An Artist’s Life

William Flewellen Heard, 37, was leaving Harvey’s, a popular Tupelo, Miss., restaurant, last winter when one of the hostesses noticed his paint- streaked wheelchair and followed him out the door, asking, “Are you an artist?”

“I know who he is!” cried the other hostess. “He’s the guy who does that painting!” She flung her arm out as if casting paint across a canvas.

It wasn’t the first time William was recognized that evening. When he arrived at his table, a pretty woman at a neighboring table, seated between her husband and toddler, smiled brightly and waved to him. Twice.

“Happens all the time,” he muttered apologetically.

It is almost an understatement to call William a celebrity. He has been featured on FOX TV news and in a Jackson, Miss., newspaper article; he is recognized in the grocery store by school children, counsels people on the phone for hours and was urged by Tupelo Mayor Jack Reed to help a woman who was dangerously ill.

“I asked him recently to speak to a young woman who almost died twice from an eating disorder,” says the mayor, who owns several
 of William’s paintings. “Few people have more difficult challenges than William, and to be both an accomplished artist and an inspiration at the same time, not many can claim that legacy.”

William Flewellen Heard, 37, of Tupelo, Miss., has become a celebrated artist. During rehabilitation at Shepherd Center for a spinal cord injury, he tried painting but then stopped after he returned home. Seeking to improve his life, he returned to painting years later, and now his unique work has grown in popularity.

William broke his C-5 and C-6 vertebrae in an automobile accident in 2000. When he arrived at Shepherd Center for rehabilitation three months later, his nurse told him: “Your old life is over. I’m birthing you today.”

During recreation therapy at Shepherd, William decided to try painting. As a teenager, he had sprayed the undercoat on children’s furniture and baskets that his mother painted and sold at her store, Daddy’s Duck. At Shepherd, he painted with a brush taped to his wrist and continued briefly when he got home, but he hadn’t come to terms with his disability and led an unhealthy life – physically and mentally.

“I stopped and prayed and decided I had to do something with my life and get stronger,” he says.

“I was dependent on Mom and everyone else to do things for me. I was determined to become independent.”

He returned to rehabilitation with a vengeance and exercised constantly. He also watched a movie about painter Jackson Pollock and was fascinated by his “drip” technique. “I wanted to try what he was doing,” William says, “but I couldn’t hold a brush.”

An operation on the tendons in his wrist enabled him to regain use of his right hand. It enabled
 him to drive and become self-sufficient, and to experiment with Pollock’s technique by dipping a Styrofoam ball with a spoon stuck in it into cups of paint, then drizzling it onto a canvas. One day he accidentally dripped paint from one cup into the others and noticed that rather than blending, the paints retained their respective colors. Curious, he emptied one cup’s contents onto the canvas, turning and shaping as he poured.

Artist William Flewellen Heard is known for the blending of vibrant colors in his paintings.

“The colors exploded,” he said.
Thus was born the technique that has generated art shows in Charlotte, N.C., Seaside, Fla., New Orleans, La., and Jackson, Miss., and landed
his works in private collections, galleries and a
few museums. He has painted everything from abstracts to nudes to homes to cityscapes, but it is his butterflies that became his trademark.

“The butterfly was the image that first came to me,” he says. “It’s got all the colors, and it’s a symbol of rebirth.”

William donated a butterfly painting to Shepherd Center and further shared his rebirth by joining
an organization for people with disabilities called Living Independently for Everyone (LIFE). While visiting others with disabilities, he was struck by how many were isolated, poor and depressed. He started an art class for them at his mother’s store and included trips to the mall, restaurants and other activities to involve them in everyday life.

He was so successful that he now receives grants to support his work and teaches in the schools where children not only get to paint, but also learn to understand and relate to people with a disability. William’s foundation, Our ArtWorks, also organizes a dressy art show that has become one of the major social events of the year.

He has won numerous civic awards for his efforts, but perhaps his greatest satisfaction has been bringing joy and a sense of community
to those who had neither. Annette Rinehart of Booneville, Miss., drives her son 31-year-old
son, Brad, 45 minutes each way so he can
attend William’s class. Brad, who has epilepsy, is unable to drive or work, but is now selling his own sculptures, birdhouses and angels.

“He did not have anything to look forward to before art,” Annette says. “Now, every day he wants to know if he’s going to class.”

“I have friends now,” Brad says. “I can call and visit with them and do things. William is a great friend who loves to help others.”

“Wherever William goes, he’s like a missionary,” says Susan Heard, his mother. “People are just transformed. There was one guy who never talked to anyone and never used the telephone. William called him every day and became his friend; he even took him to get a tattoo. Now he’s calling people and getting out. William also took them to the beach, and they went deep sea fishing and were interviewed on the local radio station.”

Yet another time, William and two of his students painted their hair red, white and blue, just for the heck of it.

William says he is “amazed” at how his life has turned out, adding: “It’s a lot of fun. I’m very thankful and lucky.”

His mother is in awe of his transformation. “William has made me believe in God,” she says. “I didn’t before. Between Shepherd Center and God, he is making a mark that would have been impossible without his injury. When you see him with children and adults, you know somebody has intervened.”