LUMBERTON — Sitting in the back corner of Candy Sue’s restaurant at lunch hour, Fleetwood Covington talks about art as owner Susan Walker checks in periodically to pour tea and talk about old friends.
Covington and Walker were classmates at Lumberton High School, and several of his drawings and oil paintings decorate the walls of the restaurant.
“People keep asking if they are for sale,” Walker said, but Covington avoids the subject of money and offers of lunch.
Art and music have been enduring passions for Covington, and they have taken him on a long road from Lumberton to success. His work, which he describes as Southern Americana, is sold in galleries in New Orleans and elsewhere.
“New Orleans is a good spot for the type of work I do — unusual images,” he said. “I hate the business end of art. I don’t facilitate markets.
“When I was teaching art, I told my students, ‘If you’re doing art and looking over your shoulder wondering if somebody will like it, you should quit,’” he said.
Covington has pursued life and art with uncompromising energy. Throw in a lot of talent, and you have an artist who can live up to a name like Fleetwood.
The market has found Covington.
During conversations in the restaurant, he leafs through an 80-page book of photographs with as many as 1,000 of his works, many of them on rusted tin pulled from decaying barns. They feature meticulously detailed blues musicians, and country people and scenes.
Covington started drawing early in life. His grade school drawings of superheroes and war machines were highly sought after by classmates. Covington’s family moved to Lumberton when he was 14, and music also became part of his life.
“I never took lessons. We had a piano,” he said. “There was always music in the house. I played an upright bass in the school orchestra.”
Although Covington received formal training in art, he is more instinctual than technical. He draws what he likes, and refuses to talk about how much it would set you back to own one of his works.
“Being an artist goes so many ways for me,” he said. “Art is whatever you do. Building a house is creative work.”
Creative work takes many forms for Covington. He produces a box with several heavy objects wrapped in cloth. As he unwinds them, handmade knives with handles decorated with Lucite-like material emerge.
A pair of oyster knives also pop out of the box, and Walker shows them around the restaurant. Oysters are on the menu today.
Bullwhips and fishing lures are another part of his repertoire.
“I made a lure to imitate an insect with a broken wing,” he said. “When it hits the water, fish hit it every time.”
He invents things, too.
“I’m working on black light paint,” he said. “Remember, how it flakes off posters? I want it to have the same characteristics as oil paint.”
Old friends and good times in Lumberton remain a touchstone for Covington, and he’s never been far away. He recently moved from Wilmington to Florence, S.C.
One of the characters from his youth was Ed Allen, who was a legend of the Lumberton landscape. Covington’s drawing of Allen is on permanent display in the Robeson County History Museum, along with Allen’s bicycle.
“It took a long time to find the photo of him that I wanted,” Covington said. “I was sure that William (Bill) Miller had it, but he’s in a long-term care facility.”
Miller had taken numerous photos of Lumberton in the 1970s. Covington found what he was looking in Miller’s abandoned trailer in one of several ammo boxes full of photos.
After graduating from high school, Covington attended art school in Florida, where he enjoyed the weather and extracurricular activities the Sunshine State had to offer.
In college Covington shed his nickname. Fleetwood is actually his given name, and is a family name passed on to him.
“Everybody in Lumberton knows me as Woody; that was just a nickname,” he said. “When they called the roll on my first day at the Ft. Lauderdale School of Art, I said, ‘I’m going to lose this name right now.’”
After college, Covington found that making a living as an artist is an elusive prospect. He worked a lot of jobs while playing the blues and making art.
Dock master, restaurant manager, musician, printer, sign painter, and gallery director are just part of his resume. While working on a crew installing fiber optic cable, he had a realization.
“It was dangerous work,” Covington said. “I saw that I was making more money on art.
“I’ve always been an artist, but only full time for the last 10 or 12 years,” he said.
Covington’s style is intensely detailed, monochromatic realism. His subjects appear as if captured in aging photographs.
His artist’s statement reads in part, “I try to create art that people can relate to on a very basic level. Using raw materials and a raw documentary approach, I try to project a reverence, not only for the cultural/historical aspects of my subjects, but for the integrity of the individuals as well. Having been raised in the South, I feel a deep connection to the landscape and its people, and I’m always trying to capture its unique beauty, energy and humor.”
Confining Fleetwood Covington to one thing is not possible. During the conversation, he talked enthusiastically about a guitar project he is working on for VH-1’s Save the Music Foundation.
“I am hoping it comes in today,” he said. “It’s a Gibson Les Paul. I am designing it for an auction.”
It’s the second time around on the project. The first guitar was broken in transit, and Covington insisted VH-1 not sell a repaired guitar.
The artwork on the face of the guitar features Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry, who collects guitars and has a large collection of the famous Les Paul models. Perry is a friend of Covington’s.
It’s an opportunity to create a work for a national stage. And it’s a rare moment when art and music come together in perfect harmony for Fleetwood Covington.
