Mary Tillman Smith lived on a one acre tract of land in rural Copiah County, Mississippi, near the town of Hazlehurst, in a house surrounded by a monumental fence that she constructed from corrugated sheet metal retrieved from the local landfill. As a youngster, she had shown an interest in drawing and, in the mid 1970's, after raising her son and retiring from her job as a housekeeper, she began to paint full time. She was seventy one years of age. She painted everyday and created autobiographical tableaus, spiritual icons, and portraits of the people and animals she knew. She wrote messages on plywood and tin, weaving them into the structure of her fence, house, and outbuildings. Her home and grounds became an outdoor gallery that immediately began to attract visitors. Hearing impaired since childhood, Smith suffered a stroke in 1985 but continued to paint with the aid of her sister, Elizabeth Alexander, who brought her supplies and helped her with the sales of her work. The videos on this page are from interviews conducted at her home in December, 1986. Scroll down to view.