Saving the Artwork of the South: Deep Investment, and a Drone

From Birmingham to Gee’s Bend, the Souls Grown Deep Foundation is directly investing in Alabama communities where artists and quilters live, work — and struggle.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — “I’m the conjurer of all my ancestors, 400 years of African people in America,” said Joe Minter, surveying the dense outdoor environment of artworks he has forged from refuse over the past 32 years across his half-acre yard, facing two of the largest African-American cemeteries in the south. Nodding to the tombstones, he added, “they have given me the privilege of being their spokesman.”

Minter described receiving the word of God in 1989 to “pick up what has been thrown away, put it together and put my words on it.” Ever since, the artist, now 78, with a gift for mechanics and previous jobs in construction and auto repair, has been building “African Village in America.” It is a succession of improvised sculptures that bear witness to the history of the diaspora and of civil rights, the contributions of Black people and events shaping the country.

For decades, with his seven-foot-tall talking stick adorned with colorful lanyards and jiggling bells, Minter has led visitors arriving on his doorstep through his cacophonous installation. They have included the art collector Bill Arnett, who was brought there in 1996 by the artist Lonnie Holley, Minter’s friend.