[3] During the Great Depression, he carved walking sticks for his neighbors in Mississippi, vowing to "put a cane in the hand of every elderly person in his small town.

[5] When Willis inherited his father's farm in 1963, he had more space and freedom to create in his own way, and thus began to seriously paint and draw for the first time.

Shortly thereafter, his work was discovered by William Ferris, the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

Occasionally, to achieve more depth, he would add shoe polish or gold or silver glitter to the edges of the "set-in" pieces.

[2] Willis noted doing his best work during lonely periods, at night in the winter and early spring, in which his imaginary and material worlds could combine.

"[7] Willis's process was just as often motivated by a specific image he could picture in his mind as it was by a stream of consciousness creativity driven by no preconceived idea.

As a black man living in Mississippi throughout the 20th century, Willis saw death and violence affect his community in visceral ways.

"[3] Willis paints his lived experiences and real or imagined community with vivid realism, saying, "I draw from life to emphasize it, to speak through a picture what can't be brought into words.