Click here to see pieces for sale by Ruby Williams

The following article by Kate Santich appeared in Florida Magazine in December of 1999...

   She wears work jeans and a baseball cap, as she often does, and sits at a picnic table in her "dining room" -- a three-sided shack with a tin roof at her roadside produce stand.

At first she painted simple signs to advertise the strawberries and turnip greens fresh from the field. But eventually there were characters like Bonnie Bon Bonnie who holds a flower and sports her best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. with matching purse and shoes. Then came morality lessons: a reclining African-American woman with enormous feet says. I Am A Sophistcated Person — a reminder that it its what's on the inside that counts.

As Williams' body of work grew. the produce stand added a little tin roofed gallery and her work spilled over to the surrounding grounds. In good weather. you'll find a handful of paintings leaning against an old fence along the dirt driveway, near the pens that hold the turkeys and goats.

A few years ago, when folk art started getting popular, Williams started getting noticed. The dealers tried to buy her art for pennies, then sell it for hundreds — and pocket the profit for themselves. So Williams painted Tired of Being the Good Guy — a speckled gator with long claws and sharp teeth and its tongue sticking out. She included the title on the canvas so no one could miss it.

They got the point.

"The Lord showed me how to do this," she says of her paintings. He plants the images in her head. But the words are her own.

These days. though, Williams still lives in an old travel trailer near the produce stand, her work graces art collections and museums from Seattle to Rhode Island, from Polk County to Baltimore, it’s even on the Internet.

Her latest, the spunky Buffalo-Cowgirl, goes for $2,500.

"What appealed to me, and what I think appeals to a lot of people, is the simplicity of her colors and images combined with these very savvy to-the-point messages." says Taylor, whose gallerv hosted a one-woman show of Williams' work last summer. "At the opening, we had a full house. We had people sitting on the floor to hear her speak."

Among Williams' fans are professor and author Kristen Congdon. who teaches art history at the University of Central Florida. "It made sense that people could stop by for black-eye peas — and folk art," Congdon said at a recent anniversary party for the produce stand's gallery. "Ruby knows that what we need is both bread and art to feed us."

Her great-grandmother was one of five freed slaves to found the town she lives in and Williams was born and raised on this land, the third of seven children.

She left in the mid 1950s after a painful divorce and joined her sister in New Jersey. Over the years she worked for an undertaker, studied to be a detective, upholstered furniture, counseled kids and became a minister. Sometime around 1983 - the years run together now — she moved home, to farm and run the produce stand and paint

"That's my tractor sitting over there." she says proudly "But they won't let me drive it anymore."

Williams looks to be in her late 60s or perhaps early 7()s, but she won't tell you her age. It's not out of vanity, but because she doesn't want art speculators gambling on when she'll kick off.

She starts her days by feeding the animals, writing letters, sweeping and cleaning and stocking the produce stand. Along about 11, when the sun will dry a canvas quickly, she might bring out her paints.

"I like the sound of the highway for company." she says. "That's what I always said I wanted to do when I retired — to live beside the highway and be a friend to man."

If the hungry pass her way, she will make them a sandwich or buy them groceries. She helps support her grandchildren and takes meals to elderly shut-ins. She is often asked by local schools to lecture kids on the value of persistence and pursuing your dreams. And there's always a little bucket out front at the produce stand for donations to the poor.

Lately, there's also a shiny new Mercedes parked near the travel trailer It is her one concession to fame and growing fortune

"I think I've earned it," she savs, grinning "I took nothing and made something out of it. I took my hands and dug in the dirt and made something grow."

Kate Santich is a writer for Florida magazine.

Ruby's work is on display at many House Of Blues venues across the USA

Click here to see pieces for sale by Ruby Williams