Interview Portfolio: An interview with Fletcher Williams III

Fletcher Williams III

At this time, I can think of no better words to present here than part of the biographical note on Fletcher Williams’s website that introduces him to his readers as a new working visual artist:

Fletcher Williams III [b. 1987] is a sculptor and painter whose works utilize discarded wood, automotive paint, plant fibers, synthetic fibers, and metal. For Williams, traditional and modern materials provide a language useful for illustrating transformations in social and cultural landscapes. He often includes Southern Hip-Hop motifs and African symbolism and artistic practices to create works reflective of human transformation, preservation, and deconstruction in the American South. Upon returning to Charleston, SC, in 2013, he began using his practice to speak against social injustices inflicting the local African American community.

This is perhaps most evident in his latest solo exhibition, Beyond the Rainbow (Charleston, SC, 2016). Within a vacated church, in the heart and heat of Charleston’s historic district, Williams installed a series of works addressing gun violence and housing inequity. Small replicas of boarded-up homes and drawings of local shootings surrounded a decadently painted pseudo playground draped in Spanish moss. Other works included paintings of moss comprised of black paint and roofing shingles, a sculpture resembling a cage that enclosed dried palmetto leaves, and a life sized clothesline that held four roof pitches dangling from rusted rebar. The vacant church became a sanctuary for nostalgia, trauma, and contemplation.

The following interview was conducted via email between Charleston, South Carolina, and College Station, Texas.

ROWELL:

You are a native of Charleston, or should I say, the Low Country of South Carolina. How did you come to visual art? Do you know what led you to painting or drawing, for example, your first efforts at making art? Did you begin with the pencil or the pen or the brush? Did your parents and teachers immediately encourage you in this artistic activity? Why did they or do you not know?

WILLIAMS:

I’m a South Carolina native or, as locals would say, a Charlestonian. I was raised in North Charleston, an area of the city just north of Charleston’s historic district. It’s more industrial and less glamorous than the small tailored historic peninsula that most visitors come to see. I spent the majority of my youth in a small neighborhood behind my elementary school. Prior to moving here, we [my family and I] lived in an apartment five miles away. I spent much of my days coloring and playing with Legos, while waiting for my mother to come home from work. She’s a graphic designer and instructor at a local community college. During my childhood she worked for a local company creating miniature replicas of historic Charleston homes. So the artistic influence was always present. She actually traded my jungle gym for a seven-foot print of Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror. I was encouraged at a very early age to develop my artistic skills. My elementary school teacher, Carolyn Hennessey, had a big influence on my arts career. She was my arts instructor for five years, I believe—most of elementary school, if I’m not mistaken. I enjoyed drawing. My drawings were very detailed and tedious, black and white and slightly graphic. She encouraged me to apply to Charleston County School of the Arts. That was a great decision. I went from taking art classes a few days a week for an hour to having art classes every day for nearly two hours.

ROWELL:

What did your study at the school for the arts in North Charleston offer you? And, of course, you left that school and later enrolled in the prestigious Cooper Union in New York. What did going to New York City mean to you? After all, New York has long been considered the center of the art world—and I mean across the globe. What did Cooper Union offer you that Yale University or Pratt Institute or New York University, for example...