FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Their work has brightened canvases for decades, but only recently have Florida's famed Highwaymen artists received the recognition they deserve.
WPTV reporter Jon Shainman recently had the chance to watch one of these talented painters at work as he prepared for an event this weekend.
WATCH BELOW: Famed Florida Highwayman artist keeps tradition alive
In his Fort Pierce garage, Al Black approaches four canvases with a mindset of how each will evolve.
"I just let it happen," Black said.
Black, who is 78, is one of a handful of original Highwaymen artists.
When he was in his 20s, he delivered typewriters before becoming the salesman for a group of African-American artists who in the 1960s would go door to door and also sell their work by the side of the road.
"Well, I had to fix these paintings when they would get messed up on the road," Black said. "They get scarred, and I'd watch them so I'd know what color to put in there."
Self-taught, Black went from repairing and touching up the canvases of his fellow artists to painting them himself.
He said you have to be careful not to put too much effort into creating a painting.
"The more you work on it, you can work on a painting for five years, and you won't get any more out of it than you will if you painted it in three hours," Black said.
A rough patch of his life occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, landing Black in prison for more than a decade on cocaine and fraud convictions.
"It was the best 12 years I ever did in my whole life," Black said. "I had my own trailer where I painted, fixed up the whole prison system."
His murals are still visible in many state corrections facilities.
Clean for 30 years, his paintings now sell for thousands of dollars.
"I got a style different from everybody else's style," Black said. "Everybody else paints mostly with knives, but I do it with a brush."
Black and the other Highwaymen will be honored this weekend in Fort Pierce at the annual Highwaymen Heritage Trail Art Show.
The event is Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Moore's Creek Linear Park along North Seventh Street.
A Highwaymen Museum is also being developed along Avenue D in Fort Pierce.
Black, who was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004, is now teaching his daughter how to paint, continuing the legacy of the Highwaymen.
