Bernice Sims

The eldest of 10 children, Bernice Sims grew up in the Hickory Hill community near Brewton, Alabama and has lived there her whole life. Bernice raised six children as a single parent. She trained and worked as a nurse's aid until 1975, when knee surgery forced her to retire. Subsequently, at the age of fifty-two, Bernice Sims passed her high school equivalency exam. Class field trips to museums reawakened a dormant interest she had had as a child in painting. She tried her hand again at painting, and discovered a talent for rendering scenes from her youth. Colorful scenes of farm life, church activities, community gatherings, daily life and the civil rights struggles she participated in, have all become part of her portfolio. Bernice said I want our children to know what things were like. In the 1980s Bernice Sims enrolled in a community college nearby hoping to sharpen her artistic skills. However, her professor was so impressed by her artwork that he advised her to keep painting her own way. Bernice was active in encouraging voter registration, and was in Selma for the Civil Rights March. In 1995, The United States Postal Service honored Bernice Sims by issuing a stamp of her painting depicting the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Bernice paints with bright oil colors on canvas.