‘If I didn’t have art, I don’t know what I would do’

Gloria Fulton Singleton thrives on being creative. She is diverse with a skillset that’s equivalent to being a songstress who can climb eight octaves on the musical scale. Singing, however, is not her forte. Art is.

Her longtime supporters and art enthusiasts alike are well aware of her development as a painter, muralist, interior designer, decorator, woodworker, upholsterer, art teacher and seamstress.

But the years it took her to reach the apex of her career are inconsequential compared to the opportunities she now enjoys as an artist and craftsman who manages to eke out a reasonable living.

Gloria Fulton Singleton's creativity comes
in many forms such as the chair she
painted and holstered to give it an artsy
look. (Photo by Wiley Henry) 

“If I didn’t have art, I don’t know what I would do,” she said.

Singleton comes from a family of artists and craft persons. Her late mother was a seamstress and her late father once dabbled in portraiture painting. Brothers Walter “Atoosie” Fulton (painter) and Jerome Fulton (painter) are professional artists.

Sisters Vickie Fulton and Towanda Fulton are artists as well. Vickie, who recently discovered her talent, stitches quilts, makes bowties and organic, holistic oils. Towanda makes jewelry.

 “My mother sewed slip covers and my grandmother made shoes. My mother also made our clothes. So it was natural for me to sew,” said Singleton, who transformed her sewing skills into a multi-faceted home-based business called “Custom Furniture and Textiles.”

 “I’ve been creating art for a number of years,” said Singleton, who took a sabbatical in the early days to raise two children, Tonique and Joneaú, who are now adults with children of their own.

“I had to slow down to take care of my children,” she said.

Tonique and Joneaú also have artistic inclinations as well, said Singleton, 64. “But they never cultivated it. Tonique prefers instead to critique my work. They don’t want to be starving artists.”

The reluctance of Tonique and Joneaú to follow the artistic path taken by other family members didn’t bother Singleton, who allowed them to make their own choices in life.

Her own career path had not been hewn out as a child when brothers Walter and Jerome were advancing their skills in the home with their parents and siblings. “I studied under my brothers,” said Singleton, one of eight Fulton children.

 “‘Tootsie had stuff all over the place. I just threw stuff away. But I felt inferior to him. When I would try one time at a work of art, he would come behind me and perfect it,” said Singleton.

 “Jerome was much neater than Tootsie. Jerome’s skills had to be developed, though. But Tootsie had the natural gift to draw and paint. He would be up late at night. So, for me, it was innate. It was our way of life.”

Both Walter and Jerome graduated from art school. Jerome and Towanda had gone to Saturday art school as well, said Singleton, who attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Ray Vogue School of Fashion Design in Chicago, the Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis to study carpentry, and the University of Memphis.

During her stint in Chicago, Singleton got a whiff of star power by being exposed to the fashion titans at Gucci, Willie Smith, Giorgio, and Armani. “I sewed for people while going to art school,” she said.

In 1975, Singleton worked for Ebony Fashion Fair, the world’s largest fashion traveling show. She did alterations as the wardrobe seamstress. This experience prompted her to look at fashion in a different light.

 “For me to draw and be creative, I like painting on denim,” said Singleton, who has taken the idea of painting clothes to painting a couch or chair she has upholstered. “I like the combination of art, fabric and wood.”

She also likes splashing colorful acrylic paint on chairs to give them an organic look. Some drawing is required in some of the artist’s finished upholstered chairs, such as a drawing of Prince, the ‘Purple One,’ and Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat.

“You can pay your bills with upholstering. People need something nice to sit down on,” she said. “If I can combine art, fabric and different textures to my upholstery business, that would be ideal.”

Creativity is just one phase of Singleton’s output as an artist. Teaching is another. “I want to teach girls and guys how to sew,” she said. “I want to teach them sewing skills so they can make gifts.”

In her spare time – or rather time she commits to mentoring children – Singleton teaches sewing and upholstering periodically at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Miss.; Me & Mrs. Jones in the Cooper-Young community; and at Mustard Seed Studio: Sewing and Crafts Workroom.

“We’re trying to appeal to the youth to keep them busy,” she said. 

The Fulton Four: A family of artists

  

The Fulton Four: Walter Fulton Jr., Gloria Fulton Singleton, Vickie Fulton, Jerome Fulton. 

 A current of creative energy flows through one Memphis family and sparks the imagination of four of the matriarch’s eight children. Decades ago, Willie Bell Fulton and her deceased husband, Walter Fulton Sr., would discover that something within four of their artistic children needed to be expressed on paper, canvas, fabric, furniture, wall, glass, wood or any other surface.

   Walter Fulton Jr. (also known as “Atoosie”), Gloria Fulton, Jerome Fulton and Vickie Fulton each possesses a talent for either drawing, painting, designing, illustrating, cartooning, quilting, sewing, upholstering, crocheting, and simply bringing to life works of art that depict their myriad experiences.

   Gloria Fulton calls their talent a “gift” and added that her parents bequeathed it to each one of them. “My mother had a thrifty hand; she was creative,” she said. “But painting and construction came from my dad. For example, I remember him painting a portrait of my mom.”

   Willie Bell Fulton, who was married to her children’s father for 64 years, busied herself in the early days cooking, cleaning and sewing clothes to make ends meet in the Hyde Park community. However, she wasn’t aware at that time that her children were budding as young artists – with the exception of Walter Fulton Jr.

   “The only child of mine that I really noticed with the talent for art was ‘Tootsie,” Ms. Fulton recalled. “I saw a creative spirit in him at an early age. He was a different child. But the others…I was busy at that time taking care of them.”

   Now they are making their own mark as individual artists and collectively as the Fulton Four.

Walter “Atoosie” Fulton Jr.:

In pursuit of opportunities

   It would be futile to try to define Walter Fulton Jr. or attempt to box him into a single category. He has the skills to move linearly or laterally in the art world and has no qualms about taking his art on the road or settling for a stint in a bustling city for artists.

   Fulton has lived in Florida 12 years; New York, 5; Los Angeles, 4 ½; Atlanta, 5; and Las Vegas, 2 ½. When he’s back in Memphis, he’s painting, drawing, cartooning, illustrating, designing fashions or sewing clothes and, to no one’s surprise, preparing to globe-trot to the next city for another adventure. 

   “All my life, I’ve been somewhere,” said Fulton, 64, always in pursuit of making a living even if opportunity isn’t knocking. “You might as well enjoy yourself. God will provide what you need.”

   Although Fulton generally follows the market that is conducive to his style of art, the thought he’s had of launching a line of clothing – after designing and manufacturing it – has not faded from memory since he first learned to sew. He hopes to develop the idea into a business and employ people. 

   “I love to paint and draw, but I would love to manufacture cotton clothes – shirts, pants, dresses and skirts – and be a viable player in the game (the fashion industry),” said Fulton, noting that Memphis is the purveyor of cotton, “so why not use cotton to manufacture clothing?”

   Fulton understands the world around him – its beauty, significance and functionality. “Everything you do has art in it,” he said. “The only thing is how do you take it and put it on the market.”

   When he was budding as an artist, Fulton received art scholarships from the 10^th to the 12^th grade at Douglass High School to attend summer school at the former Memphis Academy of Art. After graduating high school in 1968, he received another scholarship to the art school – this time as a bona fide college student.

   Like his siblings, Fulton has a spiritual side that radiates when he speaks. He recounted a story that he shared with homeless men, comparing stones to talent.

   “I work with the homeless and often tell them about the story of David, how he defeated the giant with five smooth stones. I tell them that the stones are talents and that they have to use their stones to defeat their giants.” 

Gloria Fulton Singleton:

Recycling discards into works of art

   If art is the explicit purpose of man’s existence on earth, then everything that Gloria Fulton Singleton sees in her mind’s eye can be transformed or repurposed as a work of art. She is the quintessential recycling artist who sees beauty and meaning in discards.

   A painter, muralist, interior designer and decorator, woodworker, upholsterer, art teacher and seamstress, Singleton parlays her skills into works of art that are useful, functional and appealing to the homeowner.

   “I’ve always been around creative people,” said Singleton, 62, adding a tagline to her style of art: “Fulton’s Art & Home Furnishings.”

   The artist attributes her creativity to her mother, a seamstress; her late father, a painter and woodworker; and her late grandmother, a shoemaker. She credits her brothers Walter and Jerome for hewing a path in the arts for her to follow and esteems Estella Cash, who taught sewing in the Hyde Park community.

   “If you wanted something, you made it, painted it, or recycled what you had,” said Singleton, drawing her experiences from her youth while growing up in a household of nine other family members. Those early influences, however, would enable her to harness her creative energies. 

   “I like a beautiful, peaceful and cohesive environment. That’s what I strive for,” said Singleton, who works with children at Mustard Seed Studio teaching them the art of sewing, crocheting and knitting. Her ultimate goal is to teach children and employ women. 

   Singleton graduated from Douglass High School in 1970 and afterward matriculated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Ray Vogue School of Fashion Design in Chicago, the Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis to study carpentry, and the University of Memphis.

   Her current focus is on art and home furnishings.

Jerome Fulton:

Recreating the Old South in multi-media

   There’s a little history and antiquity in the artwork that Jerome Fulton creates. He’ll take you back to the Old South and elsewhere, where life for African Americans is seen through a kaleidoscope in cotton fields and roving landscapes, where multi-colored, multi-patched quilts are suspended from clotheslines while a slight breeze nip at their fringes, and where the blues reverberates from guitar strings.

   “I’ve always been fascinated with Africans, the drums, and their music. It’s part of who we are. It’s in our bloodline,” said Fulton, 60, whose varied images of the Old South speak the language that he conveys on paper, canvas and through various found objects that comprise some of his wood constructions.

   It was during the summer months in Clarksdale, Miss., that images of southern life would emerge and eventually become a focal point in some of Fulton’s mixed media paintings and drawings. An aunt, he said, lived in Clarksdale and visits there would open his eyes to a new world, which stirred his interest to recreate the era’s enduring legacy – albeit good or bad for African Americans. 

   “It was in Clarksdale that I learned to appreciate music, experience the great feel of country air and love for southern folks,” said Fulton. “The first sunset that I saw at the age of 8 inspired me to always look for beauty in colors.”

   Fulton is a graduate of Douglass High School. He’d dreamed of creating beautiful works of art on paper, but discovered a watercolor technique that he’d borrowed from his instructors – watercolorists Dolph Smith and Fred Rawlinson – at the former Memphis Academy of Art (Memphis College of Art), where he graduated in 1976.

   “I love watercolors,” said Fulton, who took what he learned from his instructors and breathed new life into the fluid technique of watercolors by inserting, transferring or adhering photographic images of rusty shacks, people and building to a watercolor board.

   After college, Fulton lived in Chicago for 28 years drawing and illustrating and returned to Memphis 5 years ago to give us a history lesson on southern culture. 

Vickie Fulton:

Communicating through patchwork quilts

   Hand gestures and a radiant expression frames Vickie Fulton’s face when she expounds upon her newly discovered talent for quilting. It had been a long time coming – an innate ability that was once dormant – but the creative urge to speak through her quilts has emboldened her and awakened the artist within.

   “When I’m sewing quilts, I’m singing, meditating, praying, and listening to God, and trying to solve the world’s problems,” said Fulton, 58, who took three quilting classes from Anne Harper and Andrew Hayes at the Josephine K. Lewis Center for Senior Citizens at the corner of Bellevue Boulevard and North Parkway.

   However, before finding solace in stitching quilts, Fulton taught in the Legacy Memphis City Schools for 25 years. She’d devoted considerable time in the classroom teaching the curriculum and imparting to her students a sense of history from an African-American perspective.

   Although the field of education was foremost Fulton’s passion, it is quilting that piques her interest of late and imbues her with sheer joy. “I’m still in the line of education,” said Fulton, who delights in designing each quilt in a way that educates, that tells a story.

   For example, in “Secret Code Quilt,” the artist stitched a colorful patchwork using images of African American slave quarters and abolitionist Harriett Tubman, each juxtaposed against vibrant colors symbolizing secret messages that were deciphered by slaves seeking to escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

   “When I wake up in the morning, I start quilting and don’t stop until the night,” said Fulton. “In my sleep I’m sewing. I’m always thinking about new projects. My spirit and soul are in my quilts. They are like children.

   “It’s therapy to me. I’m engrossed in thought on each piece,” said Fulton, noting that she hasn’t sewn since high school but picked it up in a snap. “I love it. It’s a lost art. And my goal is to bring it back.”

   Fulton graduated from Northside High School in 1974, from Southwestern Christian College in 1976 with an associate’s degree in social work, and from Lipscomb University in 1979 with a bachelor’s of art in social work.