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Daily Gun Violence Sparks Chatham Artist's Latest Work

 Leroy McCray stands next to his new painting
Leroy McCray stands next to his new painting "My Pain."
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DNAinfo/Andrea V. Watson

CHATHAM — A retired project designer is keeping busy with his new art career.

Leroy McCray, 66, a Chatham resident who grew up in north Philadelphia and now lives in the 400 block of East 88th Place, returned to his first love — art — after retiring from his job at Robert Bosch Tool Corporation. His time there earned him a dozen patents in his name, along with several awards that are plastered along the walls of his basement.

His home is full of more than 100 oil paints, pencils and paintings.

McCray said painting doesn’t feel like work when he loses himself in his creativity.

“It’s not an hourly thing, but more of a mood thing for me,” he said. “I try to not make this a full-time career, but more to just have fun and enjoy myself.”

Recently, the daily gun violence in Chicago inspired him to create, he said. One painting holds two titles — “Black on Black Crime” and “My Pain.”

This piece came to be “due to all the shootings we’ve been having in the city” with the children and teens, McCray said. “They’re kids, innocent people, so that’s what prompted that piece.”

 Chatham artist Leroy McCray will include these new paintings in his upcoming 2017 show.
Chatham artist Leroy McCray will include these new paintings in his upcoming 2017 show.
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DNAinfo/Andrea V. Watson

Shortly after completing that one, he turned to something more uplifting. There are two untitled paintings of Africans in their cultural attire.

“Right after that piece I said, ‘OK, that’s painful and sad to me,’ and then I did these two pieces to show some pride and where we came from,” he said.

His work depicts moments in history such as a black and white painting of slaves on a plantation picking cotton. Another painting is of an Easter Sunday in 1958 with him and his siblings.

Since McCray’s first public art show last October, he said people have been hiring him for commission work and purchasing his artwork on his new website.

The new career is “going quite well,” McCray said.

He’s planning his next show, which will be in the early part of 2017.

To buy his work, check out the website at www.canvasinblack.com.

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