He moved away from art and painting during his adolescence, when he was more interested in boxing and baseball. And didn’t encounter a paintbrush again until about 40 years later.
“I went through a divorce a mid-life crisis,” Williams says. “Homelessnesss was something I had never considered, intimately. It comes to you…not only fast, but dramatically.” He was living at Austin Research Center for the Homeless (ARCH) when he encountered Art From the Streets (AFTS). The program gave him a haven from the “culture shock” of homelessness, he says.
AFTS is a nonprofit that started 12 years ago to give people living with homelessness a way to make and sell their original artwork at an annual art show. It’s run by a board of volunteer directors, who manage the website and inventory, and provide the open studio space and high-quality art supplies for the artists mostly acrylic paint, pastel or charcoal and paper.