A former student of the Gregory School is 81-year-old Rosalie Taylor, a Houston Banner contributing writer. She grew up in the Fourth Ward, but what is most significant about her connection to the school is that it will house a collection of her mother’s writings. Her mother, Naomi Polk, was a self taught artist and writer who also attended Gregory School as a child.

Naomi Polk’s works gained recognition only after her death in 1984. Since that time her works of art and culture have been exhibited publicly in various galleries around the state. She was one of six artists featured in the traveling exhibition Black History/Black Vision organized by the University of Texas, and the exhibition Handmade and Heartfelt: Folk Art in Texas by Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin. Her art has also been shown at Diverse Works Gallery in Houston.

The Naomi Polk Collection of poems and writings has been preserved at the main Houston Library, and will be given a permanent location at the Gregory School African-American Library.

Naomi Polk wrote extensively about her life in the Fourth Ward. Her poetry reflects not only these experiences but her profound observations on life. She used whatever was on hand for her paintings, applying watercolors, enamels and crayons to wood, cardboard, and even ceiling tiles. She was known to turn down store bought art supplies, saying she preferred “making something out of nothing.”

Indeed, making do was what Naomi knew best. Born in 1892, the youngest of ten children, she was often called upon to care for her older siblings’ children. Her schooling stopped at the 6th grade, but she kept her love of learning and regretted she did not have the opportunity for more education. She married Robert Polk and they had three children.

In 1933, while working on a construction job in Dallas, Robert Polk was shot and killed by a policeman. The family was never able to determine the circumstances. Naomi Polk was left alone to care for her three young children.

To supplement her meager government assistance, she developed cottage industries such as selling cosmetics and decorating cans with plant cuttings to sell to nearby residents. But Naomi was serious about writing and art, and considered it her life’s work. Her daughter recalls that she and her brothers learned to respect their mother’s time alone, watching her sit for hours writing in notebooks and painting pictures.

Naomi Polk moved to Acres Home in the 1950s. She remained there until 1961, when her home burned down and she lost all of her works in the fire. But she was determined that this tragedy would not deter her from her life’s work. She spent the rest of her life repainting and rewriting the works that had been destroyed.

Her daughter Rosalie Taylor is a poet herself, and has written a book of poems called Forever Waiting. She says she has the same love of poetry her mother did. “My art is in my writings,” she says, “but I do not have the same drive that my mother did for painting.” Ms. Taylor taught for almost 30 years with HISD, and earned a Master of Education degree from the University of Houston.

Ms. Taylor says of her mother: “She produced both literary and visual works. Her genre in the visual arts is folk art. Visionary that she was, I now see that her literary works could also fall in the same category - works produced by the untrained, done with whatever material that was on hand, done simply because there was a personal need. Some might cringe at what mama wrote. Grammar? Rhyme scheme? Others, I hope, will see the awe and beauty in the choice of words and purity of her craftsmanship. Those who would ask, why these subjects? I table answers to join the unanswered. You may find your own questions answered in the words of Naomi Polk.”