Junius Wilson knows it’s good to be king.

The 81-year-old artist emerged this weekend before 60 guests, a pharaoh headdress framing his face. His black robe, embossed with gold, swayed in the light breeze as he played Middle Eastern melodies on his flute. Members of the Park Vibe Drummers, who enliven Druid Hill Park every Sunday, backed him up with Afro-inspired beats. Slowly, the pharaoh of Windsor Mill and Woodlawn led a procession through his garden, complete with a water feature standing in for the Nile River and enough representations of Egyptian royalty to rival many museum collections.

Soon, Wilson’s work will be among those. After The Baltimore Banner featured Wilson in March, the American Visionary Art Museum contacted the former electrician and Baltimore City College graduate about a show at the Federal Hill museum. Wilson is creating new works for that fall 2025 AVAM show, and last weekend he held what he hopes is the first of several open houses to show the public what he’s been up to behind his white suburban fence.

Guests gasped at the giant pyramid, the three-breasted goddess with the face of a golden calf, the carved face that is half-lion and half-pharaoh, and the replica of the lascivious serpent from the Garden of Eden. There are also Eyes of Horus, faux Sumerian carvings and plenty of ankhs, the Egyptian looped cross.

Most of the attendees did not even get to the basement, where Wilson keeps meticulously carved bowls that double as faces, a bleeding Jesus and more. There is also a drained swamp with a Weeble-Wobble-sized Trump capsized inside.

Wilson also showed some works in progress, including an African-themed coffin with a mummy that has his face, down to his beard. It is not him thinking about his own mortality after a bout with colon cancer, from which he says he is recovering well. Rather, he says, it is a manifestation of his return to Earth after a past life 10,000 years ago.

Newcomers and return visitors munched on cold cuts and marveled at the sculptures, both because of Wilson’s skill and his ability to imbue each with so much meaning. A yellow- and blue-sided creation to honor Ukraine shows one figure raising a hammer and another brandishing a sickle, symbolizing that Ukraine can look within itself to fight the Russians as they wait for international assistance. A mulberry-colored ram has one face like a Picasso bull, another like a Matisse dairy cow, symbolizing human duality. Black figures in chains represent both the slaves in Egypt and the Africans brought to the ports in Annapolis.

“It’s the divine touch,” said his longtime friend Ralph Hinton, who drove from Easton, Pennsylvania, for the event. “It’s coming from the ancestors. He is definitely connected to that.”

Wilson is fond of telling the story about his bargain with God, reminiscent of biblical figures like Abraham and Moses who have recounted similar negotiations. As with other examples of “outsider art,” Wilson tells of an epiphany that took him from severe depression to creative freedom.

Wilson dabbled in several careers, including working as a street performer and clown, before becoming an electrician. He worked on many big jobs, including installing the lights on the Key Bridge. In the late 1980s, he was working on a scaffold when a colleague got stuck while coming into contact with 277 volts of electricity, Wilson said. Wilson went to save him, and he fell 30 feet to the ground. Though his colleague was fine, Wilson crushed two vertebrae and suffered several concussions. He was on crutches for five years. He battled depression for three decades. For weeks on end, he and his wife say, he often could not get out of bed.

Wilson says he bargained with God to take him; he said God responded by saying that he would give Wilson a talent. His doctor had told him the best way out of the depression was to get a hobby. He went to Home Depot, thinking he could build shelves for his books. The bookcase he made collapsed. But, as he picked up the pieces, he saw a figure in one of the wood pieces, he said. He went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and started to carve.

Most carvers place a picture over a piece of wood and trace it. For Wilson, the picture springs from his mind. He sees the figure and begins to carve. It shifts with his imagination as he works. The imagination is contagious; with Wilson’s guidance, looking at a piece of wood, friends say they can see figures, too.

Aside from shows with members of the Carroll Carvers club at the North Carroll senior center and occasional exhibits at other senior centers, the open houses will be the first chance for many to see his work. Hinton, who met Wilson when they both went to Egypt, says the show at the American Visionary Art Museum is just the beginning. The art needs a permanent home, accessible and not exposed to the elements.

Wilson hasn’t scheduled the other open houses yet, but he’s sure he’ll have a few. The public’s response on Saturday brought the king to tears a few times.

“Having people here, seeing what I created, it’s just great,” Wilson said. “I just love it.”