FolkStreams » The Angel That Stands By Me

innie Evans / Untitled (Composition with female face, foliage), / 1968 / pencil, oil, wax crayon, collage on paper mounted on canvas board / 21 x 27 1/2 inches / Private Collection

FolkStreams » The Angel That Stands By Me

"I have no imagination. I never plan a drawing, they just happen. In a dream it was shown to me what I have to do, of paintings. The whole entire horizon all the way across the whole earth was out together like this with pictures. All over my yard, up all the sides of trees and everywhere were pictures."



The Amazing Minnie Evans also having a mystical experience that brought about her creativity, many people have theorized these sorts of aparitions as been partly schizophrenic or partly due to autisitic nature of the creatives.'DRAW OR DIE..!' a voice said so she did.




Minnie Evans is the embodiment of the visionary artist. She is an African American painter of Wilmington, N.C., who has created a world of mythical animals, religious symbols and natural beauty. The film explores the sources of Minnie Evans' art--Airlie Garden, with its magnificent azaleas and swans, where Minnie worked as a gate keeper for 27 years and where she did most of her paintings. Scenes of a service in her African-Methodist church draw the connections between her religious fervor and her art. She tells about her mystical visions and traces her slave ancestry to her great grandmother's grandmother who was brought from Trinidad and sold as a slave in North Carolina. We see Minnie with her 101 year old mother and at the Evans' family reunion of six generations. Minnie Evans was 91 years old when this film was made in 1983. She died December 16, 1987 at age 95.