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MINNIE EVANS 8. 3-5-71 Tape W[[strikethrough]]2[[/strikethrough]]I

M.E. Oh! yes I used paper. Now when I first started some of my first pictures all along like 1940, 44 and 45 during the war then I couldn't get no good paper. (C.W. yes, that right) There wasn't good paper here. I had to go to [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] stationary and get some paper ten cents per dozen, and some of that was not on good paper as now. 

C.W. Do you ever draw, have you ever painted on a canvas?

M.E. Yes I have a lot of painting on canvases.

Friendship CNHS

C.W. How did your friendship with the photographer Nina Starr begin? Where did you meet Miss Starr?

M.E. Meet Mrs. Starr? A doctor from Gainesville, Florida down where they live he and his wife they came to the garden. I keep that beautiful garden.

C.W. That's right you take you collect tickets there right?

M.E. That's right. So they came there and they saw my paintings. Though they had seen them somebody from down Florida had got a picture from me and they came there and they wanted to see some other pictures. So he and his wife got two or three paintings from me. One of them they got I didn't want him to have after he was gone with it. I had them in a book. I had them numbered. That's picture number 5 in the book in that book. I says I didn't want them to have that picture. I want it. So he give me his address where he was going and I sat down and wrote him a letter and asked him if he would return that picture to me I would give him another. Instead of he sending the picture back he sent Mrs. Starr. Well she come down there and seen them and then came to my house. (C.W. Yes, then what) and then she told me about Dr. [[strikethrough]] Schwartz [[/strikethrough]] Schwarz. And so she wanted to take some of them going to New York and different things. So I wouldn't give her any [[strikethrough]] of [[/strikethrough]] any answer about them. I said now I have sit with my paintings I'm not going to let anyone take my pictures until I had given it over to my lawyer, That's George Rountree Jr., for him to handle my pictures whoever comes. So she went to Wilmington and got him in the office and he [[strikethrough]] wne [[/strikethrough]] [[strikethrough]] went [[/strikethrough]] came down there to me. He said Minnie, Mrs. Starr is all right. (C.W. right) So you can let them have them. So I let her take possession of them.

Blk [[strikethrough]] com [[strikethrough]] community awareness

C.W. Do people buy your paintings? You know are you still selling paintings?

M.E. Now I haven't sold any in a good while. 

C.W. Yes

M.E. No I guess I will when I go back.

C.W. Tell me something. Has your work ever been appraised by the black community? By black people? No it has never been been. You ever had any contact with other black painters?

M.E.  Now well uh, I don't know what the name of this thing [[strikethrough]] but [[/strikethrough]] that Wilmington was having in the month of February something kinds, something about the black people of North Carolina. I don't know what that - I can't name that thing. I let them take them [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] so they could show them and I didn't