Media

Transcript

Interview with Patrick Henry, 15 June 2004
Narrator: Patrick L. Henry
Interviewer: Pat Russell
Date: June 15, 2004
Location: Berlin, MD
Intro: This interview was conducted with Patrick Henry from Berlin, MD. In this interview, he shares some of the history and experiences that encouraged him to become a full-time artist. He shares part of his family's history, particularly that regarding his parents and their impact on his life and his artwork. He also recalls the early influence Assateague Island had on his art, stemming from childhood ventures with his neighbor and his later trips as an adult for spiritual stimulation.

[Side A of tape begins]
Pat Russel (RUSSELL): Today is June the 15th, 2004. I am in the home of Patrick Henry, [reads street address] in Berlin, Maryland. And, Patrick, just for the tape recorder will you give me your full name and your place of birth.

Patrick Henry (HENRY): My name is Patrick Lafayette Henry and I was born in Sinepuxent, Maryland, just west of Ocean City.

RUSSELL: And what is your birth date?

HENRY: I was born February the 28th, 1952.

RUSSELL: And would you please spell your first, middle and last name for me so that will be—

HENRY: Okay. Patrick is P-A-T-R-I-C-K; Lafayette, L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-T-E; Henry, H-E-N-R-Y.

RUSSELL: What is your mother’s name?

HENRY: My mother’s name is Marigold Kee, K-E-E, Henry.

RUSSELL: And what is your father’s name?

HENRY: My father’s name is Samuel Stevenson Henry, Sr.

RUSSELL: And do you know where your mother and father were born?

HENRY: My mother was born in a little town in northeast North Carolina called Seaboard, North Carolina and my father was born in Sinepuxent, Maryland.

RUSSELL: I have to ask, how did your mother and father meet?

HENRY: It’s a long story. I’ll tell you the reality of it. Mom became a teenage mother in North Carolina and in those days, it was a serious social taboo. And, for lack of a better word, she was sort of banished. She had to move on. She moved to New York City to stay with an aunt and uncle for a while; but their lifestyle was too static. She moved here in Newark, Maryland. My mother’s mother and father had divorced and my grandfather, his name was Matt Kee, M-A-T-T, moved to Newark, Maryland, for some reason, became a very successful chicken farmer which is very interesting, and this was in the early 40’s. But in 1945, mom was expecting’ with my oldest brother and when she moved here to Newark at one of the church outings she saw my father. My father asked to meet again, and really the church was the center of the African-American community and by then, actually, my mother had given birth to my oldest brother James and my father accepted him. And after meeting that first time on a date, five months later my mom and dad got married and moved into the family house in Sinepuxent.

RUSSELL: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

HENRY: Together, mom and dad fathered four boys and two girls. So, all in all, its five boys and two girls because dad adopted my oldest brother.

RUSSELL: And what are their names?

HENRY: My oldest brother [is] James, Daisy is my oldest sister, my brother Sam, Samuel Henry, Jr., my brother Larry, then I come next, Laura Eloise who we call Eloise, and my youngest brother, Barry.

RUSSELL: And it sounds like your family lived in Sinepuxent?

HENRY: Yes. Sinepuxent, a farm, a little farm community. The church was the center of the community—St. John’s United Methodist—and it was more a life of either farming or fishing or domestic work in Ocean City. Very little social life outside of church, church singing. They would probably have worship, bible studies on Wednesdays and then they would have revivals. But that was the center of the community, the social community.

RUSSELL: How many homes were in Sinepuxent?

HENRY: I would probably imagine about fifty to seventy-five homes from what they call the Upper Neck which is closer to West Ocean City to the Lower Neck that has been to South Point and then west towards Trappe.

RUSSELL: So, the area that you just described, Upper Neck to Lower Neck to Trappe, was that all called Sinepuxent?

HENRY: Sinepuxent. Yes. I would almost say Ayres Creek served as the boundary between east and west. And Ayres Creeks actually wounds under Sinepuxent in one part very near Mariners Country Down. But, and actually, that’s Sinepuxent so it would extend a little farther over toward Seahawk Road, which is now Seahawk Road, which is where Stephen Decatur High School—that road that winds.

RUSSELL: About, mile wise, how large of an area would you say that is?

HENRY: A lot of mileage. I would imagine, north to south, about six miles from, I’d say, where 611 abuts 50 to South Point and then you’ve got a little bit, close to four miles west all in a rectangle. I’ll show you.

RUSSELL: I’d be curious. I’m going to put the tape on hold just a moment.

[Tape paused as Russell and Henry examine a map]

RUSSELL: Before I turned the tape off, we were talking about where your family lived. What did your father and your mother do for a living?

HENRY: Mom, after mom and dad married, mom was a housewife for quite a few years. Then in the early ‘50s she would do domestic work, ironing and some house cleaning for various Ocean City families. I do remember a Mr. Jack White, the Lanes and then the Savages who lived on First Street. The interesting thing is as dad evolved into this very dynamic leader in the African American community. After the war, he had a little bit of trouble in getting a jump start. In fact, in ‘57 mom had him to make a decision: either we were going to get electric and running water and a bathroom in the house or she was going to pack up the children and move to Richmond where her mother, my grandmother, eventually moved to. So, for maybe a period of about ten years, I’d say, dad kind of drifted from fishin’ and crabbin’ and I just found out recently that he, I think, did some clammin’ and sold to the Croppers who owned the fish company in West Ocean City. But, I do believe that was when he redeveloped his love for the water and also, he developed that love in me of farming because he would do a lot of gardening and salvaging the leftover from some crops. I remember that. But it was in the late ‘50s that he got into masonry and that became his career up until his passing.

RUSSELL: When did your father die?

HENRY: Dad died—this is an interesting story—Dad, we loved clammin’ and we found a real nice spot right near the Assateague Bridge. If you were going across the bridge, it would be over on the right-hand side and was interesting. We’d go out quite a few yards, fifty, a hundred yards and do our clammin’. And this particular evening, he went clammin’ with my brother Sam and brother Larry. And Sam said he ventured over to a spot a little bit closer to the bridge where apparently the channel was closer to the shoreline and, unfortunately, he slipped over in the channel and [where] we would tie a wire basket in an inner tube to put our clams in and we’re thinking maybe his clam rake hit the basket and he went under. And that was in ’75. There is almost a tragic poetry to that end. Someone who loved the water, you know, would lose his life to it. And, very sad, but kind of poetic.

RUSSELL: And you said your mother died in church.

HENRY: Yes. And she never wanted to be a burden. She had a eleg—a Victorian—she was raised by her grandmother who was the old Victorian type. I got a chance to visit Mom’s homeplace in North Carolina, after the death of one of her uncles. She showed me the house she grew up in, a nice old Victorian home, and Mom would relate stories of Grandmom rocking in a rocking chair with a corncob pipe and reading her newspaper. But she passed that elegance on to my mother and it was quite interesting even though we lived in a little farm house type of a home, it was always talked about how neat and clean [it was]. So, I think the artist in me came from that creative aspect of her and then the craftsman in me came from my Dad’s creative, you know, the use of his masonry products.

RUSSELL: Now, did your father’s mother and father live in this area?

HENRY: Yes, and it’s interesting thing about the Henry family is it doesn’t go much past my great-great-grandfather. We know my grandfather’s name was Harry Henry. My grandmother was Clara Fooks Henry and the land that we lived on was a part that was left over from a broad Fooks tract and it was quite a few acres that eventually through who knows what diminished, dwindled to a little one-acre tract by the time I was a little child. And—

RUSSELL: What did they do to earn a living?

HENRY: Farmed, they were farmers. And my grandmother, from what I understand, may have died in the ‘30s, I have to find out. But it was fairly young, after 8 children. And that left these children with the father, my grandfather, and he wasn’t a very healthy person either. He eventually passed away in the ‘40s, while my dad was in the service. Dad was in the Navy, and it wasn’t until my Dad got back home that he found out that his Dad had died. For some reason or another, they didn’t want to call the USO or whomever to let my Dad know that his father had passed. So, that was a big influence on my father’s life for quite a while. He carried that bit of resentment for, towards his brothers and sisters for not telling him that. But, they basically were very introverted people, and I noticed growing up my aunts and uncles were very quiet. Happy, but in another way very, very introverted, hardworking, dependable. You know, they were trusted, and the Henry name became a name that you associated with respect and pride in the area.

RUSSELL: Where did you go to school?

HENRY: I attended Flower Street Elementary School, which at that particular time was a little, all-black elementary school here in Berlin. And my first year of high school was I attended Worcester High School which was an all-black high school. This was ‘64, ‘65 and at that particular time we were given options of—desegregation had come into play and from the 8th grade to the 12th grade, I graduated from Stephen Decatur High School. And I was in the first group of African-Americans to integrate Stephen Decatur High School.

RUSSELL: Where did you go to college?

HENRY: I attended University of Maryland Eastern Shore and actually my—it was sort of forced on me. The fall after I graduated from high school I worked with my father and my brothers in the masonry business. But Dad made my older brother take me, enroll me at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, to which I’m so glad he did. He had to leave school in the 6th grade to tend to the farm and his younger brothers and, I guess he and Mom wanted to see their children get a proper education. And I got a degree, bachelor’s degree, in Art Education. Graduated May of 1975.

RUSSELL: And I believe in an earlier discussion, you said you went into teaching?

HENRY: Yes. The irony was okay I graduated in May ‘75 and then it was that August, August 13, 1975, that Dad died and my youngest brother was still at home. I had all intentions of attending post graduate school, getting my Masters and teaching college because I really—I loved that environment. College stimulated my curiosity and I wanted to press on, but I attended to Mom’s wishes. I stayed home with her. Got a teaching job at Stephen Decatur High School but I could not shake that passion within me for creativity, the curiosity, and also the freedom I think with working with Dad and my brothers, being outside and being people of the earth. You know, you have all those different smells. If you were working on something near the marsh, the different smells of the salt water and of the marsh. Or if you were in the country, you know, the earth and the woods and the whole nine yards. And I felt a little bit confined. So, I gave it a couple of years and actually got a job in maintenance where I still would work with my hands so I dabbled with that and learned some manual skills with carpentry and other related skills and still painting. I would do that and got into sign work, signage and so I would kind of subsidize with maintenance work and then my art work and during that same period of time I attended to my real passion which was my oil painting. I just loved, loved that. How you could take something two dimensional and get the illusion of three dimension really fascinated me. And it was quite interesting from, after I stopped teaching at Decatur from 1978 until about ’83, I drifted back and forth through that pattern of maintenance work, construction work, and I got a chance to have a little retail market down near Assateague, at the first Assateague market and that really was the momentum that started pushing me into the business aspect of art. So, it was in ’85 that I went full time. All my income came from the making of art related subject matter.

RUSSELL: Was there a pivotal moment, or pivotal experience which made you say, “I’m going to pursue my art?”

HENRY: Actually, that pivotal moment came when I was in high school. In the 10th grade we had a student exhibition and it was actually an abstract experimental thing that I had in the show. I always did representation, but this new art teacher came in fresh out of college and wanted us to extend our imaginations. Instead of just drawing or painting what you see, try to go a little bit deeper, and see a broad aspect of the materials and tools that you use. So, I did this abstract painting and I sold it. And I said, “Ooh, this is nice. I can do something that I love and make money from it.” So that was really the bug, that was what started this desire to become a professional artist. And if I knew then what I know now I may have, would have pursued, but I can’t complain now. This thing has evolved where I’m getting the best of all worlds. But it so that was—I was 16, so that was closing in on 40 years now, 36, 37 years of pure struggle to build a career where your work is respected, collected, desired, which you can’t even put into words. I must say after this transition, it was in ‘75, ‘85 that a collector who, through word of mouth, wanted to meet me and see my artwork. And he was a very successful real estate developer, and he had the means to not only purchase my work but also to challenge me to break free of this introverted servitude mentality, that I had to what, in his words, “Toot my horn,” because he said no one else would do it for you. And that was very difficult because for years the whole creative process in a way is, is sort of about self-edification. It’s about pulling that out that’s deep within, and to not only do that but to talk about it was very difficult. And at times it still is. I don’t like to be at functions where my work is presented to someone like as a gift, because it kind of draws attention. So, I’m revealing some deep secrets here that even though I have to sometimes be a bit of a showman, it carries a lot of anxiety with it for me. It is very anxious.

RUSSELL: When did you begin drawing or painting?

HENRY: I began drawing almost before I remember. It is such a fog. The first, I may have been about five where I took an old pie plate, drew a circle, and remember filling it in with eyes. It was technically a face and because it was so natural, I just have to accept my mother’s words that she said as a child I had always been, of the seven children, I was always the most reflective, I guess. She says she would look out the window washing dishes and I would be just sitting in a wagon by myself, just looking, and—One family friend, one of my mother’s girlfriends said, “I worry about Pat.” She said, “Marigold, watch him because I’m afraid he may do something to himself.” I was always so shy and my younger sister said even in high school I never really talked much. Now my wife says she can’t shut me up. [laughs]

RUSSELL: Curiously, did Assateague Island or any aspect of your natural environment when you were growing up at this point in time, did it affect or influence your art?

HENRY: It did, it did. I’ll show you some of my earliest paintings. It was water. It was Assateague. One very poignant point, and I guess I may have been eight or nine, my next-door neighbor, Mr. Jack, took a group of us kids over to Assateague in the late afternoon and it was just totally primitive then. So, you’re talking about early ‘60s maybe. And we got stuck in the sand, and so as the sun set and all you saw was this sea of white, the dunes, and I think it may have been the McCabe house that he saw one light way in the distance but I remember and its carried me through the whole mystique, I can’t even put it in words like. It was beautiful in one way and in another way, it was a little bit spooky because you are isolated. You just heard the ocean, and the ocean always as a child just seemed so vast, so powerful, so interesting and it was, I just felt honored. It just was so special to be in that environment for Mr. Jack and I think, uh, Miss Sadie, his wife, I think. Of course, they were in a crisis mode, but for me, it was an opportunity to just absorb an environment which I recognize now that in a lot of aspect is one of the few primitive type of environments on the East Coast. Thank God that the Park Service took over because, as you know, there was plans to develop it and in my Transformation book I talk about that Assateague Island technically could have been south Ocean City if it wasn’t for the storm of ‘33 that cut that inlet through it, and if you look on a map you’ll see where erosion, the action of ocean waves has slowly moved Assateague westward. But, I could not imagine what it would look like, what it would be if it wasn’t for, you know, a beautiful act of nature. I love it too because it, it should show people how we can’t have control over everything. That’s the beauty of nature.

As a child in ’62 that’s a very, that’s another real poignant point, was when the March storm kicked up. That second-floor window of the house again became a living theatre because we could see—I was ten years old—we could see the waves of the ocean and they looked like mountains. I’m here this forty-some years [later] and it still gives me cold chills the power that I’ve seen. The ocean that looks like a mirror and so flat to the point where those waves were—I’m not even sure how tall they were; but just foam and froth and violence and it just destroyed a lot of stuff. And we had been blessed that that’s been, since ‘62, that circumstance and nature hasn’t come together to create that type of potential again for some serious destruction. And it’s been, a lot of old timers shake their head at what has happened now with development where before, it seems like right against the shoreline they’re building homes because we’ve seen it rise up against people.

RUSSELL: When you were growing up, how did you view Assateague Island in general?

HENRY: As close as it was for quite a while, because the only way you could get over there was with the ferry and I think it was the ‘62 storm that destroyed it. So, it’s so funny, I didn’t have a lot of ventures over to Assateague until after the bridge was built and I think it was dedicated in the late ‘60s or in the ‘60s. And then we would go over either through school field trips or a personal trips. But to be honest with you, Assateague was not very inviting because of the mosquitoes and the flies. But if I did start going over to surf fish and again, it’s hard to put a context on it because where we grew up in the country, here you have woods, fields, and a lot of the old forests were old massive oak trees and huge pine trees and then you had fields of corn and vegetables. Truck farming was really big. And then here you would go over to Assateague and you were placed in a whole different environment. And I wonder sometimes if it was because of the smells, if it just seemed as a child the salt of, the salt air, the ocean was stinging the nose. It was so strong and then you would have a marsh where, you know, when the tide would go out that, it would probably be stinky to some people, but that real sharp pungent smell of the mud from the marsh offered another sensuous type of stimulation. And, I guess, the introvert in me and me being more tuned to nature and then people even to this day, I sometimes get concerned about my lack of concern about some of the political ramifications. So, but Assateague, really, it became a sanctuary because of the isolation where you didn’t have to be interrupted by man, and you could just like totally get into your environment, and that’s good. I read somewhere about civilizations that were in tune with the world— the earth—because that’s what going to be in the final analysis, that’s really what’s going to dictate if we abuse it, and we are. We’re moving towards all of the prophesies of Revelations and it may not be an army of men, it may be nature turning on us because of our insensitivity to its ways. I look at the beautiful com fields that are made beautiful because they inject chemicals to keep the weeds from growing up, and I wonder how much of that chemical id going into the DNA of the corn or the soybeans. And I have seen a lot of people, in particular young people, dying of heart disease, kidney disease and I don’t know the statistics, but it just seems, and a lot of people talk about how it seems as if there’s something in the air and in the earth. So, it’s, you know, something to think about and not to be fatalistic but, you know, realistic.

RUSSELL: So, it sounds like, Patrick, Assateague Island has had a significant impact on your life visually as an artist—

HENRY: And spiritually—

RUSSELL: —I was going to use philosophically, but spiritually is probably the better word.

HENRY: You’re right. Philosophically, because it can take me back to my roots, to my development, and I didn’t know until this interview that that has been the thread. Ocean City I look at, I hope I have the term right, a monolith. It’s like a growing, I use the term, monster. I hate to use the term. I love Mayor Mathias. A good man. I love what Ocean City had to offer for people, you know, people that come down from Baltimore and Washington, a chance for them to get re-junvenized. But where is it going to stop? Can it stop? Or does greed—and let’s just put it where it is—does greed make us go higher, bigger? All these by-products have to go somewhere, I don’t know. That’s why it’s important for me to record because maybe the principals have, my forefathers, your forefathers, crossing financial, cultural, racial lines, where we respected the land and the sea. We used it for what it was. We took what we needed. We shared if we took more than we needed and that was it. And now we’re looking at, I suppose, a new renaissance, a civilized and, believe me, a lot of people who visit to here equate a shoreman with being a tad bit uncivilized. Our governor, our old governor, good old past governor, had an interesting analogy of us and he may be right. It’s because of our isolation that sometimes our behavior don’t make us the best social animals, so we come out some way but that was because, you know we’re not into a people, we’re not into about what people feel, we’re into what the land dictates.

RUSSELL: I’m listening to you, and your love of the land, and your love of the Eastern Shore. It’s a passion.

HENRY: Yes.

RUSSELL: And it’s, you know, it’s reflected I think very strongly in your art work. Where do you think this love of the land, this passion for the Eastern Shore came from? Where did you get this insight? That may not be the right word.

HENRY: Right. I think it was ingrained but also as a member of the human community that shared the fellowship with people that shared that same passion really made it feel that this, this, this, my philosophy, the homing in on my philosophy was good and right and part of the godly order of things. I look at God as being love, but also, I look at God as being order because the way the universe was designed. Even the Earth where, as we rotate around the sun precisely every year, at the same time we have spring, summer, fall in various degrees. You know, you can have hot days in the winter, cool days in, but all in all there’s an order to that where if it wasn’t for that order it would be chaos. So, to take that spiritual and natural order, and then we as humans learn from that order, I think that’s why the Eastern Shore has stayed the Eastern Shore for quite a long time. The realization for me is as not to try to lock that period of time into—

[Recording pauses for a phone call]

HENRY: Insight came to me that after the announcement that the Riddle Farm was going to be developed, and what that was going to bring as far as more people to the area. It’s just been recently that I recognized that [pauses] I may be looking at it a little bit selfishly, or not from a broad perspective, that as a child my world was different than my grandparent’s world. And I got [to] thinking what will my daughter’s world be and that it’s all evolution. Now the thing is, is that is it going to be evolving towards good. I mean, I think if we can take the principals of natural, of nature’s order, God’s order, and apply that to the human condition, if we can look at what am I doing with my property, what is it, how is it impacting someone downstream or next door? Can we create a dialog where we [will] be sensitive to that we’re not here by ourselves? And that, you know, let’s not just do what we want with our property but let’s try to do it within a certain order with nature and I think we can accept rationally this influx of people.

RUSSELL: I’m going to turn the tape over and I have a question when I turn it over to the other side.

[Side A of tape ends, Side B begins]

RUSSELL: This is Tape 1, Side B. Patrick, when we were talking informally before the interview began you were telling me about your mother and how your mother carried memories of the past so sharply and she would I think you said relate them to you verbally. And I am wondering, first of all you used the term and if you could give me that term again and, and do you think her telling you the stories of the past had affected your art and your love of the Eastern Shore and your love of the past.

HENRY: Yes. The term in African society because there was no printing, the passing down of history was through mostly elderly women, or men or women, and they called them, I want to say the term is “Griat” and they would be powerful storytellers. They received stories from their ancestors and they would gather around, I would imagine camp fires or from village to village, and when you imagine that the society was not distracted by outside influences that these, these messages could become very powerful because of order, because the order in these people lives. This was passed on to generations and I think my mother received it because the interesting story was when I was in college in 1972, my sophomore year, I didn’t have studio classes, no drawing or painting classes, and when I would get away from painting or drawing for a while I would not feel spiritually complete.

So in my dorm room from a photograph a friend of mine had given them I drew a portrait of this old black gentleman with an old cowboy type hat, white, white beard and hair and dark skin with a powerful glistening glance at you though his eyes were that watery, a little reddish, off-tinted white in the eyes and when I brought the painting home, Mom said it looked just like her great grandfather and his name was “Guess Parker”. I said, “Mom how you spell it?”— G-U-E-S-S. And the interesting story was that as a little child Mom remembered Grandpa Guess and she was a little bit afraid of him because he would tell stories of his past coming over on the slave ship and a lot of these stories was filtered with spiritual, uh, ghosts and witchcraft and that type of thing but it really had a powerful influence. And I believe that, that gift of, of uh, dialogue passed through my mother because my mother could remember specific details in her families’ life and she’s passed it on to her children and a couple of those seven, you know, a couple of us have absorbed that.

My younger sister in particular can recall a lot of details of family history and, and it became kind of, I think what it does is increases concentration of your environment and of specific events in a family’s life—births, deaths. I recall every time someone would call and if it was a birth or a death I would look at the calendar and make a mental note of when this was and even what time. Sort of a, as a visual mental recording and I also find myself fascinated with absorbing the, the communications from other older people about their past, especially within this area.

RUSSELL: And I think my question here, Patrick, is on another tape recording perhaps, in another interview perhaps, do you think we could focus on some of those stories that have been passed down to you?

HENRY: Sure.

RUSSELL: I think we’ve covered, we’re covering a lot of ground. But I would love to if you have time, absorb that, particularly your great grandfather Guess.

HENRY: Yes.

RUSSELL: I mean, what stories you recall coming from him because I was thinking he, so he probably came into North Carolina.

HENRY: Yes. Yes. And he passed it on to my grandmother because as a child I would spend summers in Richmond up until I was about eleven or twelve. I would spend my, my younger sister, myself and my brother Larry who is a year and a half older than me we would go down to Richmond, Virginia, during the summer and three of my mother’s sisters would come up here and work in Ocean City and that because the money became a little bit better paying for them and it was, it was, it was in hindsight that I remember my grandfather, my great grandfather Jim Parker coming up from North Carolina to spend a week or two at my grandmother’s and low and behold it came to me that my great grandfather Jim was the son of Guess Parker and I became, you know, I just recognized that I made a connection with my ancestry to Africa through my grandfather Jim who was a dark tall man. I don’t remember a lot of dialogue but I just remember the beauty of that, that sort of genteel society down in Richmond. But my grandmother would relate some powerful stories. She was very well-educated. She was a nurse and would just relate some powerful stories about the past in detail and that’s, that’s where Mom got it from.

RUSSELL: She was really a relative newcomer to the Eastern Shore, is that a correct statement?

HENRY: She was and it’s quite interesting, a worldly part of me because of her kind of separated me from the broad look of society in that a lot of people went to school, a lot of, and even my peers went to school, got jobs in Ocean City, never went beyond college and just kind of stayed locked into this local way of living. Either, you know, through domestic work or construction work or, you know, different kinds of labor. But Mom injected into us a sense of this is a broad world, this is a big world and every opportunity we had to travel we did and actually I think that’s why it’s made it so powerful for me to see the dynamics of my local environment because I don’t see, I don’t see it very narrowly. I can see it from a broad prospective. So, I went on to study local history where I wouldn’t get locked into the way things were from a social economic point of view.

When I got involved with the local museum, I saw a type of these dynamics that there was a inter-relationship between the races in the farming industry and the fishing industry and I said well wait a minute, what, what if this is supposed to be such a separate society why do I see these people in these pictures engaged side by side in the same activities and they seemed to be happy. And I saw for myself that for lack of a better context things weren’t just the black and white. There’s a whole varying degree of shades of gray in that there was some serious inter-relationships and again taking evolution into my shore [inaudible] was separate as far as churches, businesses where now I can see at weddings and funerals a lot of social events even in churches this crossover of, of—there’s still a big to go—but it’s, it’s, it’s changed. It’s changed where, really in a good way that there is an acceptance that people are people and it is content of character and not color of skin.

RUSSELL: And I think your artwork is a wonderful way, I mean you’re pulling the past together but it also draws—

HENRY: Sure.

RUSSELL: —all sorts of people who have an appreciation for the past—

HENRY: It has. RUSSELL: —and its history.

HENRY: I have had people who pay ten, twenty dollars. They don’t know why but they had to purchase my painting even though it was pricey. They paid me ten, twenty dollars a week when they could get something just because those paintings spoke to them where the other side of it I have people that have set down and wrote five thousand dollar checks as easy as can be. So, I, it transcends again social, economic, racial lines and that’s I just feel so fulfilled to be given that gift and to respect it and use it towards that means. Again, because it can open up a dialogue for us to really take a minute and stop and reflect and see.

RUSSELL: What do you think has been the greatest influence on your artwork?

HENRY: Not to be—what’s the word, not selfish—not to be arrogant or it’s, it’s, it’s something within me that, uh, and it could have been Dad and Mom come to think of it, that this, it’s the challenge not to just accept, don’t just be good but challenge yourself to take it the next step forward so in another words it wasn’t the accolades, it wasn’t criticism that motivated me, it was to take the spirit of Mom and Dad and apply that to my life in that don’t accept status quo. And, again, the curious nature within me. I am very curious. I find the aspect of how each morning the sun rise has a different pattern, the sunset. How, the evolution of the seasons carry their own distinct, distinct flavors, the colors in which fall from a color point of view is just such a visually stimulating time of year for me. But even to take the bareness of winter and to, to see colors within the grays and browns.

But for me to—the rest of my life I will challenge myself to keep focused on the mission that is before me, to really recognize that I have homed in on my mission. And I’ll put it in spiritual terms, the purpose God has set me in the position that he has to take that responsibility and use it for human good that, that really is a blessing in one way, an immense sense of responsibility in another way , to try to help change the way a community evolves. Some artists has transcended over into that where it is so easy to get caught up into fad. You know, I’ve been asked to do a lot of thing well-respected after the what is it the Columbia tragedy if I were to do this painting of the shuttle and the men. All well and good, sounds good, but that’s not my purpose. That would be locking in a particular place and time to record. But for me, although I’m painting a specific area, the Eastern Shore, my home, my land. Through my energies I’m trying to get people to see the order, the respect that, uh, a people had for their particular environment, for their home, for their little comer of the world. And, and if we can take those principles and apply it to a broad perspective maybe we can save this earth for our children. I really feel deep about that.

That may be, you know, pipe dreaming in some way but I and I think that’s the challenge for me and I think the more I focus on my work the more of that essence comes through in my work and it is, it is that it’s like that, my spirit is, is pouring out through and its, there’s a little, there’s a myth about the artist, you know, not being wealthy. That is a myth and I’m going to be even more dramatic [unclear] because I have people who are very wealthy who are jealous of, of, of what I have within me. They see it. They can see it. And you, you have some, some wealthy people who are still all over the place trying to find their sensor and I feel so blessed that I, I have found my center and I draw on that center for my strength and for my motivation and you cannot pay anything for that. No amount of money. So—But that is really, how many years God blessed me to be on this earth.

That’s, if someone asked what’s Pat Henry doing? He’s trying to pull in from, pull out; he’s trying to pull out from within. I got to paint, though. I got to—I feel it almost critical. It’s everywhere you look. Construction. Building. And it’s like where’s it going to stop. When’s it going to stop. I even heard that in the next 10 years little Berlin with 800 or so taxable units may have 2,000 new units built and how is that—that’s going to impact on our way of living and that is really scary. So, how do we address that without pointing fingers or without a new generation growing up cynical because all of a sudden now they have no voice in what’s, what being said or done. That’s really not just, you know, how to absorb that from a lot of different people. I’ve been asked to run for political office and I said no my mission is bigger than, than this. God bless those who do it because that’s the civic responsibility but I, I know what my purpose is now and I’ve got to, I can’t turn to the left or to the right. I’ve got to go. got to go. RUSSELL: And I think, perhaps, as I am hearing what you are saying is you have got to focus on, on what you’re doing and with this focus you begin to see more detail, more clarity, more the need, and rather than spreading yourself to thin by covering a lot of different topics you have focused on a topic, focused on an area, the Eastern Shore. This particular area of the Eastern Shore—

HENRY: Yes.

RUSSELL: —which is so rapidly disappearing.

HENRY: It is.

RUSSELL: Am I hearing you correctly?

HENRY: It is. It really is. And my concern that people don’t realize that when it rains that rainwater has to go somewhere and what is it carrying with it to our tributaries and out to our broader bodies of water and with a more influx of people, I mean even, even the boating industry, if you go down to the docks on a calm day you’ll see all different colors on top of the water from oil and gas sheen and more and more of that will seriously impact. At first, it’ll it the microorganisms which is fed upon by bigger organisms and on and on the biological chain. It’s going to impact to the point where it’s going to, it’ll be a point of no return. It may not happen in my generation or if we don’t think about this, it can happen in our generation

RUSSELL: Again, what I’m hearing, Patrick, is first focus, second you are fighting for nature

HENRY: — Yes.

RUSSELL: --which is, was, perhaps the basic, I’m going to use the word, value, but a basic tenet that your mother and father loved and gave to you.

HENRY: Yes, because when you said that I just, flowers came to mind. My mother loved flowers. She had more, she had really beautiful flower beds at home. And, again, I have some old photographs at home and it’s a very simple story and a half farm house that at one particular time, nine people lived in there. [laughs] But it was just an idyllic childhood. It was. Behind us we had a vast forest with big old oak trees that almost took on human quality. And I wasn’t a good hunter. I hunted until my later teens and I used to just go back there because it was squirrel hunting and put my gun, you know, lean it against a tree and just look at these massive trees and just try to visualize their story. And then in front of us is the marsh and the bay and Assateague and the ocean. How blessed could you be?

RUSSELL: I have to ask a real, a curious question and it’s an evolution question on your artwork. One of the things that puzzled me was, I think it’s one of your earlier paintings is of a box of shells and decoys.

HENRY: Yes.

RUSSELL: I was curious. Where did this image come from?

HENRY: It, it sort of was a collaboration from a friend of mine who is a former principal, Tom Dorman. And this relates to recorded history. Those were a collection of Ward Brothers decoys and the Ward brothers really put Crisfield and the Eastern Shore on the map as far as the hunting industry in regards to decoy carving and it was, it was in Pat Henry’s own way of paying homage to what they did and actually I have the old paper shell shotgun shell, and my Dad’s old double barrel, hammer lock shotgun. So, we have a still life which I put in a marsh context to just further extend the Eastern Shore, the qualities of the Eastern Shore. That, that painting was viewed negatively by people who have a negative connotation with guns with all rights. But when we grew up as kids we had barely any concept except through cowboy stories that you would use a gun to turn on another human being. There was disagreements and, you know, in schools or in some, there would be disagreements and fights but they were mostly quick little tussles between two people where and the gun was utilized for what it was utilized for and that was for game hunting. We got what we needed and we ate from it—rabbit, deer, squirrel, raccoons and that was a way of life for us and, and you know, uh, it’s again, that’s changed. Evolution.

RUSSELL: And— HENRY: And, Pat, I must admit to, to go even further back in regards to this shotgun. In college, my paintings turned from nature, my environment again always being a person who absorbed their environment. In college from ‘71 to ‘75 was a dynamic period of time in our country where you had the civil rights movement, you had the anti-war movement and my work did go to more social commentary where I took more people into my work. I thought about as a young, young man I was getting into adulthood I saw the social contradictions in, in, in our society and I, I absorbed some of that. But it, it, as soon as I got out of college and I came back home and stayed with my Mom I went right back into my environment which was, which was home and that, that evolution slowly has come to this point where actually I’m recording history, I’m being an artist fascinated by my craft but also opening up a dialogue hopefully through my art a dialogue will be opened up.

RUSSELL: You answered my question, where I—

HENRY: Oops.

RUSSELL: You leaped forward and answered my question because that was going to be my question. How has this evolved? But you answered it and I really thank you.

HENRY: Sure.

RUSSELL: Is there a particular aspect of the Eastern Shore or Assateague that you have tried to capture in your artwork?

HENRY: It is and I can’t put it in human terms somewhere back in the recesses of my brain where you, you, you visualize and you want to capture that because the, a particular light, a particular way light forms or say during the winter the barrenness of, of, of the marsh maybe. I want to capture that. My limitations through not getting to that point in my, in my artistic evolution. Our brains are wonderful in that we if we have a teacher or a mentor to jump start us we can take it from there. You don’t need to just continue—I don’t think so—you don’t need to just continue go from class to class to class because for me it makes all for confusion because you’re grasping from all these. But to get back to the point that I must say it’s to give Assateague—

[Tape paused for telephone]

RUSSELL: We were talking about what aspect of Eastern Shore or Assateague Island you were trying to, you would like infuse in your artwork?

HENRY: And in, I believe, Assateague if we were to look at it from a broad perspective not even to put it into a sort of geographic connotation is, it is a backdrop. It is a backdrop. And every backdrop can through different combinations of natural effects can create settings that are just so powerful and as an artist if I’m at the right place at the right time there it is and that is the biggest challenge for me that, because basically I say I’m self-taught. My books, my books other than the period of time in high school when I had good art teachers and in college good art instructors. Other than that, I had to absorb through again my own intuition and the study of art through books and if I got a chance go to Baltimore, Washington, or even Richmond and study the masters in the museums. But, that, that would be the aspect I would say is from aesthetic point of view.

RUSSELL: I think as a final question, we’ve covered a lot of ground and I would like to come back and do another interview, but I feel like I’ve taken a lot of your time. If you could pick one value of either the Eastern Shore or Assateague Island that you could pass on to your audience, to whomever, which, what value would you want to see passed on?

HENRY: Lately, the word consistency has become a term—and it seems odd in a way but if you’re consistent, you always have to step up to the plate and you—I think if you stop being consistent, you’re going to decline. Consistency to me seems to be pro-active, being prepared for what’s coming ahead and, in my art, if I consistently grow if as people that care about nature stay consistent in their concerns and not accept—one of the biggest things I see about American culture in relation to what I have seen through history of fine craftsmen, let’s just put in art—is that attention to detail, and I think we accept mundaneness, mediocrity. I don’t—and I wonder if it’s chasing the almighty dollar, letting that be your god, is the almighty dollar instead of bringing something to the table; wanting to bring something to the table. That is, these few than that I had to absorb through again my own intuition and the study of art through books and if I got a chance go to Baltimore, Washington, or even Richmond and study the masters in the museums. But, that, that would be the aspect I would say is from aesthetic point of view.

RUSSELL: I think as a final question, we’ve covered a lot of ground and I would like to come back and do another interview, but I feel like I’ve taken a lot of your time. If you could pick one value of either the Eastern Shore or Assateague Island that you could pass on to your audience, to whomever, which, what value would you want to see passed on?

HENRY: Lately, the word consistency has become a term and it seems odd in a way but if you’re, if you’re consistent, you always have to step up to the plate and you, I think if you if you stop being consistent you’re going to decline. Consistency to me seems to be pro-active, being prepared for what’s coming ahead and, in my art, if I can consistently grow if as people that care about nature stay consistent in their concerns and not accept. One of the biggest things I see about American culture in relation to what I have seen through history of fine craftsmen. Let’s just put in art is that attention to detail and I think we accept mundane ness, mediocrity. I don’t, and I wonder if it’s chasing the almighty dollar. Letting that be your god, is the almighty dollar, instead of bringing something to the table; wanting to bring something to the table. That is these few years that we are here, you know, I want to not just take out, I want to just work. As one preacher eloquently said, “All the hearses that he’s seen pass by, none of 'em had a U-Haul.” And, you know, so from the earth I came. To the earth I return.

But it is, if it’s one word, I used to think about patience and persistence and determination but above all that for me lately has been this term consistent. And that takes growth really because I would in a heartbeat shift over to another direction that I thought was good intentions, you know, for either a civic or a social good. Which, which could have been but I found out it could be done just as well by someone else. But I, in hindsight, I recognize I was one of the first professional artists in this area and to not only be to, you know, in the case of some people, recognize these things that an African-American is sort of unique but to be one of the first for me professional artist is gratifying. To stay on course in, in spite of the, the road blocks that can be put up and to fight through it. And you said earlier, courage, and I sometimes—ignorance is bliss—[Laughs]. I wonder sometimes, I wonder sometimes if I could and that’s why to be honest with you I used to do career day lectures and all that kind of stuff. But in all honesty, I could not tell a young person to pursue a career as a professional artist because this almost, this came almost outside of being a professional artist.

I think all the other things that I grasped in my life led to this point because if you notice I’ve seen some young people that could do awesome renderings with paintings and I think at a certain point, you can achieve the ability to render something adequate enough to represent a subject matter but it was all those other experiences and not letting them beat you down and taking those experiences and enabling them to pour, you know, to pour that out on canvas. It’s, it’s really what makes you an artist even more so than just rendering something so accurate. It’s beyond that. In fact, in some cultures, tribal cultures, some far eastern cultures, they don’t even have a term for art. Art isn’t even in their dictionary because their way of life, their weavers, their potters, we, we see it as art. But that was just part of having to, to sustain needs and we, we tend to in western cultures break down [inaudible] where we should really be uplifting, encouraging and we could see even more so than just being a visual artist that even your life can become a work of art where each day with all the options you have you can say now how am I going to craft my life today when I can be productive or do something to either help someone either even help yourself out and your family.

So, if we can, if we can kind of look at our lives from that aspect I almost see, you know, America returning back to those good principles that were what our country was built upon. Through, you know, attending to our spiritual needs even if you don’t have to go all the way to the religious aspect of it. Just take what you have within and utilize that. We don’t, I don’t know why we don’t, why you can’t see that Nothing’s easy. [Laughs] You have a story. I mean I can use, I can use the experience of African-American experience but then you can take the native American or the Irish American the Italian American or whatever and, you know, their, their words their experiences, it was, it was regrettable. I think a lot of people that went through, even slave owners in hindsight some of them regret it. But it happened. Now let’s go on and build through that a beauty of our, uh, inter-dependence on each other. It’s powerful. ‘Cause I know there are aspects of European culture that living in America now is very valuable for me and I know aspects of, I’d say, my African heritage, where a lot of things were more spiritual in a different way has been very helpful in a way I’ve portrayed, you know, my world around me.

RUSSELL: Patrick, thank you so very much for your time. I have thoroughly enjoyed this interview.

HENRY: I have too, I have too.

RUSSELL: I hope you will give me the opportunity to come again.

HENRY: Sure, Sure. ‘Cause it’s, it’s healing for me. It really is, it really is.

[Side B of recording, interview ends]