Hilton Head Island turns act of hate into act of love, the old-fashioned way

Someone apparently meant to do harm to the Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island by knocking down an historical marker that tells the significance of its little blue house on Gum Tree Road.

But it backfired.

What appears to be an act of vandalism that could have cost the small nonprofit $1,000 to repair has instead shined a light as bright as a blow torch on the state of Hilton Head Island.

And it turns out, we still be Gullah ‘neath the surface here in the land of the posh and the home of the new arrival “down here.”

When one islander had a problem, another islander with the talent to solve it stepped in and did it at no cost.

Kevin Lawless, who owns Iron Art by Kevin Inc. on Spanish Wells Road, fixed the sign within hours of hearing about it.

Museum founder Louise Cohen called it “a super blessing.”

And she said it reflects the Gullah community from the era of no bridge, electricity or phones.

People had to share talents and work together in that rustic way of life that Cohen feels called by God to document and pass on to new generations.

“That’s how we survived on this island,” Cohen said.

GULLAH GULLAH ISLAND

Kevin Lawless used to walk down Gum Tree Road when he came to the island in 1981 for a summer and ended up staying a lifetime.

He lived on a boat in Skull Creek and had to walk to U.S. 278, then hitchhike to his job at the Hilton Head Inn on South Forest Beach Drive.

He quickly knew he wasn’t in his native Illinois anymore, walking past Thomas C. Barnwell Jr. plowing a large garden behind a marsh tacky horse, and the late Joseph “Junior” Gadson weaving a 12-foot cotton cast net hanging from an old oak tree.

At work, he met Earl “Happy” Mitchell who put a bright face on the newfangled industry of welcoming the world to these shores.

“Happy taught me this,” Lawless said. “People take care of people here.”

And over the years — as he got a degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design, learned blacksmithing from Philip Simmons in Charleston and welding from his father-in-law, Jim Griffin, who needed to repair rusted out Dumpsters in his local waste-disposal business — Lawless got doses of Gullah wisdom from another source.

It was from the late Solomon “Sol” Campbell III at the vegetable stand he ran with his wife, Della, on Spanish Wells Road.

Sol became a mentor, just as humorous as creator Tim Doughtie and deaf folk art collector Joe Adams did as Lawless forged a living and fine art from piles of cold and dirty metal.

Maybe it was during the years his wife, Sherri, was working on her doctorate at the University of Georgia, but Lawless would go to Sol’s vegetable stand for more than tomatoes and squash.

“He was the Lowcountry version of Lucy’s psychiatry booth in the Peanuts cartoon,” Lawless said.

Lawless would gush out his current situation for 30 minutes without coming up for air.

“And then Sol would say:

“ ‘Get over it.’ ”

ELTON JOHN’S BED

Lawless wears black to work because if he wore anything else it would turn black anyway.

He can look over a menagerie of old tanks, grills, cookers, steamers, grates, tires and trailers, even a giant wok, and see what it will be in its next life.

“That’s going to be the top of a grill that I’m going to put on a boat trailer,” he’ll say, pointing to what looks like junk.

In the yard, he has iron bottle trees and a hanging metal tank with a little hammer dangling beside it. The bottom of the tank is cut off so it makes a beautiful sound when you tap it with the hammer and make a wish, just as they do before climbing Mount Fuji in Japan, he says.

Down by the busy street is a bundle of hay with a giant metal pin sticking out of it.

“I found the needle in the haystack,” Lawless said.

He has made everything from traps for wild hogs to the wine cellar for a mansion in Wexford, from the front door handles to the new Burnt Church Distillery to the three crosses at the Church of the Cross Buckwalter campus in Bluffton.

He made a four-poster bed for Elton John, with the posts in the shape of palm trees.

He learned the art of a proper barbecue grill from island icon Elgie Stover who cooked butts, ribs and chicken and introduced himself as “Elgie Stover, the Black Cassanova, known the whole world ovah.”

Lawless made delicate metal rose buds for Mary Fraser, whose husband, Charles, dreamed up Sea Pines and its Hilton Head Inn. She lit up when he told her he had a deer-resistant rose.

He got to make a lot of gates in Sea Pines, which frowned on gates, but needed protection from hungry deer.

Lawless said the deer “were my sales people.”

He made a work of art featuring an old-fashioned printer’s type box that graced the lobby of The Island Packet.

Lately, he is best known for his aluminum sculpture called “Cycle” at Coligny Circle. It was commissioned to honor Dr. Jeff Garske after he was killed by a drunken driver while bicycling on the Cross Island Parkway.

He’s also known for donating artwork for local causes — like the dozen metallic roses he would create for the Evening of the Arts auction, telling auctioneer Tim Doughtie to start the bidding at $1.95.

Louise Cohen calls Lawless “an original” and credits him with seeing value where many don’t.

“The community spirit will never die,” she said, “as long as we keep it alive.”

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.