Scale model of the home of Nellie Mae Rowe Rowe. Credit: Photo by Katherine Gibson

Some people have the best supplies in the world, and still can’t make great art. On the other hand, there are others who can create a masterpiece by simply drawing in the dirt behind their house.

The daughter of a former slave, Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-1982) didn’t have access to great supplies or the best art instruction, but she could make a sculpture out of scraps of wood and chewing gum. “I take nothing, you know, take nothing and make something out of it,” she once said.

Rowe’s colorful drawings and paintings live in East Coast art museums from Florida up to New York. But what she’s most well-known for is turning her private home in Vinings, Georgia into a work of art. She called it her “playhouse,” and it was a local tourist attraction before developers tore it down in the 1980s.

Now Tampa Bay has a chance to get a look at Rowe’s work on the big screen at St. Pete’s Green Light Cinema.
Filmmakers Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell, aka Opendox, recently created a scale model of Rowe’s home for their documentary, “This World is Not My Own.”

The 97-minute film, which tells the story of Rowe’s life and art, debuted at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival in Austin. Since then, it won the Nashville Public Television Human Spirit Award at the 2023 Nashville Film Festival and the award for Best Cinematography at the 2023 Atlanta Film Festival.

Opendox documentaries focus on “creative underdogs,” who they define as “artists, musicians and designers who create in order to reflect on, escape from, or change society.”

Ringbom will be present to answer questions after both screenings.

Tickets to see “The World is Not My Own” at Green Light Cinema in St. Petersburg on Thursday, Jan. 18, at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. start at $10.