At Lunch With
Alan Jones:
Pastor, artist, activist
by Lynn Hutton
Alan Jones' signature hat may be a black roller crusher, but he wears many others: husband, father, pastor, artist, teacher, community activist, and historian.
We met at Manhattan's in Knoxville's Old City for a late lunch after his day substituting at Green Magnet School. He sat down at the table without removing his hat, explaining with a grin that it is his trademark. I noted however, that he doffed it when he bowed to offer thanks for our food.
Jones pastors Asbury United Methodist Church in Clinton (Oak Ridge District), a congregation that is helping plan a community celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of Education in May. Jones is interviewing his parishioners and other members of the community, who remember the turbulent days of the civil rights movement, when Clinton was in the national spotlight. Clinton High School was integrated in 1956, and in May 1957, Bobby Cain became the first African American to graduate from an integrated public high school in the South. More than a year later, the high school was ripped apart by three bombs.
Jones painted a mural containing the faces of the major players in that real-life drama, a study in black and white, except for three slashes of red representing the blood of a minister who was beaten during the tensions.
Art has been a major part of Jones' life since his uncle taught him to sketch at the age of five. As a teenager, he was "scared of girls" and spent his time drawing in the basement at home. He studied architecture "I understood physics, calculus, vectors and forces" but admits he had no common sense when it came to buildings. He graduated from Tusculum College with a degree in business.
He did drafting work on the design of the Sunsphere, the centerpiece of the Knoxville World's Fair of 1982, then became a street portrait painter duing the fair. During those six months, he met artists from all over the world who, he says, influenced his later work.
His portraits of Blacks in the Bible constitute a focus for his work. The paintings are luminous, glowing from within, the faces beautifully human. The Queen of Sheba stares directly, every inch a queen, while Hagar looks down with a worried frown. Simon of Cyrene is all muscle as he shoulders the cross of Jesus, a rainbow wreathing his head like a halo.
Jones is a man on the go. He cofounded Knoxville's Kuumba Festival, celebrated in June each year. He serves as a research consultant for a faith-based project for racial equity in the community. He is active in the Literacy Imperative Center, which displays his art. He has works in an exhibit called Ebony Imagery at the Oak Ridge Museum of Fine Art through March 7. His next dream is to create a RAP Renaissance Art Project which will apprentice young artists to him for a year, culminating in a study trip to Europe.
Jones paints using the pseudonym Theophilus, from the recipient of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. In the Greek it means God-lover.
He is well and truly named.
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