Chances are that Gladys Lewis' everyday life of faith and family won't be memorialized in movies, television or even books.
But Baton Rouge artist Brandon Lewis is defying those odds. He's working on a book featuring his paintings, all celebrating not only his Grandmother Gladys' stories but those of others who have influenced his life along the way.
And the paintings? They've been featured in shows throughout Baton Rouge in the last few years, each narrating a chapter of the artist's family's rural Black experience.
So, why wouldn't their stories be told in pop culture media?
"They are just everyday family stories that would usually get lost in history," Lewis said. "And I'm not going to let that happen. I've started writing short stories to go with my paintings, but my paintings tell their stories."
The characters in Lewis' paintings attend church, dance, visit and play music. Brides and grooms prepare to jump the broom, women in hats mourn in funeral lines and the elderly reminisce about the days they could dance the Jitterbug.
And in one particular painting, the characters clearly represent Lewis as a child bidding farewell to Grandmother Gladys before she departs for Heaven.
Lewis' work was featured in a solo exhibition earlier this year at the Gallery at the Manship Theatre in the Shaw Center for the Arts. He's now in talks with the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, New York, for a showing of his work.
His work is also represented by Ferrara Showman Gallery in New Orleans.'
His family's influence
He gives his family full credit for his life's work.
"I was able to sit at these people's feet and just soak up so much of their stories, because we have a rich oral history tradition within our family," the Baton Rouge artist said. "I would listen to all these stories from great-uncles and great-aunts when we would travel on Saturdays to Clinton, Ethel and Jackson, Louisiana, where many of our family members lived."
He was just a child in those days, traveling with his mom and grandmother to the East Feliciana Parish countryside, where he listened, knowing the stories weren't just random tales passed down by word of mouth. They were his history — his family's legacy.
And Lewis believes his resulting artwork from this legacy is a gift from God. Grandmother Gladys asked God in her prayers to bless this gift. But Lewis also knows the gift reaches beyond his artistic ability — it's a gift meant for sharing with others.
The proof for this is in how so many people relate to his work by way of their own family stories, which is why he paints all of his characters in silhouettes.
"They don't have faces, because I believe that it gives the viewer the opportunity to attach his or her own story to the piece," Lewis said.
He appreciated the number of people who have approached him saying how much a picture reminds them of their mother, grandmother or aunt.
"Like Michelangelo, I very seldom do fashion model size figures, because that's not reality," he said. "That's not where I come from. I come from a family of people that were various sizes, various shades."
So, when painting the diversity of his own family, Lewis believes, in a sense, that he is painting everyone's families.
"I think all of our families are like that," he said. "By not putting a face on it, it becomes relatable to anyone who sees the painting, whether they're Black, White, Asian — it does not matter."
Started at age 3
Lewis didn't know any of this when he drew his first picture. How could he? He was only a 3-year-old preschooler who had been tasked with drawing a bumblebee.
"That was the assignment, and no one at home knew how to draw," Lewis said. "And my grandmother told my mother, 'Well, let's see if he can do it. Ask him to draw.' They looked down at the paper, and there, indeed, was a bumblebee. And ever since then, my gift was nurtured."
Lewis began drawing on everything. If a stray envelope, receipt or letter was left on the kitchen table, it was embellished with an original Brandon Lewis drawing.
"And my family really got behind me," he said. "My great-grandmothers, my paternal grandmother, my maternal grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, my mother — they all nurtured the gift. They were always bringing drawing tablets, crayons, colored pencils, whatever they thought made art."
Lewis declared at age 9 that he wanted to start painting, so his Grandmother Gladys loaded him into her Lincoln Town Car and drove him to Hobby Lobby.
"She told a lady working there, 'My baby wants to paint. What does he need to paint?'" Lewis said. "They tossed all kinds of stuff into the basket, and when we came home, my grandmother put some newspaper down on her dining room table and told me to paint."
He did, and he's never stopped painting.
Lewis would become a student of local art teachers Therese Knowles and Geeda Dave and eventually majored in art and history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
He taught art for 10 years at Baker High School before moving on to the LSU Museum of Art, where he was curator of education and public programs.
Today, at age 39, Lewis is director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' Helis Foundation John Scott Center, which celebrates the "pass it on" spirit of late New Orleans John T. Scott through organizing art and educational programs for the public.
Passing it on
Scott was known for keeping his studio door open for other artists. And while Lewis works to keep Scott's "pass it on" legacy alive, he's passing it on through his own work.
"Some of my pieces have fabric in them," Lewis said.
He explained that the fabric comes from his ancestors — his grandparents, his great-grandparents and Ms. Mary who lived across the street.
"Those people have passed on, and this is my way of celebrating them and telling them thank you for the sacrifice," he said. "And this is my way of having pieces of them in places where some of them never stepped foot in."
For example, one painting, titled "Bag Lady," includes pieces from clothing that once belonged to Lewis' grandparents and great-grandmother.
"That piece sold a couple of years ago," he said. "It's now in Los Angeles, and to think that a painting with fabric that, one time, was worn on the backs and shoulders of men and women on whose shoulders I stand hangs in a place of honor on the West Coast, well, there's no better way of showing my gratitude to them."
Which brings him back to his Grandmother Gladys.
She died 10 years ago, and Lewis discovered something special in her journal while cleaning out her bedroom.
"She wrote, 'God, you have given my child a gift. Please allow it to make room for him,'" Lewis said. "That was in 1995. So, for me, my work is so much bigger than myself. And her prayers turned into paint. They turned into something that I can actually touch. So if I don't owe it to anyone else, I owe it to her and those others who have since passed on who had that belief."
To see more of Lewis' work, visit @_blewis on Instagram.