Jason Sheller
One of Kermit Oliver’s designs for Hèrmes
About a year ago, writer Jason Sheeler was working on a story about Hermès scarves – the elaborately decorated silk squares that can cost as much as $400. He traveled to Lyon, in southern France, to visit the factory, and on his first day there he found an even more interesting story.
At the Hermès factory, a French woman threw out a big scarf with a turkey on it and asked Sheeler if he knew Kermit. He didn’t.
Kermit, as it turns out, is Kermit Oliver. He lives in Waco, Texas and he’s the only American to ever design scarves for Hermès. “As a matter of fact,” the woman told Sheeler, “he is a postman.”
A Deeply Humble Artist
Several weeks and many voicemails later, Oliver finally, reluctantly, allowed Sheeler to visit him at home. Sheeler, who wrote about Oliver in the October issue of Texas Monthly, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that he was immediately struck by Oliver’s artwork.
“Every single bit of wall space is covered with incredibly beautiful, colorful paintings,” Sheeler. Most of them are portraits of children or farm animals. One huge painting showed a cat sitting on the back of a cow wearing a floral necklace. Another was a portrait of Oliver’s father sitting astride a horse.
Oliver is 70 years old. He wears his mustache trim and neat. And even though he’s one of the most important living African-American painters in America, he just doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. Never mind that he’s the only American artist ever to design a scarf for Hermès — which he’s done 16 times.
Again, he’s also an employee of the U.S. Postal Service. “He doesn’t believe he can make a living as a painter,” Sheeler says. “He doesn’t even believe that he’s that good — those are his words. He just likes to paint. He works overnight at the post office, comes home, paints a little bit, takes a nap and then does it all over again. He survives on two to three hours of sleep. Eats a sandwich on his break at the post office. He gets a 30-minute break, and then he goes back to sorting mail.”
A Fateful Gallery Show
“I think that he’s a mystery to everyone. I even sometimes even wonder if it’s a mystery to Kermit, because I think he enjoys people” says Shelby Marcus. Marcus is the wife of Lawrence Marcus, the founder of the legendary Dallas-department store Neiman-Marcus, which was instrumental in bringing Kermit Oliver to the attention of Hermès.
“He’s private, that’s the only thing that I can think of. He has a need for privacy,” Marcus says.
Oliver went to art school at Texas Southern University in Houston in the late 1960s. Almost immediately, his work stood out.
“His art is colorful. He works with very, very, very rudimentary supplies,” Sheeler says. “He works with acrylic paint that he gets at Michael’s [craft stores]. He works on very cheap watercolor paper. He draws, and then he paints. Oftentimes he uses his family members in his paintings.”
A gallery in Houston recognized Oliver’s talent and mounted a one-man show of his work in 1970. He became the first black artist represented by a major gallery in Houston. That’s how Kermit first met Shelby Marcus – and later, her husband.
Jason Sheeler
One of Kermit Oliver’s designs for Hèrmes.
“The Hermès company was looking for an artist to do a scarf with a southwest theme,” Sheeler says, “And Lawrence Marcus said, ‘You know what? I know the guy, I’ve got the guy for you.'”
Lawrence Marcus is now retired. He’s in his 90s and when we reached him at home in Dallas, he recounted that meeting with Hermès. “The thing that intrigued me and made me think of Hermès, for using Kermit’s talent was the fact that KErmit tends to design from the outside in. In other words, he designs the frames of the pictures that he’s painting, and htat’s the way Hermès has chosen its path and it just fit in to what Kermit was doing.”
By this point, Kermit Olver’s work was selling for tens of thousands of dollars. One of his paintings has sold for more than 70 thousand. And all the while, even to this day, he shows up at the post office in Waco while he sorts mail.
Kermit Oliver’s story might have ended there were it not for a tragic turn in 1998.
Oliver’s youngest son, Khristian, got mixe dup with a bad crowd of kids in high school. One night, Khristian went out for a joyride with two friends, brothers, and his girlfriend. They were drinking and smoking pot. They decided to rob a house.
Joe collins, the owner of the house, wasn’t home. But when the boys were inside, Joe Collins returned and discovered Khristian and one of the brothers inside his house. He pulled a gun on them.
“He fired,” says Jason Sheeler, “He fired at the brother, Khristian fired back at Joe, at Joe Collins. And somebody later beat Joe Collins to death. And there was a trial. The two brothers testified for the prosecution. Khristian’s girlfriend was sent away for life and Khristian got the death penalty.”
Kermit Oliver tried, in vain, to have his son’s sentence commuted. Hermès and the Marcus family helped Kermit set up a legal fund. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers, but the sentence stood. In November 2009, Kermit and his family watched as Khristian Oliver was put to death by lethal injection.
Enlarge Hooks Epstein Galleries Inc.
A self portrait by Kermit Oliver
Hooks Epstein Galleries Inc.
A self portrait by Kermit Oliver
According to people who know Kermit, he was never the same after.
According to Shelby Marcus, “He became even more reclusive, and I believe he had some searching to do within himself about his religion, because he was so crushed that his son had taken the path that was just not, there was no common thread within his family that would lead one to believe that Khristian wouldn’t have taken the same path as the other children, but he did not.”
“To talk about his faith,” says Jason Sheeler, “his faith has shifted, he’d definitely lost his faith, lost his way in the world, and at the same time having to go to the post office every day. And at the same time having to creat these incredibly luxurious 410 squares of silk that are sold in exclusive boutiques worldwide.”
Jason Sheeler’s story on Kermit Oliver appeared in the October issue of the Texas Monthly. Some of his paintings are on permanent display at the Museums of Fine Arts in Dallas and Houston. In early December, the Hooks-Epstein Gallery in Houston will mount a new show of Kermit Oliver’s work.
Article source: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/19/163273742/how-a-texas-postman-became-an-herm-s-designer?ft=1&f=1001