Chicken Man’s painting honors Charleston church shooting victims

I took a left off Main Street and onto Gervais Wednesday afternoon, witnessing a motley crowd of protestors for and against lowering the Confederate flag in front of the State House. I headed toward Five Points. Down the hill and then back up to the corner of Gervais and Harden where I wheeled into the Shell station.

Sure enough. Columbia folk artist Ernest Lee was doing what I thought he might be doing. He was painting what we’ve all felt for the past few weeks – shock, futility, hope, casting about for a way to put some things back in place and push other things aside.

Lee, a self-taught folk artist called “the Chicken Man” because of the long-legged creatures he paints on pieces of plywood, sat on a cluttered table under a red umbrella where his mobile studio, including a beat-up black Ford truck nearby, was set up in a far corner of the pock- marked parking lot.

It was hot; he talked fast. I asked him to slow down. He smiled and swatted at a fly.

“Well, after I heard about the nine peoples, I had a friend come up and he told me, ‘It coulda happened anywhere.’ But in my mind, it didn’t happen anywhere. It happened in a church while they was reading the Bible. Look like God just spoke to me and said, ‘One was too many.’ That what He gave me, ‘One was too many.’ ”

And with that gift, Lee started painting. Not chickens. But his interpretation of nine good souls being gunned down as they studied the Bible on a Wednesday evening last month at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in downtown Charleston. The souls were black; the shooter white.

“It look like somebody cut open my heart,” Lee said of learning about the massacre several hours after it happened. “Like somebody took out a part of me.”

But rather than wring his hands, Lee picked up his brushes and opened his paints.

What transpired is a series of paintings which are rich in color and content. One in particular, propped against his truck, is called “One Was Too Many”. It is a large piece depicting the faces of the slain parishioners which he plans on giving to the Mother Emanuel congregation.

“I thought if I was gonna do it, I would do it big for the church. I would do it to lighten the burden of all the loved ones and the families. Help them to keep on keeping on. Keep on serving

God no matter what.”

And no matter that the large painting didn’t have a frame because Mark Johnson, who owns Elite Framing in Five Points, donated the framing. “I hope it will help folks at Mother Emanuel with their healing,” he said.

And no matter that Lee had to cut a hole in the back of his truck to get the painting in.

He just smiled, swatted another fly and talked about his plans for the weekend.

“I’m going down to Charleston Saturday and get me a room. Then I’m gonna carry it to the church on Sunday to present it.”

Safe travels, dear sir.

Know of a story that needs to be told? Salley McInerney may be reached by emailing salley@hartcom.net. Ms. McInerney is a Columbia native and writer whose novel, Journey Proud, is based upon growing up in Columbia in the early 60s.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 9:57 AM with the headline "Chicken Man’s painting honors Charleston church shooting victims."