From jagged pieces:

From jagged pieces:

Mixed-media artist Najee makes art the way the rest of us try to build our lives. He takes scraps and pieces from everyday life to create something larger, something beautiful.

For example, in talking about his piece "Luella's Home," which shows his motherin law standing in front of a panorama of her home, he says: "I started off with these torn pieces of paper, handmade paper, decorative paper and wallpaper I had hanging about, and glazed them onto the canvas. I collaged these different jagged and rough edges kind of randomly, into the piece, let it dry.

"When I went back, I tried to tell a story from these odd shapes and whatnot, these jagged edges. I deconstructed the pieces, and went back and rearranged and created an original that would be stimulating to the viewer."

The 36-year-old artist, who goes by just one name, Najee (and is not related to the jazz musician Najee), will be one of more than 200 artists at this weekend's ArtFest Fort Myers (Feb 7 and 8). The annual downtown juried art festival includes work by painters, photographers, sculptors, jewelry makers, and fiber artists.

This will be Najee's first time at Art- Fest Fort Myers; he's looking forward to it. Florida is very receptive to his work, he say, and his work also sells well in New York, Chicago and D.C.

In mid-February, Najee will once again be exhibiting at the esteemed National Black Fine Arts Show in New York City. He's one of the youngest artists to claim that honor. It will be his third time at that show. The first time his dealer showed his work there, it sold out, he says.

The panoramic view in "Luella's Home" is different from his previous works, the artist says. For example, in works such as "Afternoon Talk" and "Holding On," the composition is more architectural.

"This is the carpet, this is the wallpaper, this is the border," he says. "It's more like a patchwork quilt. That quilt is like us; we've got these different parts and try to put them together and make sense."

His work focuses on three themes: family, relationships, and music.

"In the work I do, I'm celebrating the American experience from an African- American perspective," he says.

SPECIAL TO FLORIDA WEEKLY This weekend's ArtFest Fort Myers will attract huge crowds to the downtown River District.

His work portrays scenes familiar to anyone: a group of men playing cards or dominoes at a table, an older man courting an older woman, a group of kids visiting their grandmother, a mother and child in the kitchen, a musician playing his instrument.

Barack Obama even shows up in his work: a photograph on the wall in a home, on a TV shirt. There's even a portrait of the man standing in an office, a white dove hovering over his left hand, and a black-and-white photograph of Martin Luther King Jr., on the wall.

It isn't just the subject matter, the everyday scenarios of life that appeals to people, but also the way in which he creates them.

Najee utilizes a variety of materials to create his work: scraps of patterned fabric, lace doilies, pieces of advertisements, menus, handmade paper, newspaper, photographs he's taken, and some paint.

In his piece "Take 'Em to School," a group of men sit around a table, playing cards, with an older man and a young boy looking on. Najee used an old blue plaid flannel shirt of his for the boy's clothing, and coveralls and an orange and white shirt, both from a thrift store, to clothe two other men in the work.

"The really nice hat that the guy in the glasses is wearing, is the style hat I wear," Najee says. "I made it out of one of my own shirts. The dog in the background is from a magazine. The art on the back wall is from postcards, and I took old pieces of canvas of unfinished paintings to use for the facial hair and beards of the men."

The paint/collage ratio for "Take 'Em to School" is 50-50, he says. Some clients prefer his paintings, and feel they have a certain vibrancy, he says. In the beginning, Najee painted. Then, when he began incorporating mixed media into his work, it was maybe 10 percent collage and 90 percent paint. Now, the ratio of collage to paint is the opposite.

But Najee continues to experiment.

"I'm just trying to keep it funky," he says.

His work has been heavily influenced by Romare Bearden, the late African- American artist known for his striking and innovative collages. Because he grew up in Arkansas, Najee prefers Mr. Bearden's rural scenes, his images of his native Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

COURTESY IMAGES Works by mixed-media artist Najee.

"Bearden was just so different," Najee says. "I really don't know how to put it. It was almost like love. It was love at first sight, when I was first exposed to Bearden's work."

He's Najee's favorite artist, even though he does love Picasso, Gauguin and Chagall.

"But it's like a love affair with Bearden," he says. "He's my greatest influence.

"One thing is his subject matter, the rural trains, the relationship between the industrialization of the south, and the laborers, people working with their hands, going to work in factories, steel plants. That's the same type of environment I grew up in," Najee says, noting that at age 12, he himself picked cotton in Arkansas.

"I like his use of color. The uniqueness of his collages always appealed to me, and it's the combination of all these factors that's why I'm such a huge fan of his work."

In his own work, he tried to make a break from doing "the typical southern scenes of people laboring out in the fields, Mama out in the garden," he says. "What I introduce is more upscale, with nice homes, nice furniture, wallpaper. I was talking to a community historian, and showing her some pieces. And this is the way that a lot of us used to live, right after Reconstruction. The lead people in the community wanted finer things, and they dressed better than we do now, with the man in suit and tie, the woman in full dress.

"That's one of the things I tapped into. I'm trying to respond to how I want for us to live our lives. We always wanted to live dignified and be educated and be more refined. I think we've gotten away from those core values in how our families grew up. I'd like to inject that into our community, into our generation. At least, I'm trying to hold on those values and dignity, and have that be reflected in my art."

Najee's mom would encourage him to draw when he was young, buying his sketches from him so he could go out and buy candy. He thought about giving up on art when he was in junior high, but a teacher, Miss Barfield, encouraged him.

Najee received a scholarship to the Memphis Academy of Art, but it was a partial scholarship, and he was unable to afford art school. He wound up becoming friends with Najjar Musawwir, a community art activist in Illinois. Mr. Musawwir eventually became an art professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Najee went into sales, and even opened an art gallery for 2½ years with his wife in Arkansas.

But it wasn't until the early 2000s that he "got the bug to do art fulltime.

"I try to leave a footprint," he says. "Other than a mother, artists are the closest to God, because He allows us to be creative, to have a sense of the activities He's done. I have a new path in my work. My work grows and grows: that was nice, but look at what I'm doing now."

His work, he says, has a refined look, but there's a rawness to it too, that people respond to.

He credits his mother and his wife for their support.

Even though times are difficult economically, he still believes in the arts.

"I'm an artist," Najee says. "I'm a patron of the arts. I love art. I love collecting. I think that those who give will always be in a position to give.

"We have to continue living, have to continue searching out these things that bring joy in our life, and art is one of them. Things will get better. People have to not forget the artists."

if you go

>> ArtFest Fort Myers

>> When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 7 and 8

>> Where: Edwards Drive, downtown Fort Myers

>> Cost: Free

>> Information: Call 768-3602 or go to www.artfestfortmyers.com