Painting Childhood Memories

Children playing in Grandma’s house or picking strawberries in the field, families gathered around the dinner table, people dancing, praying, loving, and laughing—these are all part of Bernice Sims’ memories of growing up in southern Alabama. And she’s determined that her grandchildren—and other people’s children and grandchildren—understand what life was like before electricity, indoor plumbing, and fast food restaurants.

“I try to tell a story so my painting is not just a pretty thing. It’s beneficial,” says Sims, 76, of Brewton, Ala. “All the things I grew up with, today’s children never heard of.” She adds: “My purpose of doing paintings is to educate kids about the past.”

Sims is considered one of the nation’s most prominent “memory painters,” a Grandma Moses of the South who records scenes from her life in a masterful, pictorial way. Her style is simple and direct, her canvases filled with bright, vibrant colors showing people engaged in the ebb and flow of daily life.

The vast majority of Sims’ paintings reflect happy times, but a few reflect less pleasant events—times when African-Americans were denied service at soda fountains, had to sit in the balcony at movie theaters, and were threatened by attack dogs and police with water hoses.

“Bernice records both sides of the South,” says Rhonda Doss of Visionary Arts, an online gallery specializing in Southern folk art, “but most of her work shows people working together to solve their problems.”

Robert Cargo of the Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery in Tuscaloosa, Ala., agrees. He is particularly fond of Sims’ painting that depicts a group of black and white children playing together at an old swimming hole. “That one stands out in my mind because of the integrated activity,” he says.

Sims’ passion for art began as a child. She lived in a rural Alabama community, Hickory Hill, next door to four elderly “spinster sisters.” The women spent long summer days at their easels, and when they finished a painting they gave Bernice their almost-empty paint tubes. She began painting on old cardboard boxes because she couldn’t afford paper.

But, much as she liked it, she couldn’t devote herself to painting for many years. At age 15, she dropped out of school to get married and start a family. The marriage eventually failed and she was busy nearly around the clock parenting and supporting her six children. She took in laundry, sold insurance, and worked as a nurse’s aide.

In 1983, her youngest child left home and she went back to school. First, she got her GED and then an associate’s degree from Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton. Finally, she enrolled in some art classes because, she says, “That (love of painting) just stayed with me.” Her teacher encouraged her to forget the rules and paint from the heart.

“Bernice’s great gift is that she gives us a vibrant, thrilling construction of the story as well as the story itself,” says Gail Trechsel, director of the Birmingham (Ala.) Museum of Art. “She has a great eye and a good sense of how to create a canvas.”

Today, Sims, wheelchair bound due to diabetes and arthritis, continues to paint pictures of things she wants future generations to remember. “I’ve had a chance to experience some of the good and some of the bad,” she says with a gentle smile. “As my grandchildren grow older, they begin to realize that the things I paint really did happen. I guess that means I’m doing my work.”

Andrea Gross is a freelance writer in Denver.

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