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- Enter Milwaukee's Lindsay Heights Neighborhood
and you'll find abandoned houses,
vacant lots
and sometimes violence.
[pop, pop of gun fire]
Along with a house at 18th and Wright
where Evelyn Patricia Terry grew up.
- Some people have told me that they wouldn't come to this area.
Like people who moved to Mequon or some place,
they may not come.
So I didn't mind coming to the neighborhood,
I think because I just felt that I'd be OK.
- This sign on her front door says it all.
- "Be Nice or Leave."
- Evelyn has a point
and isn't shy about putting visitors on notice.
- I'm excited about that sign. [chuckles]
I want one on the back door too.
I just don't want anybody coming up to the door
and thinking they should come any farther.
- And for good reason,
inside is Evelyn's gallery, brimming with folk and fine art.
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- When I was doing these pieces, the abstractions,
I was in love with this guy.
He was in love with somebody else.
So I started making these lines across a picture
and then scribbling the excitement of being in love.
So it came out of my own personal feelings.
It wasn't like I was copying anybody.
It just showed up one day.
- The same can be said about her foray into art.
An opportunity just showed up one day.
- I was never encouraged to go into art.
- Instead she was encouraged to go into home economics.
- Then I did but I couldn't stand home economics.
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I cried all the time.
Just on the way to school, I cried.
Trying to go to UW-M, I cried.
It was miserable.
- A recipe for failure or the first ingredient to success,
when Evelyn's art work caught a teacher's eye.
- So she said,
"I think you're an artist and you might think about it."
And I said, "Oh, my mother would kill me."
And I said, "You can get a degree for drawing?"
And she said, "Yes, you can get a degree for drawing."
And I was like, "Where is that?"
- Evelyn's path to drawing and painting
began at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- When I went in, it was like heaven.
Like the world opened up.
I always say it was like things going off. ??????
- Evelyn recounts that story at a neighborhood gathering.
- So I had to go home and tell my parents.
My father, he said, "If you do that,
"you're going to be a drug addict or something,
hanging out on the corner."
And I said, "That's not a prerequisite for art."
[chuckles]
My mother, she just kind of gave up
and said, "Whatever, it's your life."
- Despite her mother's pessimism,
art became Evelyn's escape.
- I could always make art
and disappear into a realm that was separate
from whatever was happening around me that was horrible.
I could just slip into that and be OK.
- Evelyn's journey became eye-opening,
in more ways than one.
- When I was going to UW-M,
we never learned anything about African-American artists.
I was trying really hard to be great
because I thought
I was the first African-American artist on the earth.
I mean that's a big thinking.
A teacher told us one day to go to the library,
look up an artist and write about them.
So I was looking through all the art books in the library
and it said, "Negro Artists in America."
I was like, "What?
"There are other artists that are black?
I'm shocked."
- That discovery motivated Evelyn
and allowed her to dream of what she could achieve.
- I just remember when I first won that $1200.
"Wow," I said.
"This can pay off." [chuckles]
And that was exciting.
My mother said to me,
"You did it once, you can do it again."
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- Four decades later,
Evelyn's artwork includes more than 400 public, private and corporate collections
around the world
including Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.
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- The one at the airport is called "Giving Gifts."
And it's about the gifts
that each culture brings to share with the world.
Of course, I wanted to be rich
but I knew I wanted to be an artist.
I had no idea if those two things could ever match up.
So the name of this book
in a series of books that I'm producing is called
"America, Guests Who Came to Dinner and Stayed."
- In 2014,
Evelyn was named Milwaukee Artist of the Year.
- Some came from prisons,
but they came and are here.
- Her in-home gallery is a testament
to her success in that neighborhood,
challenged with a reputation and the zip code 53206.
- When they write about 53206,
it's written about mostly highlighting negative things
that happen here.
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- Despite the crime problems,
after spending most of her life in this neighborhood,
when you ask Evelyn about her legacy here,
she'll give you a modest answer.
- I'll think about it after today
and see if there will be something
I need on my tombstone. [laughs]
Evelyn lived here on 18th Street.
- Or maybe it should read...
"Be nice or leave!"
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