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Beginning in 1916, Minnie Evans was employed as [[Domestic worker|a domestic]] at the home of her husband's employer, Pembroke Jones, a wealthy industrialist.<ref name="Folk Art Messenger" /> The Evans family lived on Jones's hunting estate, "Pembroke Park," known today as the subdivision Landfall. Pembroke Jones died in 1919 and his wife, Sadie Jones remarried Henry Walters. The couple moved nearby to the Airlie Estate which was left to Sadie Jones from Pembroke Jones. Evans continued to work from Sadie Jones and now Henry Walters, on the Airlie Estate. After Walters died, Sadie Jones decided to turn the Airlie Estate into gardens which later became one of the most famous gardens of the south.<ref name="Painting Dreams" /> After Sadie Jones died, a man named Albert Corbet bought the property in 1947 and assigned Evans to be the [[gatekeeper]] and take admission from public visitors.<ref name="Painting Dreams" /> She held this position for the rest of her life.<ref name="Painting Dreams" /> She retired from her job as the gatekeeper when she was 82 years old in 1974.<ref name="Painting Dreams" />
==Career==
Evans began drawing on [[Good Friday]] 1935, where she finished two [[drawing]]s using pen and ink "dominated by concentric and semi-circles against a background of unidentifiable linear motifs".<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=1466|title = Minnie Evans|date = |accessdate = |website = |publisher = |last = Smithsonian American Art Museum|first = }}</ref> From a young age, Minnie depicts her experiences of receiving visions and viewing mythical creatures that acquaintances could not.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Angel That Stands By Me {{!}} Folkstreams|url=http://www.folkstreams.net/film-detail.php?id=71.|access-date=2020-11-11|website=www.folkstreams.net|language=en}}</ref> Inevitably these visions circulated throughout her life as she started to hear and see more into her early adulthood. She heard a voice in her head that said 'Why don't you draw or die?'<ref name="Folk Art Messenger" /> After this, Evans did not resume drawing until 1940.<ref name="Folk Art Messenger" /> She started using [[pencil]] and wax on paper for her beginning works and she later worked with [[oil paint]]s and [[mixed media]] [[collage]]s.<ref name="Oxford Art Online" /> Her subject matter were usually either [[Bible|biblical]] scenes or scenes from nature. Her influences included [[African culture|African]], [[Caribbean]], [[East India]], [[China|Chinese]], and [[Western cultures]].<ref name="Oxford Art Online" /> Since she held the position as gatekeeper at the [[Airlie Gardens]], she often used the gardens as her inspiration in her work to depict nature scenes.<ref name="Oxford Art Online" />
Evans first started selling her work at the Airlie Gardens by hanging her pieces on the front gate of the gardens. Those who would come and visit the Airlie Gardens began purchasing her work. Soon she became known throughout the south and visitors would come to the gardens just to see her work.<ref name="Painting Dreams" /> In 1961, she had her first formal exhibition of drawings and oils at the Little Artists Gallery (now St. Johns Museum) in Wilmington, North Carolina.<ref name="Painting Dreams" /><ref name=":12">{{Cite book|last=Otfinoski|first=Steven|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BcWHdpRoDkUC&dq|title=African Americans in the Visual Arts|publisher=Facts on File, Inc|year=2014|isbn=9781438107776|series=A to Z of African Americans, Facts on File library of American history|location=New York City, NY|pages=74-75}}</ref>
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