tree" and "Mrs. Starr" until 1972, when after ten years it imposing hotel that stretches along the shore of Wrightsbecame "Geo"(or George)and "Nina." ville Beach there was already a large gathering of Links Over the years, Mrs. Evans and I became close assembled in the lobby. Minnie was wearing a handsome friends and I gathered many conversations with her on my white-and-gold brocade dress and a smart cloche. She tape recorder, a treasured lode of personal expression and beamed with confidence and pride among the many smartly family history, as well as racial observations. She had dressed ladies. recalled to me,for instance, the riots that tore up WilmingAs the members greeted her, she introduced me with ton in 1898, when she was no more than six years old. "Meet Mrs. Starr, she is president of my pictures in New "They gets that way sometimes," she reflected. She has York." (It was in 1969 that, through the good offices of revealed to me striking evidence, George Rountree, Minnie granted me power of attorney, as innocent of sophistication as it which enabled me to act freely in representing her.) I was is full of confidence, of the not president of anything, but I accepted the introduction as unconscious source of her pic- a good description of my role in her life. I would guess that tures. "I have no imagination. I there were about fifty ladies present as we took our places never plan a drawing," she said, in the dining room. I was seated at the head table with Min"They just happen." And, "In a nie, Martha, and the presiding officer. It seemed to me that dream it was shown to me what I not much time had passed before lunch was over, and folhave to do, of paintings," she lowing her introduction and the awarding of the Fine Art said in 1962. 'The whole entire Plaque, Minnie made her acceptance speech. She was horizon all the way across the splendid, completely self-possessed, and handsomely and whole earth was put together like appropriately articulate. this with pictures. All over my I had arranged for her to come to my hotel room the yard, all up the side of trees and next day to review with me several of her pictures that I everywhere were pictures." had brought from New York, and I was confident that she There is an inscrutable would repeat, or sketch out for me on the tape recorder, aspect of Minnie Evans's heredity, related to the mystery of what she had said to the assembled Links. But no, the muse the unaccountable persistence of Caribbean, East Indian, who had served her so well at the luncheon deserted her; Chinese, and Western aboriginal elements in her imagery she told me she could not remember anything she had said. and color. She traces her ancestry to her great-grandmoth- She was seventy-seven years old at the time and living with er's great-grandmother Moni, who was brought as a slave her son George and his family and her ninety-one-year-old from Trinidad. Mrs. Evans's great-grandmother Rachel told mother, Ella Jones. Our conference slowed; Minnie was her about Moni. Minnie Evans had not been to Trinidad tired and told me she wanted to "get back to Mama." and said that she had never seen pictures of it. My friendship with Minnie Evans deepened over Her own explanation of much of her work was: the twenty-five years that I knew her. During those years I "This art that I have put out has come from nations I sup- was able to bring her work to the world through essays, pose might have been destroyed before the flood.... No one articles, and exhibitions. Minnie Evans died in December knows anything about them, but God has given it to me to 1987 in Wilmington. She was a faithful correspondent and bring them back into the world." I recall with warmth one a loving friend.* time when I flew to Wilmington to visit her; there had been bad storms reported, and she told me after I reached her at Editor's note: Portions of this essay home how she had prayed: "I said Lord don't let no clouds were adapted from "The Lost World of and wind tangle up in that plane Ms. Starr's on. It's safe I Minnie Evans," by Nina Howell Starr, want her please. I kept watching, watching every car come originally published in The Bennington in and you didn't come. Then when I went in Gary told me Review, Vol. III, No. 2, Summer 1969. you had called." And I came to know, as our acquaintance ripened, Nina Howell Starr was born in New that she was a natural speaker with a distinctive style. She Jersey in 1903. She received her B.A. told me that she often spoke at other churches when she from Barnard College in 1926. After and members of her church visited them. Then, in April leaving Barnard, she pursued her inter1969, I heard her myself, at what I think must have been est in art, architecture, and photograher best. It was at the Blockade Runner Hotel in Wrights- phy. In 1963, at the age ofsixty, she ville Beach, and the occasion was a proud one for Minnie: received an M.F.A. with a concentrathe Fine Arts Luncheon of the Wilmington Chapter tion in photographyfrom the University of The Links, where she was awarded their Fine Arts ofFlorida. In addition to her close association with Minnie Evans, Nina Plaque. The Links is a national organization of black Howell Starr is well knownfor her docwomen with wide interests. As I learned from the program, umentation ofcontemporary roadside each member is "a Link." folk art. Her photographs have been When I received an invitation, I was determined to exhibited nationally and her writings be present for this proud occasion. When Minnie, her have been widely published. daughter-in-law Martha Evans, and I reached the large and
As the members greeted her, she introduced me with "Meet Mrs. Starr, she is president of my pictures in New York."
56 WINTER 1994/95 FOLK ART
UNTITLED Pink centaur 1967 Crayon, tempera, pencil, and
gold paint (lightly
varnished) on paper 12 9" Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel C. Miller
Minnie Evans, March 31, 1977