Teaching more than strokes on a canvas
By Brandon Davis
Published in News on February 8, 2017 10:07 AM
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News-Argus/BRANDON DAVIS
Josiah King paints a door on a canvas, which resembles the door in his studio at the Arts Council of Wayne County. King became the assistant gallery director at the Arts Council four months ago, and he gives his 10th-grade art teacher, Christy Sullivan, the credit for his success.
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News-Argus/BRANDON DAVIS
Josiah King, an art teacher at the University of Mount Olive and the assistant gallery director at the Arts Council of Wayne County, points at a painting in his studio at the Arts Council. King paints small scenes rather than the entire area.
Christy Sullivan looked over a student's shoulder at his painting.
She questioned the bright pink tone of the portrait's skin, but she stared at the light and texture of the fabric and buttons worn by the person in the painting.
Sullivan realized her 10th-grade student, Josiah King, had a gift.
"I just remember that was his first real, legitimate painting that he did," she said, who taught King at Hobbton High School in Newton Grove.
"He was proud of it, and I was proud of it, too."
Sullivan said she understood the mixing process of skin tones was difficult for most students, so she decided to guide King through every aspect of art to help him fulfill his calling and use his gift.
Now an art teacher at the University of Mount Olive and the assistant gallery director at the Arts Council of Wayne County, 27-year-old King will present his "A Particular Vision" exhibit at the Arts Council next month.
The news of King's success traveled to Sullivan, who said she is still proud of her former student.
"It's very rewarding," Sullivan said. "That's why you do it. I love teaching, and I know that the majority of these students will not move on and become professional artists."
"But when you have a student that actually goes all the way through and becomes a professional artist, or if I have a student that becomes an art teacher, that kind of gives you that extra bit of satisfaction."
Sullivan, 35, graduated from Eastern Wayne High School and enrolled at the University of Mount Olive in 2000. She received a fine arts degree and her licensure for education in 2004.
However, she could not find an immediate teaching position in Wayne County. Sullivan taught art for one year in Duplin County, then for three years in Sampson County. That's where she met King -- at Hobbton.
"This kid, I mean, he just like blew me away right from the start with," Sullivan said. "For me to find that student, I just kind of grabbed hold of him. Once I found him I latched onto him."
"I knew he was gifted. He was eager to learn stuff."
Born in Faison, King chose art over band because of his mother's love of art. His mother, Tina King, teaches art in Sampson County.
King said he walked into his 10th-grade art class at Hobbton with a knowledge of art, but he said he received much more than knowledge from his art teacher. Sullivan provided King with an area of the school's art studio where he discovered his knack for painting. He was able to paint landscapes on large canvases during art class, try out different acrylic and oil paints, and he said Sullivan allowed him to leave his art supplies at school.
"My passion met her openness," King said. "Her openness led me to experiment and figure out what I wanted to do. She was very encouraging."
Sullivan said she saw herself in King. He is a perfectionist and so was she. She taught King to break away from just drawing themes and portraits. She said after weeks of "stepping out of the box" with new techniques with chalk, paint or paper, King brought in his own kind of art.
King entered art class one day with a sculpted hand holding a bird's nest. He even sculpted miniature sized people in a fetal position and placed them in the nest.
"If he had an idea, I was like, 'Do it, go for it,'" Sullivan said.
Though he found his knack and passion for art in Sullivan's class, his paintings continued to reflect grand scenes throughout the four-year fine arts program at the University of Mount Olive and his first year at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania for graduate school, where King obtained a master's in fine arts last year.
King spent hours at Edinboro searching for a specific theme to paint. He placed the brush on the canvas, gently moved the brush, but nothing happened. He put the brush back in the cup of water, looked up from the canvas and stared at his closet. He saw light coming from behind the closet door.
He stopped thinking about themes and focused on the simple light he never noticed before.
"I feel like a lot of people -- we're all walking around -- and we think certain things are mundane," King said.
"But there are moments there that we often miss because they're so familiar, so I try to isolate those moments when I see them."
King painted smaller scenes on large canvases for the next three years. He painted light shining through a window, stairs leading to a backdoor and dark clouds waiting to release rain.
He carried his paintings from Edinboro to Mount Olive, but he had no where to set up his artwork. King said he met former Arts Council gallery director Heather Reynolds through the University of Mount Olive, and she offered him a studio on the second floor of the arts council four months ago.
King paints light reflecting from the tile floor and the black door frame within his own studio.
"I have a particular way of seeing the world which I think is valuable for others because I feel like it will maybe help to open their eyes as well to what's going on in their world," he said.
Rather than the entire room, King paints only inches of the floor on a large canvas. And instead of a whole playground, he focuses solely on the light which shines on the armrest of a bench.
"Whenever we crop-in on something, whenever we bring something closer, there's a level of abstractness that happens," King said.
Though King has found his niche and success in the world of art, he still stays in contact with his former teacher.
Sullivan said her husband, Andy Sullivan, is an art teacher at Southern Wayne High School and a youth pastor at their church, and she said King's father, Stanley King, is a pastor.
She said the connection between she and King has kept them in contact to this day.
She said her current art class at Grantham is small -- her two daughters Chloe, 8, and Camden, 6, attend Grantham Elementary School and cannot wait to be in their mother's art class -- but she said she is still looking for the next King.
"He really is the best student I've ever had so far," she said. "Which I've only been teaching for eight years, so there's a chance somebody can top him."