After seeing Buddy's work last year on exhibit at Folk Fest, we couldn't wait to go visit him at his southeastern Alabama home. When we arrived, the art decorating his roomy country lot was visible in every direction. We saw smiling faces staring up, brightly painted on tin and wood, and creatures of whimsy, fish and "catfish" (tin cutouts, the head of a cat, and the body of a fish) lying on the hoods and trunks of cars, drying in the hot August sun. When we asked why he started making art Buddy replied, "I started out makin' toys for myself and my family. I've always been makin' something out of nothin'." Bones, twigs, coffee cans, old roofing tin, and horseshoes are a few of the materials Buddy brought to life out of necessity and love. Fifty something years old, Buddy was delivered by a midwife and is not positive about his age. "They says I wadn't no bigger than a co-cola bottle when I was born!"

Buddy shows us, pointing to mature pine to opposite pine, where the cotton fields used to be. He has lived here his entire life and has seen the land and its inhabitants go through a lot of change. Depicting people and scenes that have affected Buddy's life is the inspiration behind his painting, toy making and personal portraits.

That never ending need to "tinker" and to keep happy memories alive by passing along stories through his creations has also been a reliable source of income for Buddy. Not only have people been purchasing Buddy's art, but also hand crafted wagons and wheelbarrows made of roots, limbs and scrap lumber, cabinets and chairs made out of sticks. Growing up in the A.M.E church, Buddy relives scenes from his childhood in his paintings at functions like "camp meeting", which were religious gatherings that lasted several days where everyone brought food, often live hogs and chickens, which they killed, cleaned and ate. There was a lot of preaching, but also lots of socializing and visiting.

In the true folk painting tradition, James Buddy Snipes gives us a visual history of daily life and communicates traditional values, allowing us insight to a community, and the actual people and experiences who made up that community.