He was a star of the Harlem Renaissance, and his paintings grace private collections and museum walls around the country, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
But few Kentuckians know the name of this native son, a man born in a segregated neighborhood of Mayfield in the early decades of the Jim Crow era. Despite winning two prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships in the 1940s, Ellis Wilson would continue to struggle to make a living as an artist. When he died in New York in 1977, he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
Wilson’s legacy in the commonwealth remained largely unknown until Murray State University mounted a collection of his works in 2000. A companion book from the University Press of Kentucky soon followed. KET produced a documentary on Wilson in 2008.
Now a new children’s book by Lexington writer and attorney Jayne Moore Waldrop brings Wilson’s story and vibrant art to a new generation.
“I grew up in western Kentucky also... and I had never heard of Ellis Wilson,” says Waldrop, who hails from Paducah. “I had also studied art history at the University of Kentucky as an undergraduate and I had not been taught about Ellis Wilson.”
That changed when Waldrop saw the KET biography of Wilson, which she says inspired her to learn more about the artist.
“He wanted to paint other African Americans living their daily lives, and I think he did so with such dignity and respect and honesty for people,” says Waldrop. “He really did see the world in a beautiful and different way.”
Waldrop says Wilson learned about painting from his father, a barber who had taken a few lessons from an itinerant art instructor. The elder Wilson created two paintings that the young Ellis studied as a child.
“He was inspired to become an artist by his father, and he was inspired to get his college education from his mother,” says Waldrop. “He was first-generation college educated.”
Ellis Wilson attended what would become Kentucky State University in Frankfort, but the school didn’t offer art degrees. So in 1919, Wilson applied to and was accepted by the Art Institute of Chicago. After he graduated, Wilson worked for a commercial artist for five years before moving to New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.
While he reveled in being part of such a creative community, Waldrop says Wilson still found it difficult to pay his bills as a painter even with the Guggenheim Fellowships and other awards that allowed him to travel across the south and even to Tahiti.
“Despite his acclaim and his talent, it was still very difficult to make a living as an artist during segregation,” says Waldrop. “That segregation even included art galleries and opportunities to sell art.”
Wilson’s work finally got some much-deserved attention nine years after his death. An episode of the popular 1980s comedy The Cosby Show centered around the auction of a Wilson painting called the Funeral Procession. Claire Huxtable, the mother in the series, purchases the work that, in the story, was painted by a distant relative. For the remaining six seasons of The Cosby Show, Wilson’s painting hung prominently in the family’s living room.
Now young readers can learn about the artist in Waldrop’s “A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson.” The children’s book illustrated by Nashville based painter and Tennessee State University Professor Michael McBride tells the story of how Wilson broke free from the conventions and discrimination of his time to pursue his dream.
“It’s important for children to see that he was inspired as a child and that perhaps they too can stay true to their calling to become an artist,” says Waldrop.
A Lexington Entrepreneur’s Journey from Ice Cream to Podcasting
It took more than a dozen years for Tao Green to go from making a few servings of coconut ice cream that she offered in her family’s Thai restaurant to creating a product that’s sold nationwide.
Now the founder and owner of Crank & Boom Craft Ice Cream is packaging all the hard-earned knowledge she gained over those years and delivering it to would-be entrepreneurs.
“I just felt like after all this time, we have acquired all these stories and knowledge and horror stories of things that have happened in our business,” says Green, “and it can be a lonely road being and entrepreneur and I just thought what better way to share our stories than a podcast.”
The Crank & Boom Podcast launches on March 28 with Green as host. In the trailer for the podcast, she says she wants to help people avoid the potholes she stepped in while growing her own business, and be the positive voice that tells entrepreneurs they can succeed and be OK in the process.
Green grew up in food service, working at the Smile of Siam restaurant her parents operated in Frankfort. After journalism school at the University of North Carolina and work as a marketer for Habitat for Humanity, Green decided to open the Thai Orchid Cafe in Lexington. That’s where she started serving the coconut ice cream she made in her home kitchen from a recipe she found on YouTube.
Green’s ice cream soon became so popular that people were coming to the restaurant just for the dessert. So Green started experimenting with other flavors, which have ranged from the traditional vanilla to more creative temptations like bourbon and honey, coffee stout, and Kentucky blackberry and buttermilk. But not all her experiments worked. She says multiple attempts at a chicken and waffles ice cream never panned out.
“That’s the beauty of it, is that it’s this blank canvas of fun,” she says.
Crank and Boom is still handmade, but now requires the labors of more than 40 employees. The ice cream is sold in two shops in Lexington, distributed in grocery stores, and shipped nationwide through online retailer Goldbelly.
“Our cute, little side hustle turned into this gigantic thing,” says Green. “I think what’s unique about us is we’ve built it from the ground up, we don’t have a huge amount of investors or anything.”
Since she no longer devises new flavors and makes the ice cream, Green says she needed a new creative outlet. That’s when she devised the idea of a podcast to help other entrepreneurs grow from “what if” to thriving business. The series will feature practical advice from Green on topics like crafting a mission, finding mentors, building a staff, and marketing with no budget as well as the wisdom of other business owners, including Lexington restauranteur Ouita Michel.
“We want to showcase that it can be done and just set an example, if we can,” says Green. “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert but I can say we have been through a lot, and so that’s what we want to share.”
