Every artist has a story
Years ago, I had just come off the streets and a quaint little town called MUNDAY TEXAS was busy taking me in. I was working one day–way up on a pole that had a ‘Welcome to MUNDAY- Home of the Moguls’ sign on it…this lady was calling out to me from across the street, saying something I couldn’t make out.
She finally walked over and repeated that she was a collector of art – and did I have anything she could buy?
Well, I laughed at her and said ‘not unless it was a wall or something like it’.
We visited for a minute and then she went on her way down the sidewalk. And I yelled out to her and asked why did she collect art? …And she stopped and turned around and said, Because every artist has a story.
I never forgot what she said, so here for you today ladies and gentlemen -thanks to the magic of the digital computer world- is my story. I hale from Amarillo Texas, (Canyon Texas to be exact). I am the youngest of six and all of us are either artists,teachers or skilled in some form of building something.
My former Dad had a truckstop called Bills Truckstop out on 287 east of Amarillo. He was a very dangerous mentally off balance kind of person, who passed his time manipulating customers and scooting around with women behind my mothers back until he got caught. To cover up his bad deeds, he would come home at night and beat my mother, or break her arms etc. …anything to make us look the other way.
So mom divorced him and settled far away in Mississippi to protect us kids and continue to raise us properly.
I took on art as a pasttime, and got this from watching my talented oldest sister paint and draw. So by the time I was a teenager, I knew how to draw people and this is how people identified with me. As ‘Billy the artist’.
Pretty soon I entered into learning airbrush and found that I could make some cash doing just that.
This is all I know how to do. And airbrushing can be a very powerful tool once you learn it and discover what all you can do.
I grew up listening to how terrible my Dad was, and wondered if I was going to grow up and be like this. So when I started my informal business I named it ‘INES GRAPHIX’ and dropped one of the ‘n’s’ out of my last name and left it with just one ‘n’ and still had the name. So actually my last name is spelled INNES, and it is pronounced like the letter N, and the letter S. (N-S) Ines! Thats me! I dropped the n for two reasons.
1. My name was hard to make out when you saw and tried to read it.
2.It was my Dads’ name too so I chopped it to spite him.
3. I liked the way that other popular artist VARGAS’ name looked.
He asked me several years later why I did that, and I told him it was because he was not there for me. And that when ever someone asked me about my name I would tell them about my Dad. That made him think and he never said a word.
To make this artists’ story short, I will now cut to the chase!
round the time that my mother passed away. Which was 1988 right here in Altus Oklahoma. I had matured as an artist, but not as a person.
I was drinking, not caring, not thinking in a conscious manner. So the combination of loosing her, along with my habits landed me right out in the streets. -Still painting but not making enough of a go at it to be living normally.
I knew I had to get out of Altus, and I did! By way of a spanish ‘hobo tramp/wino tramp’ named Tom.
We lived out by the railroad tracks in a concrete one room building. And every day we would go out and do the same thing. Scrounge for dumpster food and something to drink, usually cheap wine or beer. And if Tom made enough money panhandling we would get a bottle of cheap whiskey. This kind of living went on for about six months or so as I recall. Until one day we left town on foot with my little dog named Ginger, and a photo album of pictures of my work I had collected. And we walked thirty one miles south to Vernon Texas, Then from there to Wichita Falls Texas to be there for what it was worth.
Thats where I met Angel, Toms younger brother. Angel seemed like he was a little bit ‘mentally challenged’ and he was a nice guy. He himself was living in Munday Texas (about seventy miles southwest). So it wasn’t long before I jumped from Toms friendship, to Angels. And I ended up in Munday, A little town of about 2000 or so people. A good christian community.
The people there noticed me and my ability to paint and started giving me paint jobs, and a housing project to live in.
Angel by the way was living in an empty house too at that time, so I got him to move in with me.
I told him that if he would back me up, that together we could literally paint our way out of homelessness.
So we planned and planted a coca-cola mural right in front of the towns’ supermarket, and sure enough, people began to talk about us in the other neighboring towns.
Shortly thereafter, we were contacted by a wealthy ranch owner (Laurence Harmel) who commissioned us to do a large painting on the side of a large barn out by a busy highway. It took us about six months to do it, but I kept telling Angel that if we did this feat, we would get discovered and we did…by Mainstreet Breckenridge in Breckenridge Texas.
Now we were on our way accept for one thing. We still drank, and we took the habit with us.
It too years, and many mistakes and grieving to finally come to a place where we stopped all the bull. And at the same time I still prevailed to make a name for ourselves, and to protect us as we went.
Back then I only had use of disposable cameras, and this was the only tool we had to build up a fine portfolio. And later when computers became available I was able to shoot the photographs we took underneath a flood light with a digital camera, and upload them all into this laptop I have. I am going to stop here and insert some of those pictures from way back then…
THis is me in the reflection of a window at a Lumber company we were painting, and you can see the disposable camera in my hand.
Olney Texas here…with my airbrush in hand.
Here is Angel in the backyard next to a project in Graham Texas.
This is one of two photographic mural reproductions in Olney Texas’ ‘Gazeebo Park’
Angel standing out in the cold weather in Olney Texas, and you can see here how big these murals were.
Angel looks up from cleaning his glasses in Seymour Texas.
Angel looks on standing next to an old route 66 restoration we built in Knox City Texas.
We managed to save a couple hundred photos from those days…And with the help of MAINSTREET Breckenridge, we DID win some awards, a lot of media attention for being homeless and now successful, and the background to stand up to anyone who thought we were dummies. Because when we combined the two of us working, we DID finally succeed at becoming ‘credible’ people. And after years of hard work it’s all paving the way to a better ending.
In 1999 we won first place honors with THE TEXAS DOWNTOWN ASSOCIATION for BEST IMPROVEMENT INTERPRETIVE.
Also received recognition from the (then) President Bush.
And was awarded front page coverage where ever we went.
Thats a pretty tall order huh? I think so too.
Angel has since had a heart attack about a year ago, and is making a good recovery. We now live in an Airstream trailer and have a pretty good pick up to pull it with.
We hope to be traveling and still have a few loose ends to tie up. Down below I have installed a paypal ‘DONATE’ button. You can donate any small amount and this will help us to feed us along with our five lovable ‘rotten’ rescue cats, and to buy the right parts to help make the trip safe when we get on the road.
Oh, I hope you liked my story, we really have worked hard to get this far, and thank you so much for taking the time to read it! Cheers to all, Billy and Angel
Donations are greatly appreciated!
Dear folks when you donate any amount, you will be feeding five rescue cats (all tabbies) and two tired people. We are still getting up on our own two feet and will not need this donate function later. Donate your love offering now and it will humbly gratefully and warmly be accepted. Cheers to all!
Me working on Breckenridge Electric,Breckenridge Texas
This is our HOME!!
height="38" width="41" id="EXim" alt="eXTReMe Tracker" />