Born on March 3, 1949 in Seattle, Washington, Booker T. Williams, Jr. displayed his artistic talent at a very early age,…. sketching and drawing virtually anything and everything. However at around age 13, Booker became smitten with the saxophone bug and his artwork became a secondary consideration. After attending Washington State University and the University of Washington for several years, he set out for NYC in 1974 to further “chase the music”, with a passion for art still reverberating in his being.
Booker travelled extensively through-out Europe and Japan, honing his sax chops and gigged considerably in and around New York. In addition, Booker has recorded, gigged, and jammed substantially with such notables as Andrew Cyrille, Sonny Stitt, Reggie Workman, Denis Charles, Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp, McCoy Tyner and Sonny Rollins to name a few.
In late 2005, while giving saxophone lessons, one of Booker’s students gave him a Photoshop 6 disc. Being a total novice, Booker began exploring the wonderful possibilities of Photoshop. Mind you, his artistic prowess of drawing and sketching was never out of reach.
During early 2006, Booker experienced a season of insomnia. It was during this restless period that Booker had some amazing breakthroughs with Photoshop and his art chops. He found himself thrust into a “magical” world with an indescribably, unique style of rendering his art. Booker categorizes his art as DIGITAL PAINTINGS with BOLD TEXTURES and COLORS that “jump right off the canvas and into your heart”.
Booker T.’s digital paintings have been featured in art exhibits in New Orleans, Baltimore and in New York City. He currently lives in Harlem, New York with the love of his youth and wife, Donna.
Booker’s artistic statement that encompasses every aspect of his life and spills over into his art is: graciously being able to see the UNSEEN and hear the UNHEARD…which IZZZZ ETERNAL!!!
You can find out more about Booker at his site http://www.saxxysoul.com/
Also, Booker is currently writing a book entitled, " I SURVIVED A MODERN-DAY LYNCHING/LOVE LETTERS TO MY WIFE " .
