brush biot yet had he put paint on canvas ahree years ago out walling one drizzly afternoon he glanced up at a net wall and saw a picture the spell came on him ue pulled hack and the picture beckoned him on the impulse to paint anally him lie ran to an art store and bought can as brushes and paints ue ran back to his room and sat down and painted until be was exhausted |
