By CAROLYN CARY
Contributing Writer

The late native Fayette Countian, Nellie Mae Rowe, is being honored for her African American folk art in Atlanta.

The High Museum of Art will be featuring 90 of her original works at its Folk Art and Photography Galleries, located in the Georgia-Pacific Center from Nov. 20, 1999 through February 26, 2000.

Nellie Mae Williams was born in Fayette County on July 4, 1900, the daughter of Sam and Luella Swanson Williams. Both of her parents were skilled in handcraft, her father was an expert basketmaker and her mother was a quiltmaker. They lived at what is now Hwy. 54 and Sumner Road. She was one of nine daughters and one son.

The family regularly attended the Flat Rock American Methodist Episcopal Church, three miles east of their home. She died in 1982 and is buried in it's adjacent cemetery.

In 1916 she married Ben Wheat and they lived in Fayetteville until 1930. At that time they moved to Vinings and settled on a farm. He died in 1936 and she then married Henry “Buddy” Rowe, a widower with three children. They built a home on Paces Ferry Road, where she lived until her death. He died in 1948. A hotel sits on the site now, but there is a commemorative plaque by the hotel in her honor.

She worked as a domestic for the next 30 years Her early interest in art began to surface again, and she began to decorate her yard and the walls of her house with objects made from chewing gum, rags, discarded egg crates, and on paper, she would draw with felt-tip markers, ballpoint pens, graphite, colored pencils and crayons.

She began to call her house her “playhouse” and perhaps because she never had any children, she filled it with dolls made from old clothes, complete with wigs and sunglasses.

Her work was first exhibited at the Atlanta History Center in 1976, where it was seen by Judith Alexander, who founded the first Atlanta gallery devoted to outside art in 1978. Alexander became a dealer and champion of Rowe's artwork and worked since that time to bring Rowe to the attention of the world.

Rowe's niece, Eleanor Sue Shropshire, lives in Fayetteville, but stayed with her aunt the last few months of her life. Rowe died of cancer on Oct. 18, 1982.

“Aunt Nellie didn't get discouraged,” said Mrs. Shropshire. “For a period of time, rocks were thrown threw her windows and people would stand outside the house and make fun of her and her yard. Finally people began to take notice that she was a true self-taught folk artist and she would have visitors on a Sunday from as far away as Florida and New York.”

The exhibit is entitled “Ninety-Nine and a Half Won't Do”, referring to an old gospel song that eschewed Rowe's philosophy that nothing less than 100 percent would do.

The exhibit is located at the Georgia-Pacific Center, 133 Peachtree Street at the corner of John Wesley Dobbs Ave. The hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

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