By M. Scott Morris
Daily Journal
TUPELO – When John Armistead was pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, he spent his days off at the University of Mississippi, where he studied Greek and Latin.
Both languages can be invaluable when examining the Bible’s finer points, but Armistead suspects he was partly driven to take those classes by his challenges as a child.
“I think a lot of that was compensating for everyone thinking I was such a stupid person when I was young,” the 75-year-old said in his studio at his west Tupelo home.
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From the studio in his office, John Armistead can paint with oils or watercolors, write Sunday sermons for Unity Presbyterian Church, or work on his historical novel. “It’s a small space,” he said, “but it’s sufficient for my needs.”
Armistead was born with a gift. He’s always been able to draw. A friend of his father rode an Indian motorcycle to the house one day. Armistead was 5 or 6 years old when he studied the engine, fenders and spokes of that bike. After the man left, he drew a picture from memory.
“My father recognized that I could look at something and then sit down and draw it without looking at it again,” he said.
But Armistead also was born with a problem. In school, he had trouble telling “their” from “they’re,” or even “that.” What is diagnosable for a child today was unheard of then.
“I had dyslexia,” he said, “which I still have.”
He was labeled as a difficult student, and his desk was moved next to the teacher’s to keep him in check.
“When reading time was coming up,” he said, “I would do something outlandish to get sent to the closet.”
The evidence suggested the boy wasn’t going to amount to much in life, but Armistead had something he could hang his hopes on.
“Art was the only thing that no one could gainsay,” he said. “I could draw better than the teachers at every level.”
He eventually developed coping strategies. An intensive summer school session between fifth and sixth grades helped, and the kid who struggled so hard to read grew up to earn a doctorate’s degree, to write a forest’s worth of sermons and to publish five novels.
Some people know him as a pastor, some as a writer, others as a former religion editor at the Daily Journal. All those things are true, but art is the unbroken through-line in Armistead’s life.
“Art was always a major source of identity for me,” he said.
The walls of his home are filled with his originals. Many depict his family members, as well as scenes from travels to France and Italy.
Armistead doesn’t believe in waiting for inspiration. From Monday to Friday, he’s at his office by 5 a.m., when he starts work, which could mean painting, working on a historical fiction novel or writing a Sunday sermon for the congregation at Unity Presbyterian Church east of Plantersville.
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Armistead enjoys painting his family members when they agree to sit for him. His wife, Sandi, is depicted in the middle, and their son, David, is on the left. The third is a self-portrait. “I do that a lot for practice,” he said. “I can sit for myself as long as I want.”
He usually takes a break for breakfast with his wife, Sandi, followed by a walk through the woods with his dog, Scooby, and then he gets back to work at his studio until lunchtime.
“Then I’m done for the day,” he said.
But that’s not exactly true because he thinks about his different projects. A long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan who watches as many games as he can, Armistead usually has a sketchpad and a notebook with him, so he’s ready between innings.
“I’ll do memory sketches, or I’ll make some notes of things I need to do,” he said.
Each morning, he goes into his studio with a clear plan that he’d worked out the previous day.
“I try to get all that resolved, or I stew over it in bed,” he said.
He was recently focused on a painting of his granddaughter, Bitsy, holding a cat. Before he put paint to canvas, he already had a vision for what he wanted to create and how he wanted it structured.
Armistead said he thinks in images, which makes perfect sense for someone with dyslexia. All the scenes in his books started as pictures in his mind, and when he preaches, he enjoys describing scenes from the Bible.
And, of course, he envisions his paintings.
“It doesn’t always go well,” he said. “I worked on the cat this morning. It wasn’t working. I took a rag and some turpentine and wiped it out.”
One of his favorite quotes comes from the artist John Singer Sargent, who said, “A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.”
“It never comes out quite right,” Armistead explained. “Even for Sargent, it never comes out quite right.”
It’s an artist’s acceptance of imperfection, which could be aggravating, except for the happy accidents that reveal themselves at unexpected times.
“I hardly ever paint anything and say, ‘I want to keep this,’” he said, “but once in a while, maybe once a year, I’ll think, I want to keep this because something happened that doesn’t always happen.”
With his steady work schedule, Armistead averages 40 to 50 paintings a year, which he sells at the GumTree Festival and other events. His work also is represented by the Caron Gallery in Tupelo.
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Old buildings are common subjects for John Armistead. Over the years, he’s revisited sites multiple times to paint them from different angles.
And each year, he usually uncovers and keeps a little gem that exceeds the plans he’d made the day or night before.
“It’s rare that something unexpected happens in the process,” he said with a grin, “so it’s always great when it does.”
Armistead started life with a gift for interpreting the world, and it sustained him when the connection between his eyes and brain turned school into a misery.
“Art was the only thing I could do when I was young that made me think I might not be an idiot,” he said.
But he eventually broke through his disability and developed a ferocious appetite for learning. Armistead has earned advanced degrees and studied Greek, Hebrew, French, Latin, Italian and a smattering of Japanese.
The boy who couldn’t read has written and published five novels, “Cruel as the Grave,” “A Homecoming for Murder,” “A Legacy of Vengeance,” “The $66 Summer” and “The Return of Gabriel.”
His paintings will be exhibited at William Carey University in January, followed by a solo show at one of his alma maters, Mississippi College, in August 2017.
As he mentioned, some of his achievements were driven by a desire to prove wrong the judgments from his past, but that type of motivation eventually consumes itself.
These days, he works for the pleasure of it, and if there’s no pleasure to be found at his easel, he can work on his historical novel, prepare a sermon for Unity Presbyterian Church, or take a walk in the woods with Scooby the dog.
Armistead is a busy man, but not too busy.
“We have to take some time. We have no time to stand still,” he said. “A poor life it is if filled with cares. We have to take time to stand still, not listening to the radio or watching TV, but doing nothing, letting the mind wander, letting ideas germinate, letting images develop.”
scott.morris@journalinc.com
Twitter: @mscottmorris