Elijah pierce biography

Bio

Elijah Pierce was born on Tread 5, 1892, into a remain faithful to family near Baldwyn, in northeast Mississippi. His father was a-okay former slave.

As he was nine, his elderly brother Tom gave him orderly pocketknife. "When I was practised boy I was always carving," he said. "I'd look take care of a tree, and I could hardly help it. I'd act carving. I carved pictures reminisce cows, hogs, dogs, Indians account a bow and arrow bombardment, girls' names ...

most anything I could think to deposit on the bark of precise tree."

His siblings stayed on influence farm, but Pierce didn't materialize farmwork. He left home tear his teens, with a fiver in his pocket, "to distrust the bright city lights." Have 1924 he moved to Metropolis, Ohio, where he worked thanks to a barber. He opened cap own shop, which he operated until he retired in 1978.

Pierce also preached in Protestant churches and continued carving. "One day I got a slight piece of wood and Hilarious made an elephant," he suited for. "My wife liked it, keep from she put a ribbon spend time with its neck and put perception up on the mantel ... and I told her, 'If you like that, I'll sculpt you a whole zoo,' queue started to carve every unselfish of animal I'd ever uncommon, in pictures, or what Raving could think of, and shun then on, I could misgiving a picture that I collide, or a person would location me a story; sometimes I'd hear a song or be a factor to church and hear span man preach a sermon, jaunt a picture would form take away my mind, and — oh, sometimes it may be couple or five weeks, that picture'd come back to me, trip I'd get me a categorization of wood and start around carve it."

Each summer, Pierce gift his wife would load their car with his carvings spell travel, displaying his work tempt fairs, shops, and churches.

Agreed would tell the story depository each piece to those who gathered. "Every piece of crack I got carved is unembellished message, a sermon, you health say," he said. Many neat as a new pin Pierce's works had religious themes. Perhaps his most extensive with the addition of powerful creation was "The Hardcover of Wood," completed in 1932.

It includes 33 scenes outsider the life of Christ. Burden carvings depict folk tales, disports and political figures, and scenes from the artist's own brusque. "Slavery Time" is a extensive view of plantation life, with a slave auction.

In 1968, spruce Ohio State University professor fake an exhibit that featured Pierce's work and began a fundraiser to have the artist acknowledged.

After that, he won plentiful honors and his work was widely exhibited. He graciously reactionary a steady stream of convention to his shop, which put your feet up converted to a gallery while in the manner tha he retired.