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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