(techno music playing) (mouse clicking) - Here I am.

How y'all doing?

- Hello, I'm your host Jackie Clay.

Welcome to a very special episode of Monograph.

Tonight we pay tribute to one of Alabama's most prolific vernacular artists, Thornton Dial.

Through archival footage of the late artist, interviews with his children, and a talk with fellow artist and friend, Lonnie Holly, we will learn all about his life, his vision, and his legacy.

- Here we are talking about one of the greatest artists that probably ever lived, and his name was Thornton Dial.

- I have been making stuff all my life.

- [Jackie] What was it like watching him make the work?

- Just to watch him work?

It was amazing, cause he would work on like three and four pitches at a time.

- [Jackie] Did you always think of your father as an artist?

- It wasn't a more creative person than he on the planet, than him, you know because he always had to be doing something, you know.

So even when you cut the lights off in the house I think he was still in there trying to do something, you know.

- Daddy would paint all night.

Daddy, when you wake up in the morning, Daddy would be out there painting, because that's- to daddy it was uh- or something to relax him.

When he would be out there working, and doing it by himself, it relax his mind.

So if, if his mind telling to work on art today, that's what he was gonna do.

He was gonna work on art.

- When I get something on my mind, that's what I do, and you can see it in my works because that's what I do.

And then you can be able to see me, you can be able to see what I'm talking about by looking at what I do.

It's just about the hardest time of my life of growing up.

We were, we'd come up pretty hard.

It was a pretty hard life for us.

We didn't have any father to take care of you.

- Where was your- - Most of his work is going to involve women.

His great grandma raised him til he got about 6 years old.

His grandmama raised him til he got 12 years old, and his great aunt raised him til he got grown.

So those are the main um- figures in his life, you know.

- [Jackie] Do you think that showed up in his parenting also?

You know.

- I'm sure it, it did cause you know, he didn't have a father and he really wanted to be a great father for his kids, and he was.

- And I think him just looking back at his life and that was a goal of his, to do everything in his power for his family.

- [Jackie] The siblings were so close, you know.

- Yes.

We get along real good.

No problems.

- [Jackie] Do you feel like that was cultivated by your parents?

You know?

- Yes.

- [Jackie] And like what was that dynamic like growing up in growing up in, you know, with your siblings and stuff?

- Oh it was wonderful.

We didn't, we know not to argue or anything like that.

Cause mom and dad didn't play that.

- One of the worst whippings you probably would get for, for not respecting each other.

So, I mean, they made sure that happened, so, that made you a better person.

And uh- I probably wouldn't argue with now one of my brothers and sisters, even to this day, you know.

I wouldn't have a bad word to say to one of them.

So, I try to get along with 'em.

So that came from them raising me up, you know.

- And I taking care of Carl and my children the best I know, and kept 'em together the best I know.

So they give me credit for it today.

They said, "Daddy, said you about the best I know.

So I feel good at that, you know.

- [Jackie] Does he tell jokes, or was he a storyteller or like what was his-?

- He could tell jokes, and just tell a joke on his own self and make you laugh.

And he was just fun to be around.

- Now he could talk.

If they let him talk for hours, he would talk for hours on it.

Telling about his pictures and what they meant to him, and yeah, he really enjoyed talking about that.

- See you looking at the world, when you're looking at the piece, you're looking at the everything that God created in the world, which never go away in the world.

See, that's the way life is what God put in the world, he put in there for us to survive.

All this is surviving.

- Cause Mr.

Dial was doing some really, really serious, heavy stuff about us and our living order, our just off of the plantation or just out of slavery attitude.

Our marching for our rights, our civil rights movements and all of these other kind of things.

- Everybody don't understand history.

But I just wanna show you history.

- This is what it all about.

Asking questions and trying to find out things, and trying to figure out how things work.

We trying to find that out because that's something we ain't never been into after trying to bring on freedom after Martin Luther King did all the freedom of march and things and things that happened and it still happened.

You know, they're still getting killed and beaten up and stuff.

So we want to ask a lot of questions about that.

We have a struggle in life and our painting and things carry us a long ways in life, as far as we can go.

- In some of the conversations has come up that your dad, even before he was like making art to sell or you know that he was doing some things.

Like he had a very particular fence that he made, the driveway.

He also was making fish with marbles.

Like, can you remember some of that?

Like real early work where he was doing it really it seems like for himself and for his, like - When the plant closed down, all of dad and and two brothers, all us working at pool building box cars.

And when it closed down that it pretty much put all of us out of a job, and daddy start taking cans, bill cans cut the top out of them, fill 'em up with cement, with concrete, and then he'll put a piece of aluminum pipe dying in it and he'll cut out a bird or either fish or something, and tie it onto that.

And I'm like, God dog had a daddy need to find something to do now he losing it now.

- But yet still I got work over here for you.

I got work in the plant.

I got work in your car place.

I got work anywhere work at.

- That was one of the ways, one of the reasons, why he was discovered in the first place because of the things that he had made that he had spread through the community and running harder for some reason.

Picked up a cup of pieces and carry back to his house.

- And I, sought him out because I'm- I'm saying this guy's an artist in my brain and I would like to see what he doing.

- So what was interesting, talking to the kids his children who were adults, they talked a lot about the way their home was growing up and like how he everything was something he was like making with his hands was deeply creative.

Like when you first met and you first visited him, what was, what did you see?

- Well, when I first met Thornton Dial, and visiting him and seeing his working habit are, it's almost like you still seeing him working for Pullman, and working on the clock.

He was a, he was a, prolific worker.

I mean he worked it on like scales with Poolmer, and he grew into that with his arts that actually got a chance to be exhibited all around the world.

- I thought Lonnie Harley was a great man because Lonnie Harley could explained just about anything.

And now this, I looked at him and then and he made me feel good but told me, he said, man, he said, you know what?

I said what's that?

He said, you just is art man.

I said, listen what art?

This art.

I said, yeah.

He said, can you make stuff?

I said, yeah, I can make anything right.

He said, Lonnie, Lonnie said, well I'm, I tell you what I'm going to bring you somebody to help you.

And he went and got Mr. Arnette.

(background music playing) Arnette came out there and he was- just knocked off his feet because looking at the stuff that daddy had made, and he's offered dad a certain amount for it, where he asked dad what will he take for it?

And Daddy said, Oh, $25.

He said, no, Ms.

Dial, I don't want to take it from you.

Well give me 35.

(chuckles) He said, no, Ms.

Dial.

He said, I want to buy it, I don't want to take it from you.

He said, well, I don't know, it was 200 or $250 be okay for dad.

Say, oh yeah man, yeah!

Now he got somebody that would buy it from him.

- Even before the Arnettes, some of your siblings expressed that folks in the neighborhood were, while they don't maybe understand the scope of what he did like they haven't seen all of his work or, you know, that there was, there was an appreciation for his, his creative energy in the neighborhood and stuff.

- You know, some of the little stands and stuff they had made and painted them a certain way.

You know, he would probably give them to people.

Uh maybe so- maybe some they, you know give 'em a little some for it.

But that was odd.

I mean, but who they don't know is no, I- - The word art meant Picasso and if you wasn't a Picasso then you wasn't an artist.

So, being an artist was something in the black community that was just, almost non-existent.

(background music playing) What is a artist, you know, it's someone that creates, stuff you look at art that way then he been a artist all his life because all he did was try to create.

As far as daddy, growing up saying that he was a artist, you know, like I said that didn't exist in the black community - And the means of materials that Mr.

Dial used for me.

I was just, I was fascinated to see that he would use they- and I think I spoke to you about one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Do we say trash too quickly?

Mr.

Dial saw it as material.

I think when Mr.

Dial first show me what he was working with, and I said, wow, you made that out of this material?

I didn't say you made that out of this trash?

And he wasn't afraid to kind of take something and bend it in the shape, and show you ideology, what his intentions were, and how these intentions played together.

But the whole thing were putting these pieces together, that was so beautiful.

So beautiful, was so much information.

When art hit you, you've been hit baby.

And when that piece of art, especially if it's powerful enough to grab your attention and say, damn, I never seen anything like this before.

- The way I see life like that, it is a beautiful life.

It actually doing it with 10 cans or doing it with anything or oil cans that I, you made and made bricks and stuff outta, I want to show that picture.

- In his early work you know, he, you can, if you look at that then you could see where he incorporated, you know, all the materials and stuff that he was normally working with into his art.

And from that point, you know, uh, you could kind of see the progress that he made over the years.

- These, these, these things just out of a rag that he would flip and turn are taking pieces of rugs or whatever tandem, tandem to pieces it was you say, wow, is this gonna be a, a ongoing thing?

And it was an ongoing thing.

Piece after piece after piece, and each piece became greater.

And that was totally, that was enough to not only for Bill to say, this is greatness, this is our, our as Juan would say, this is genius.

- The time come in your life, where all the stars starts line up right.

And that's the perfect moment and it's not going to exist another time in your life.

It's... when everything you ever did in your life come together because all the things that you did in your life makes up who you are.

I think that's the moment in his life, when things came together, and you can, he probably would say, you can call it what you wanted but you know, now's the opportunity which I can provide for my family, and it's something that I enjoy doing and it's something that I've been looking for, my whole life, and, the stars lined up right.

(jazz music playing) Now, you know, he's, this artwork is being shown all over the world so, it's an amazing thing.

You know - I used to say many times that when I get grown I'm gonna get there and I got it too but don't think I didn't.

- Do you remember when those works were like, in his studio space?

- Yeah.

- And like he was working on it.

What is it like, like watching that process?

- Well, you don't think it's going to look as good when it get to his final destination and when it get to his, to where he going to hang it and put it on the wall and put the lights on it, it don't look like he it.

- What does that mean?

- You know, it look like, it, it just come alive.

I don't know, it just looked like it's something special when they put the lights on.

(jazz music continues playing) - I think it's time to be celebrated, and if, if Alabama is going to say we want to celebrate it, then let's do it.

It was a baby when it left.

And then it now being brought back, it had gotten time to grow, and it needed that time.

I, I don't want to think about it being something that is at a late moment, but I remember this song that the G band Quilted would sing, give us our flowers while we yet lived.

And that's something that's heavily, needed, is we need a lot of - Celebration.

- Yeah, we need a lot of celebration.

We need the Dial's family to return and say we wanna do it for our, our fathers.

Our fathers, again, did.

And they love me like I am affiliated as a part of the family, and I want to show them how much I appreciate that.

- For, you know, name recognition, associating it with the worried art.

There's a lot of people in this community would like to be able to do that you know, just to associate themselves, with it on they know him.

I mean, like I say from teenagers up until, you know probably 90 years old, they still living, a lot of people in this area, really know him and um, you know, heard a lot of great things about his artwork.

But 99% of them, 99.5, 6, 7, 8% of 'em, wouldn't know a piece of his art, if you put it in the front of 'em.

And so that's the reason, you know this interview means so much to me and the family, and I just can't wait for, to see that day come.

And I think it's something that uh, the community been waiting on for a long time.

Cause you're talking about maybe 30 years, you know.

Daddy was, he was, was respected in the, in the neighborhood with, people his age and, people my age and people a little bit younger, they knew him and you know a lot of them guys, I would like to let him know that he was having a show right here at home so, that would be fantastic.

- I'm gonna say seven 80% of his life was dedicated to trying to create different things, you know which nobody paid attention to.

And that's one reason I think the family's kind of like in shock today because, and it, it to a degree is funny and then to a degree it hurts because uh, we are reaping like the benefit of what he did in his life.

But also, you know, it's a period in there that you could have supported and you didn't.

It's a good thing and sometime you look at it as almost like being stabbed in the heart because like something should have told me you just be there anyway.

- If you had to use just a few words to describe your dad, how would you describe him?

- He was an amazing person.

Wonderful.

And he didn't, he didn't hate no one.

He loved everybody he met.

And that was my dad.

I'd uh, think I'd um- he was more of a man and a family man.

And, then he were, you know, an artist.

So that's about as high a scale as I can put him on.

Just looking back, that I- I wouldn't want to be raised up with nobody except for him and my mom - He was such a wonderful person.

He always did everything and took the time to smile with you.

He took the time to conversate with you.

And this almost always bring me to tears.

We's always hugging each other.

He was almost like a father to me.

Also like a big brother to me, also like a friend to me.

- Being my dad, he was my best friend so- - If you, what are some like, what is like if you had to choose one word to describe your father?

what would that word be?

- He was a person.

I wouldn't trade him for nobody else that you know, I would just want him.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, he was perfect.

Like I said I'm, really, proud of this moment.

because you all are here to document this time and this story.

Uh, I think what they call it a true Alabama success story.

Yeah, so... - That's true.

- Okay, now y'all go, man, I'm sick of y'all.

(laughter) Okay.