Meet Folk Artist Leonard Jones

A creator preserves the Rural South On Old Tin

Our Fall Conversation piece below introduces you to a talented Georgian. But first, take our poll below to let us know what format you prefer for our weekly email.

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Meet Folk Artist Leonard Jones

Photos and story Tom Poland

Rusting tin makes for a good canvas, and for Leonard Jones it’s the perfect medium for portraying life in rural Lincoln County, Georgia.

A woman mixes flour for biscuits. A man milks a cow. A woman bends over picking collards. A boy fishes for bream. Barns, horses in pastures, cane-pole fishing, farm life, and a staple of the South, Coca-Colas, what Some rural Southerners call co-cola. Hunting dogs, dairy cattle, a pick-up bed filled with watermelons, chickens pecking at corn. You get the picture. All of it resides on what might have been the roof of a barn, shed, tenant shack, or chicken house.

On a sultry afternoon in Lincoln County, Georgia, Leonard and I talked about his life and art. He’s a storyteller and a true folk artist. He doesn’t fret over making things look realistic. He doesn’t get tangled up with rules about perspective or proportion. He just opens our eyes.

How did you and art get started?

I grew up drawing. I might not have even been two. I had a piece of cardboard and a pencil. I was sitting on the porch and I heard my dad tell my mama, ‘I dreamt I was flying last night.’ When I heard him say that I drew someone flying. I had never seen Superman before but I had him in the air with his hands out like Superman, out like an airplane. I didn’t have some cape on. I put some trees under a man flying in the air. You know he’s in the air then. I even drew on the ground.

The rural South has been your home all your life. That’s the source of inspiration, isn’t it?

Just here and a short time in Elbert County. I worked in pulpwood my seventeenth summer. I lived in Elberton for a while where I worked for a chicken farmer. My art comes out of my head. I put hills in my pictures because everyone loves hills.”

You didn’t particularly enjoy school did you?

If it was up to me I wouldn’t have gone to school one day. All the while I was going to school I was trying to come up with some way to not go. If a book didn’t have pictures in it I didn’t even want to look at it.

How did you come to use tin as your canvas?

I met a man who had art and antiques in his house, and some art on a large piece of tin. I said, “Do people buy that?” and when he said “Yeah,” I started laughing cause I thought he was joking. Whoever did it, it looked like someone in kindergarten did it, but he was serious so I began going to the city dump to scavenge tin.

How do you describe your style?