At age 112, Frank Calloway is one the oldest citizens in the United States. He has been a resident of one of several Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (DMHMR) facilities since 1952. Currently, he resides at the Alice Kidd Nursing Home on the historic Bryce Hospital campus in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Calloway is an incredible man in many respects. He is kind and gentle in nature, has a great smile and dresses impeccably. Typically, he loves to wear his new tennis shoes, blue overalls and a cotton dress shirt. He has his own room at Alice Kidd and is a celebrity among his fellow residents and staff. Over the past few years, his celebrity status has deservedly increased due to a unique talent that he possesses.
Calloway, affectionately called “Mr. Frank,” has become quite famous as a folk artist. All day he sits or stands at a table and draws incredible pieces of art on long rolls of butcher paper. He draws farm scenes, street cars, wagons and houses, images that are part of his memory. The images have vibrant colors that stem from Mr. Frank’s artistic flare, and the medium he most frequently uses is crayons. Ten-, 20- and 30-foot murals of red horses, purple mules and delightfully dressed passengers in their wagons are typical of Calloway’s scenes. Using a ballpoint pen, crayons and an elaborately contrived numbering system, Calloway creates pieces of art that are absolutely unique to his style.
Over the past five years, the Alabama DMH/MR has featured his work in its annual Consumer Art Exposition. Twice the event was held at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and for the last three years it was held in the State Capitol. Additionally, a photograph of Calloway and his work was on the cover of the state phone book in 2002, and he was a featured artist at the Kentuck exhibit in Northport, Ala. in 2007. Predictably, the high point of Mr. Frank’s artistic career thus far is expected to occur in October, when his work will be displayed at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in Baltimore, Md. AVAM opened to the public in 1995, has since received numerous awards and is appreciated as one of the premier museums in the world.
Visionary art is different from folk art. The essential difference between the two, though both may at times use similar materials and methods, is that visionary artists don’t listen to anyone else’s traditions. They invent their own. Rebecca Hoefburger, the founder of AVAM says they chose Calloway’s work because of “his intuitive grasp of math and the colorful execution of his living memories.” After a visit with Mr. Frank, she stated that she had never seen the level of conscious care in any other mental health facility provided by the staff at Alice Kidd for Calloway
Many of the employees at Alice Kidd have worked with him their entire careers.
“They are, in essence, his family,” said John Houston, commissioner of the Alabama DMH/MR.
Calloway has lived an extraordinarily long life. Last year, the director of Alice Kidd asked him if there was anything he would like to do that he had never done.
Mr. Frank thoughtfully replied, “I’d like to see the ocean.”
A few weeks later, he was sitting in a “beach friendly” wheel chair with waves from the Gulf at the Alabama coast spattering his feet.
“It’s so big,” he said, “You can’t see all the way across it!”
Happy 112th birthday, Mr. Calloway … and many more.