🎙️ LISTEN TO THE STORY

THE IMAGINATION PLAYHOUSE

From Sharecropping to the Smithsonian

The Story of Nellie Mae Rowe

Here we are at the last Double Blessing Tuesday of the year, the ancient biblical year, that is.

In that world, there once was a Pharaoh that had an entire nation making bricks. Same size. Same shape. Counted by the thousands, with another quota waiting tomorrow.

But God did not make us in rows.

No two souls are quite alike. Each of us carries something of His creativity into the world, a different way of problem solving, building or imagining. And in a world where machines can now produce almost anything, there is still something they cannot do. 

They cannot worship!

 Proverbs 31:13 TPT says,

“She searches out continually to possess that which is pure and righteous. She delights in the work of her hands.”

And few people delighted in the work of their hands quite like our pilgrim in the story today, the story of Nellie Mae Rowe.

Born in rural Georgia in 1900, Nellie was one generation removed from slavery. Her father had been born enslaved, and Nellie grew up working on rented farmland, leaving school after fourth grade. Whenever she got the chance, she would lie on the floor and draw. She made dolls from scraps and stockings and created with whatever she could find. When she wanted to put her drawings on the walls, she took a little flour from her mother's kitchen, mixed it with water and made her own paste. Her sister complained because the flour paste attracted rats and eventually got Nellie into trouble. Then life got busy. She married young, worked in the fields and later cleaned other people's homes. In 1948, her second husband died, leaving Nellie widowed again at nearly fifty. In the years that followed, she found her way back to something she had loved since childhood. She started playing again.

And play she did. Her home and yard became what Nellie called her Playhouse, filled with drawings, handmade dolls, plants, sculptures and things she made from fabric, cardboard, discarded objects and even chewing gum.

“I enjoy playing. I ain't trying to keep house now, I'm just a-playing house.”

Nellie drew people, birds, flowers, animals and creatures nobody had ever seen before. Sometimes she began with a line without knowing what it would become and simply followed it. She called it “following the line.” Some people didn't quite know what to make of Nellie's Playhouse at first. It was unusual, colorful and unlike anything around it. But Nellie kept creating.

“I don't draw like anyone else; I don't try to draw like anyone else,” she said. Her pictures didn't have to obey ordinary size or perspective, and not every creature needed a name. Faith found its way onto the page too. On one piece she wrote, in her own spelling,

“Beleave in God and He Will Make A Way Far You.”

Eventually, other people began to see what Nellie saw. Traffic slowed along Paces Ferry Road. Visitors came from near and far to her gate. In 1973, an Atlanta newspaper featured Nellie and her Playhouse, and hundreds of names soon appeared in her guestbooks. By 1976, two of her drawings were included in an exhibition of Georgia folk art. That is where Atlanta art dealer Judith Alexander first saw Nellie's work. Judith came from a prominent, affluent family and was well connected in the city's art world. Nellie's life could hardly have been more different. Yet the two soon became close friends. Judith brought Nellie larger, better paper and art supplies, arranged exhibitions and helped open doors to collectors and museums. Nellie changed Judith too, deepening her interest in self-taught artists. Their friendship even appeared in Nellie's art. She made a doll of Judith and drew their two houses joined together.

Judith gave Nellie better materials.

Nellie gave Judith another way of seeing the world.

Maybe that is also why Nellie's story gives us a little courage to make a mess. Some pretty useful things started that way.

Penicillin began with a contaminated petri dish that could easily have been thrown away.

Post-it Notes came from an adhesive that didn't work the way it was supposed to.

The microwave began with a candy bar unexpectedly melting in a pocket near radar equipment.

Something went wrong, but somebody was curious enough to look again. Finished things hide their awkward beginnings. Nellie had flour paste, scraps, chewing gum, strange creatures and lines she didn't always know where they were going. She kept creating anyway.

And Nellie told us why:

“I try to draw because He is wonderful to me. I just have to keep drawing until He says, ‘Well done, Nellie, you have been faithful.’”

Creating was part of Nellie's worship. She believed her talent came from God, and she used it because He had been wonderful to her.

In 1980, when Nellie was about eighty years old, the High Museum of Art acquired its first piece of her work. Her art would eventually find its way into major American collections, including all the way to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

From sharecropping to the Smithsonian. 

It is never too late.

She created for an audience of One, and in time, the audience came to her.

John Bunyan wrote about The Land of Beulah: “New flowers appear on the earth every day.” Maybe ideas and creativity are some of the flowers of the soul. 

So before you step over the threshold into the new year, ask yourself:

 If your imagination had a Playhouse, what would come alive inside?

Maybe you see yourself in Nellie’s story. There is something inside you asking to be made visible. Follow the line, make the mess, and see where it leads.

Or maybe you see yourself in Judith. You recognize something in someone else before the rest of the world does. An introduction, a word of confidence, a first customer or an open door might be the very thing that helps their gift find its way into the world.

Whether you are holding the pencil or handing someone better paper, never underestimate what God can do with what is in your hands.

Until next Tuesday, may your blessings be double and your burdens be light.

Michelle Driscoll