Ernie Barnes

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THE ART OF WILLIAM H. JOHNSON

It's only fitting that I begin this tribute to black art, with my Great Uncle, Noah Sylvester Purifoy, on his birthday, August 17.
1n 1965, My Grandma Lewis' brother, Noah (whose art has appeared in the film, "Waiting To Exhale") teamed up with a fellow art colleague Judson Powell,(they were both graphic arts directors of the Watts Arts Festival at the time) and concieved the idea of a sculpure garden around the Watts Towers Art Center, where they were employed as teachers. Then it was learned that the Center would be closing due to a lack of funds. The two artists dug through metal "debris" while the whole community joined their effort, digging for brass and copper.

Knowing that the only value usually placed in the metal, was how much profit could come from it, Noah's thought pattern was thus: "What if these people could look at junk another way-- as a symbol of their being in the world, their being just in relationship to something."


What effect could junk art have on the people who are living right inside of it?"junk" means wasted, unusable material. Transferred to human beings, it means a life of despair, uselessness, hopelessness. The resurrection of people who have been discarded by circumstance. "66 Signs Of Neon" was the result of such thinking, and was the beginning of my uncle's nationally known talent.
"It is not unreasonable to state that everyone is creative...creativity ranks alongside food and shelter as absolute necessities. But art education in most public schools is seen as mere recreation. Yet in reality it is that aspect of education which stimulates the whole process of learning...we recognize that to rediscover himself, each person need not become an artist. But we are certain that, child or adult, whatever one's potential is, it should be given the opportunity to express itself."





On the way to Disneyland, a visitor can make a worth-while trip to "Junkland". The main and only landmark is Watts Towers, some reaching nearly 100 feet in height. It is a bizarre construction in swirling forms of colorful broken tiles, smashed pop bottles, pieces of broken glass and you-name-it embedded in concrete buttresses. It was built over a third of the lifetime of Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant who was 30 years ahead of the emergence of "junk art." Rodia's Towers put Watts on the map a long time before the Watts riots did.






A former school teacher, Noah Purifoy he had given up "perpetuating an ineffective system" when he saw the number of school dropouts. "Formal education," he charges, "has no connection with the life of a prospective school drop-out and creates no incentive for not dropping out! Kids in Watts drop out because they can't relate to what's going on in the classroom to what they face outside!
"As the curriculum is presently designed, schools present a formalized idea that a certain tool is a must for certain tasks. If these tools are not available to the child, it kills his incentive. We believe that if a child can put any two things together in physical relationship with any means he has at hand, he can learn to put ideas together. If he can do this successfully, he can relate it to his own life."

You can find a 50-foot, three-dimensional mural affixed to the wall of the JFA (Join For The Arts) in Los Angeles, at the JFA's Company Theater (1024 S. Robertson Blvd.)

Purifoy moved to the Mojave Desert and spent his remaining years building sculptures. In 1998, he established the Noah Purifoy Foundation to preserve and maintain the 100 pieces of art in his 2.5-acre garden. Purifoy died on March 5 in a fire. When San Bernardino County firefighters found him inside his home, Purifoy was sitting in his wheelchair with third degree burns on over 90 percent of his body; it is believed he fell asleep while smoking. He was 86.
Before his death, he conducted countless workshops, and was a true educator, and hero. His light continues to shine. Goggle Noah Purifoy, and you'll find a vast array of resources, and examples of his legacy.


For more information on my uncle, check out this link:

http://www.museumca.org/global/reso_articles_noah_purifoy.html

Aspects of this article are provided courtesy of The Plain Dealer's Tuesday Magazine, August, 1968.