Photo courtesy of Slotin Folk Art

Leroy Almon, Sr. (American, 1938–1997) Born in 1938 in Tallapoosa, Georgia, Leroy Almon, Sr. spent most of his childhood in Ohio after his father moved the family from Georgia to Cincinnati in 1945. After finishing high school, Almon worked as a shoe salesman for roughly a decade before joining the armed forces for six months in 1961. In 1962 Almon married a woman named Etta Mae Lewis, and together they moved to Columbus where Almon found work with the Coca-Cola Company. In Columbus he met Elijah Pierce, a local barber, Baptist lay minister, and recognized woodcarver. In 1979, Almon, divorced, gave up his job with Coca-Cola and convinced Pierce to take him on as an apprentice. After working with Pierce for three years, he returned to his hometown in Georgia, remarried, worked as a police dispatcher, and continued his carvings. Much of his work explores his black identity and other themes present in his own life. Almon’s carvings serve as commentaries within a fraught political climate, and on a deep religious and sociocultural history. From carvings of angels, devils, and Uncle Sam, Almon adeptly merges such subjects as religion and contemporary politics. Made with a hand chisel and pocketknife, many of Almon’s works recall the arts of ancient Egypt, biblical passages, and his own sense of spirituality.