Spartanburg's Raymond Floyd passed on his love and legacy for making art to his students

Thirty years worth of artists from Spartanburg's south side can trace their creative beginnings to Raymond Floyd.

Floyd, an artist and educator, came to Spartanburg from Orangeburg in 1963 and taught hundreds of middle and high school students in Spartanburg County School District 7.

Raised with his older brother by his grandparents, his love of and talent for art was evident from a young age.

"He discovered that he could draw when he was in second grade. He was shocked that all the other kids in the class couldn't draw. He thought everybody could draw," his daughter Heather Mitchell said.

In seventh grade, Floyd was selected to participate in an art program led by James McFadden, at Claflin University, a historically Black university in Orangeburg.

"He (McFadden) came over to do practice teaching, and they had to have a made-up class because there was no art curriculum in the Black public schools in Orangeburg at that time," Mitchell said. "After he did that class with James McFadden, he decided that day that he was going to be an art teacher."

Raymond Floyd made art and artists

A graduate of Claflin University, Floyd was the first Black art teacher in Spartanburg County School District 7. He started teaching at Carver High School, the high school for African-American students, in 1963.

He met his wife, Commella Lanell Floyd, the new guidance counselor at Park Hills Elementary, at a faculty event that year. They married three years later.

When the district integrated and Carver became a junior high school in 1970, Floyd continued teaching there. He taught in the district for 30 years, working with hundreds of students.

Floyd inspired many students to pursue careers in art and art education, including Futurist painter and sculptor Winston Wingo and Kitty Black Perkins, former chief fashion designer for Barbie.

"Mr. Floyd would take money from his own pocket and buy our materials for us. We worked on special projects," said Thomas Tucker, artist and retired art director for Spartanburg School District 6, one of Floyd's first students and a longtime friend. "He showed us that art was a saleable skill if you had it."

From life-size Santa Claus sculptures to hand lettering, a skill that his students used to make some spending money by completing bulletin board projects for teachers at the school, Floyd used creative ways to engage his students.

"Ray really believed that art education was a part of what was necessary for developing full people. He was just a powerful thinker," said Kris Neely, an art professor at Spartanburg Methodist College and one of Floyd's final students.

When he wasn't teaching, Floyd was creating. Mitchell said her father was always working on something.

"He was always painting whether it was a piece of work or painting the house, or doing a sculpture," Mitchell said. "We had art on the walls and in almost every room (of our home), and I remember him having a lot of artist friends, and they would talk about art, and I knew he was talented."

Floyd’s work has been exhibited at sites throughout South Carolina, including the Cherokee Alliance of Visual Artists (CAVA) in Gaffney, Spartanburg Methodist College’s Ellis Hall, Claflin University’s Arthur Rose Museum, the University of South Carolina, Newberry College and the SC State Fair.

His art is in private collections, including those of James Earl Jones and Claire Hopkins, and the institutional collections of Appalachian State University and Presbyterian College.

People were his main subject, from celebrities, like Nina Simone and Whitney Houston, to his children and neighbors in Spartanburg. Floyd focused on capturing the everyday moments of people at work and children at play.

A collection of Floyd's work, including selections from his series "Children Being Themselves," was displayed in a retrospective exhibition at Spartanburg Methodist College in the spring of 2017.

While tempura and ink batik was Floyd's preferred medium, he was a multi-talented artist, practicing drawing, screen printing, photography and sculpture. For years, he owned a screen printing business, Novel-tees, and regularly lent his talents to local creative projects.

Floyd provided photographs for the book "South of Main" by Beatrice Hill and Brenda Lee Pryce and created backdrops for Margarette Bell Dance Studio recitals. He also illustrated "The Great Train Race: The Day Trottin' Sally Beat the Carolina Special" for local storyteller Johnny Thomas Fowler.

A living legacy

Floyd died on Nov. 21 in Spartanburg. He was 82. His funeral was held at the Chapman Cultural Center on Dec. 7.

Floyd was an active member in his church, Silver Hill Memorial United Methodist Church, where he sang in the choir.

Many of the relationships he built with his students continued in adulthood, and he kept in touch with all of his college classmates.

Floyd's friends, family and students describe him as a calm, patient, knowledgeable man of few words.

Beyond his art, Floyd is remembered by those who knew him for the pride and joy he found in his family. He is survived by his three children, Dawn Williams, Heather Mitchell, and Thomas Floyd, and his grandchildren.

Samantha Swann covers city news, development and culture in Spartanburg. She is a University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College alumna. Contact her at sswann@shj.com or on Instagram at @sam_on_spartanburg.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Artist Raymond Floyd influenced many art students in Spartanburg County