Posted on August 12, 2005

COLORS Director dies at 56

By Carolyn Farr Smith| Features Editor
the Spartanburg Herald-Journal

There's a good chance that you don't know his name or anything about his life. There's an even better chance that you've seen his work throughout the city.

Thomas Marion Parham, 56, of 128 Anita Drive died Wednesday in Spartanburg Regional Medical Center of congestive heart failure.

A graduate of Allen University in Columbia and a former dean of students at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, Parham's artwork fills the walls where people gather to eat, to worship and to learn. But perhaps his greatest legacy is in the lives he touched.

Mayor Bill Barnet said Spartanburg is a lesser place today, because Parham is gone.

"Thomas Parham was a very elegant soul," Barnet said. "Some of us get so much publicity because we are public officials or business leaders, but this community is made up of so many people who do things every day that we don't applaud -- Thomas Parham was one of those people."

Parham has for years been a part of the COLORS program at the Spartanburg County Museum of Art, a program Barnet said, "flies under the radar screen."

"It is a treasured gift he gave to young people who would not otherwise have exposure to art," Barnet said.

He became the director of COLORS, the Creative Outlet and Learning for Rising Stars program, in 1996, teaching disadvantaged students from across the city about art.

Laura Baker Pinkley of Asheville, N.C., founded and directed the COLORS program in 1993. She said that each time she told someone about the proposed program, she was told she should get Parham to help.

Parham helped her run the program and when Pinkley left Spartanburg, it was Parham who took over.

"He was a very dear friend," Pinkley said. "He was a good role model for the kids in the program. Working with him – it's the time I'm most proud of in my life. We just had an amazing connection with art, with the kids and I'll never forget that."

Pinkley said she visited Parham just a few weeks ago. She said he smiled when he saw her, but was unable to speak.

"We've told each other we loved each other so many times, there's nothing left unsaid," she said. "I dreamed about him last night (Wednesday) and I woke up thinking I need to go back and see him. I'm a day too late."

Parham's art is everywhere. His position at the museum was only part-time, and he spent his days working on commissioned pieces.

In a 1998 interview with the Herald-Journal, Parham talked about his artistic talent, his paintings in an area church and his work on commissioned pieces.

"I think I could draw before I could write my name," Parham said. "I was always getting into my father's tools. I'd carve things out of wood or anything I could find, really."

Chuck Bailie first met Parham at a Spartanburg restaurant. Parham was painting a mural and Bailie was working as a bartender. Bailie said he spent hours talking with Parham about his work.

Bailie choked back tears as he talked about his "best friend, partner, psychiatrist, boss and mentor."

Bailie, who spent time with Parham all over the city painting murals and working with the kids in the COLORS program, said Parham was like a father to him.

He said Parham was always straightforward and honest, and pushed him as an artist.

"When I had a question he was the first person I called," Bailie said. "He was the one who critiqued my work. The single person who has been the biggest influence on my life – he was all that in one person."

Bailie said it would be hard to return to work on the murals that he and Parham had started together.

"Knowing he won't show up to finish it with me," Bailie said. "But I can hear him now, he'd tell me to go get painting, to quit whining and take care of business.

"Of all the people whose lives he touched, I'm probably the luckiest one, because I got to paint pictures with him."

Parham, a Spartanburg County native, is survived by his wife, Patsy Parham; his mother, Willie Parham; three daughters; a son; a sister, four brothers; and six grandchildren.

Memorials may be made to the Thomas Parham Family Fund at Wachovia Bank.

Carolyn Farr Smith can be reached at 562-7223 or carolyn.smith@shj.com.