By Cheryl Longyear, Town of Montezuma Historian
In celebration of Black History Month, Port Byron and Montezuma historical societies are featuring a window display at the Port Byron Library of a well-known folk artist, Inez Nathaniel Walker who once lived in Port Byron. Today Walker is considered one of America’s foremost contemporary folk artists. Joyce Biss has created the display based on the 2024 theme to celebrate Black History month, “African Americans and the Arts,” featuring the life of Inez Walker. Through Walker’s life, the theme hightlights the impact Black Americans have had on visual arts, music, cultural movements, and more.
Born in 1911 to an impoverished family in South Carolina as Inez Stedman, her mother died when she was only two followed by her father’s tragic murder. Inez commented, “I remember he was sitting there in front of the fire place reading the Bible, the next day he was killed.” By the time she was sixteen Inez was married and had given birth to four children. As a young mother to help support her family she labored working hard on farms. After moving north during the great African American Migration period, she eventually settled in Port Byron in 1949. Although we don’t know much about her life while in Port Byron, we can understand she sought to escape the labor-intensive work and drudgery she had previously experienced to find an easier way to make a living. While in Port Byron it’s believed she worked for a local apple processing plant and probably did not have much time to pursue an interest in drawing.
Later, after moving to Lyons, in Wayne County through unfortunate circumstances, she ended up sentenced to Bedford Hills Women’s Prison. In prison, Walker found inspiration and time to release her creative impulse. She drew in order to create a place of stability in the foreign and often dangerous environment where she found herself. She created a large body of vivid portraits of men and women characterized in an abstract format. As a result, she became a self-taught artist. A teacher at the prison discovered her unsigned drawings and was struck by the humor and amazing originallity in her artwork. She tracked down the artist and showed Inez’s work to a Bedford art dealer, Pat Parsons for evaluation. Recognizing the unique and powerful qualities of Inez’s portraits, Pat made arrangements to meet Inez and encouraged her to keep drawing. Over the years Inez and Pat became close friends and it was because of Walker’s art, that Parsons began to pursue the study of twentieth-century self-taught artists.
Several years later, Pat Parsons discovered that Inez was in Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, NY. It took more than a year of petitioning before Parsons and Walker could meet again. During her time at Willard, Pat encouraged Inez to continue drawing resulting in over 200 more drawings being created before Inez died of pancreatic cancer on May 25, 1990. Following her death Parsons bought Inez’s artwork and continued to exhibit it.
Today, Walker’s art is recognized throughout the folk art world for the distinguished and unique style she was able to develop. She was quoted as saying, “The more I draw, the better I get.” In 1996 the Museum of American Folk received more than 400 of Walker’s drawings. The large collection of Inez Nathaniel Walker artwork at the museum includes examples of her entire known body of work. It continues to provide scholars and researchers with extensive material to study her art and life in depth and from multiple perspecitives—aethetic, cultural and personal. The art historian, cultural anthropologist, psychologist, art therapist, sociologist, folklorist, educator or liberal arts scholar may all find that aspects of her art illuminate their study of American life and culture.
The Port Byron Library has a wide selection of books available for loan highlighting Black History Month. Each one offers a broader cultural view of Black history and the contribution made to our diverse American culture.
Source: Summer 1997 article in Folk Art Magazine of the Museum of American Folk Art, by Lee Kogan. Through Kogan’s research gathered directly from Pat Parsons she was able to share Parson’s personal knowledge of Inez Nathaniel Walker.