The Ticking children paint images of houses, angels and birds to support their family.

For the Love of Art

Posted January 20, 2011

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT believing in yourself and the miracles that can unfold when you give up comfort and security to follow your path.

It started more than a decade ago, when Tres Taylor, a biochemist from San Diego, traveled to Birmingham to visit family. An avid fan of primitive-style folk art, Tres made time to visit some of the great Southern folk artists including Mose Tolliver and Howard Finster. He ventured to Georgia to peruse the work of R.A. Miller, and he says that’s where his world began to tip.

“R.A. Miller kept saying to me, ‘You’re an artist too.’ And I guess he planted the seed in my head,” Tres admits.

Truth be told, Tres was no stranger to art. His three siblings all became successful artists in their own right. Tres always believed he just wasn’t born with the talent. And so he laughed off the comment of the old folk artist and headed back to San Diego.

Over the years, Southern California lost a lot of its charm for Tres. Sure, he made a comfortable living as a biochemist, but he wanted an outlet where his pent-up creativity could be expressed.

Then one day Tres was riding his bike and came across a pile of scrap wood tossed to the side of the road. The next thing he knew, he was gathering up the wood and tossing it on his bike. He rode home, ran to the basement, and grabbed cans of house paint. He lost himself there, among the colors in the fine grains of his canvas. And he found himself. A new self. One he had never known existed. The artist in him finally stood up and shouted, “Let me out!” And Tres finally listened.

A Chosen Path

Around the same time, in a small house in Birmingham, Alabama, Dorothy Ticking celebrated her 50th birthday by reassessing her life. For 17 years, she had worked as a licensed practical nurse (LPN), and it was good and rewarding work. But she was ready for a change. The job was becoming more demanding, and her body was beginning to feel her age. Her previous husband had died in an accident in 1980, and now her three daughters and one son had grown and moved out of the house. What she truly longed for was someone who would love her unconditionally.

And so she prayed, as she did every day. She prayed that God would give her the love she so desperately wanted and an escape from the job that had lost its luster after so many years. What she didn’t expect was for her prayers to be answered in a most unusual way.

One afternoon Dorothy got a call. Her four grandchildren were being placed into foster care. Dorothy went to check on the four young children and found her destiny.

The youngest daughter, Rachel, just six months old, was sitting in a car seat on a sofa with a pacifier in her mouth. “She had an ‘off’ look about her, like she was just spaced out,” Dorothy recalls. Two-year-old Mia would just moan and cry. And 4-year-old Bobby just sat, dazed. An 11-year-old sibling ran to hug his grandmother.  

“What was I to do?” Dorothy says. “I couldn’t let them go into foster care.” And so, she took the children home, setting up makeshift beds on couches and pallets on the floor. The next day, she tendered her resignation at the hospital and traded in a $26,000-a-year job for a $196-a-month welfare check. She says she’s never regretted the decision. “It would be devastating to let those children live with someone else. They needed me. They needed to bond together,” she says. “And I needed their love.”

Willie Saves the Day

Dorothy learned to make due with what she had and relying on the gifts of strangers to get by. “How many years, I stood in line at the Salvation Army, those long, stressful hours where sometimes you had to take your shoes off to wait, your feet hurt so bad. How many hours I waited just to get toys, to make sure those children had a Christmas,” she recalls. “But I did it because those children needed it.”

Meanwhile, Tres was embarking on his new venture as an artist. He quit his comfortable job in California and eventually moved back to Birmingham where he met and married his wife, Helene, and took in her two young children as if they were his own.

Five years flew by, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Tres’ world wove gracefully into Dorothy’s.

The boy’s name was Willie, and the 7-year-old appeared one day on the Taylor’s doorstep and became a playmate for their children. His visits became more frequent and his stays, longer, until he would arrive before breakfast and leave well after dinner. He even went on vacations with their family. When they weren’t home, Tres and Helene would leave paint and cardboard boxes on the front porch for Willie to occupy himself. Tres immediately saw the same raw talent in Willie that he’d seen at the hands of so many of the folk artists in the South. He encouraged Willie to hone his craft.

Willie folded into the Taylor family as if he were one of their own. But he wasn’t. And late one night, the Taylors went to take him home, but Willie asked them instead to “call my grandmother.”

Dorothy Ticking came to the door cradling a baby in her arms. “It looked like The Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe. There were kids everywhere, all over that house,” Tres recalled. Dorothy’s face showed defeat when she saw Willie, her grandson. “I just don’t think I can take care of another,” she told the Taylors.

Then Tres struck a deal. “I said, ‘If you take care of Willie, I will make sure he helps you provide for this family because I think he’s got talent as an artist,’” Tres recalls.

Dorothy remembers that day well. She says she could only shake her head. “I said, ‘No one’s ever wanted to buy any paintings from us.’ But Tres said, ‘You’ve got to believe me.’ And so I did.”

A few months later, Willie traveled to Atlanta with Tres and Helene with a suitcase filled with his artwork, and unveiled it at Folk Fest, the largest folk art show in the world. There, Willie met some of the greatest folk artists, many of whom were amazed at the young boy’s work. Within two hours, Willie’s collection was completely sold out.

 “In the car going home, we were telling him how great that was, and he threw up his fist and said, ‘Willie saves the day!’’ Helene recalls. “That’s how empowering it was.”

A Family Affair

Willie’s work was providing a much-needed income for his family. But he soon grew tired of art and wanted to spend more time playing football with friends. As Tres tried to encourage him to stick with art, he realized Willie needed a break. But Dorothy needed the income, so Tres turned his attention to the younger children. They were now five, seven, and nine years old. It didn’t take long for them to get hooked. To Tres’ surprise, their work was every bit as beautiful as Willie’s.

“Children have this ability to create,” Tres says. “Somewhere along the line, as adults, we become afraid to make mistakes. But that’s why I love painting with children. I am inspired by that raw quality children have.”

It’s been 13 years since Dorothy first took in her grandchildren.  Willie now lives with his father and dedicates his time to sports. Bobby, now 18, paints trees, houses, and churches with bold crosses. Mia, now 16, likes drawing colorful birds. And Rachel, 14, prefers making angels. Tres takes the kid’s art to shows around the country. The paintings sell for as much as $450, and every penny goes to the household. The family works as a team, Dorothy says, because they have to.

The children’s work has become so popular that they were commissioned to provide paintings for the University of Alabama at Birmingham Pediatric Cardiovascular Unit and LeBonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

“I went to Memphis in October and took a tour of LeBonheur,” Helene says. “I cried like a baby. The entire sixth floor is basically their work.” Printed large on the floor tiles in the lobby was one of Mia’s birds. Pictures of their houses and angels lined the nurses’ station. Original artwork hangs on the emergency room walls.

“What I loved most about it was that it was the biggest commission they had ever gotten,” Helene says. “The checks came in August, just in time for the school year. Dorothy was able to buy uniforms and socks and shoes. With what was leftover, Dorothy gave each of them $100 and let them buy whatever shoes they wanted. And you know, that was a big deal.”

Legacy of Love

Just as Tres has not stopped fulfilling his promise to Dorothy to teach the kids to help provide for the family, Dorothy hasn’t stopped caring for children. She now keeps two young great-grandchildren during the day while her granddaughter works, and has become the legal guardian for a third great-grandchild, Montaze or M.J., a 3½-year-old. M.J. has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair, and is unable to hug his great-grandmother when she holds him in her arms. She says she fought for months to gain custody of him after he was put in foster care at just six months of age. She says taking M.J. in was just the right thing to do.

“I have so much confidence in my mission now,” she says. “I know this is what God was telling me to do.”

Art has remained the fiber that bonds the two families together. Not only has it enriched the lives of Dorothy and her grandchildren, but also that of Tres.

“I am inspired by these children, how they approach things. When they’re working they drop down into their work. Children do that so naturally,” he says. “It’s hard to say I taught them that. They are as much my teacher as I am theirs.”

Dorothy shakes a finger in Tres direction, her curly black hair falling into her face. “No,” she says, her eyes beaming and her smile burning bright. “That’s not it. You just put your gifts in them, your God-given gifts.”

For more information, contact Helene Taylor at helene@trestaylor.com. The Ticking Family art is available at A’Mano in Birmingham, Alabama at 205.871.9093.
 
TRES TAYLOR is a Regions customer.

Everyone has a story.