0.24 Edward mills, b. 1941

School figures

I was born in Huntsville, Texas. We came to Houston in 1949 when I was about nine years old. I attended Atherton Elementary School in the Fifth Ward area of Houston, and the school wasn’t very far from our residence. I always loved art and I liked math and science. And I loved history. Art was my priority because [through it] I could express history; I could express science. I could express those things in society that I liked or disliked. So art was my preference.

The artwork [I did] in the beginning was basically stick pictures and airplanes…three lines, horizontal and vertical—so that was the subject matter. Then [I]graduated to putting little lines on their heads representing hair and circles for the eye, circles for the mouth, omitting the nose. Then I began to put clothing on those stick figures. I started that at an early age because I never liked to play with children my own age. I always liked to get with adults—with men—and talk with them.

I met a teacher at Atherton—her name was Mrs. Armstrong. She was also interested in art and she was a good instructor in that she taught me what I should stop doing. I would copy cartoons, and she told me I should stop copying cartoons and be creative; create something that was mine. So I didn’t create a cartoon character, I just started painting landscapes. That’s all I painted. Now, when I got to Booker T. Washington High School, I studied under Miss Ruth May McCrane. She was a student of Dr. John Biggers. I began to paint sports scenes: basketball, football. And relationships between boys and girls.

Then I went backwards, and when I say backwards I mean kind of ancient. I saw my mother picked cotton. I saw my father picked cotton so I began to draw about that. I was the only person drawing about cotton. And I painted about planting gardens and going to church, things like that.

From booker t. to tsu

After I graduated I went to Texas Southern. I didn’t attend immediately; I didn’t want a loan, so I worked. I worked for a year, saved my money, and in 1961 I enrolled in Texas Southern University majoring in art education. At TSU I did meet Dr. Biggers. The first time I met him it was like I had known him all my life. It was wonderful. He told you straight. For instance, once me and him was talking and he said, “Man, why did you come to Texas Southern?” I said I came to TSU not to graduate, but to paint a mural on the wall. Upperclassmen painted murals on the wall before they graduated—the hallways of Hannah Hall and other areas. And he started laughing. He said, “After you leave, what are you going to do?” I said I was going to open a sign shop and paint signs. And he laughed harder. He said, “Man, do you think you can make it painting signs?” And I didn’t have an answer. So he said, “I suggest that you graduate and have some income coming in [before you] open a sign shop.” This is what I mean when I said he talked straight. I got his message—which was, you can’t make it with just a sign shop and no money coming in.