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26 nov |
Outsider Art | Back when this site got started, I thought I'd be able to
develop a page just devoted to self-taught/outsider art. But until now, the whole
project just got set by the wayside. Now's as good a time as any to start rectifying this.
The motivation for this start comes from a recent e-mail sent by Eva Edleman who wrote, asking:
SAFE CALENDARS || SAFE, a drop in center for mental health system
consumer/survivors, has created an incredibly beautiful
Outsider Art calendar this year, and would like contacts to help
sell it. Please contact us as soon as possible, as we need to get most of the
calendars sold in the next 4 or 5 weeks || NOTE: contact via:
SAFE, PO Box 492, Springfield OR 974777
541 988-9570 or 541 683-8720 safe@efn.org
webpage: http://www.efn.org/~saf
I've seen a past calendar that
Borage Books has published and the art work is quite original, even visionary. And the
money will go to the costs of production. True, this comes asking at a critical time of year,
(so close to Christmas) but well worth it. If I recall, the cost (prepaid -includes shipping)
is $10 per calendar. || Eva can also be reached via edelman@Boragebooks.com
At any rate, this is a fine time to post at least a handful of useful links if
you are interested in and looking for information about outsider art.
smug's view | a good place to
start is with definitions. smug's author, Lesile Harpold, provides just that when talking about
Raw Vision magazine, which is the next item on this list
Raw Vision Magazine |
The editors say of their magazine that:
RAW VISION features Outsider Art. The art of those who
have 'no right' to be artists and yet create works that are so powerful, original and compelling that those on the
cutting edge of art appreciation have hailed it as the greatest discovery yet.
|| With no connection to art movements, art colleges or conventional art museums and galleries,
Outsider Art is a refreshing contrast to much of today's mainstream offerings.
and... Outsider Art is here to stay.
American Visionary Art Museum | Dean
Olsher, on All Things Considered, said of AVAM that it is "...a monument to the failure of
words...which are not yet able to describe the fantastic creations here, starting with the
four-story high whirligig that greets visitors." In Baltimore, MD; 800 Key Highway. (PH 410-244-1900)
The Outsider Pages | Wiliam
Swislow's Interesting Ideas pages (which are
more extensive than just Outsider Art stuff) provides an incredible wealth of links and resources
on Outsider Art, resources, galleries that specialize in this genre, as well as links to artists
themselves.
Fergus Foley provides
another essay helping explain what Outsider Art is and the origins of the same |
Hospital Audiences / Outsider Art | I get
uncomfortable when some place talks about people as this one does "...The Outsider Artists of HAI are mentally ill New Yorkers who have spent as much as 25 years in state mental institutions
before returning to live in the community. They participate in the HAI Arts Workshop Program."
Even if not so, the language begs the question as to whether or not the people whose work is
featured isn't being exploited. But the site provides a chance to see both the work and
to find out more about how to
 purchase original art in venues where the artists actually end up
geting paid something decent for their labors and the get recognition outside and apart from
the institutions they spent time in ...and that's important too.
Friends of the Prinzhorn Collection | The
Prinzhorn collection was compiled by a Nazi doctor; the works were assembled and displayed in Nazi
Germany as examples of "degenerate art" thus excoriating the artists while the owner (Prinzhorn)
personally profited from their creativity. Now, the collection is still intact but the
Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Heidelberg refuses to exhibit or display it. It
ths remains censored. This site tells of efforts made to try to end that censorship.
Look for all these above links and more as I develop the Outsider Art links page in the future.
Historical Asylums | Chris Miller has put an astounding amount of work into this entry.
His web site is an attempt to catalog and present America's historic state hospitals (insane asylums) founded in the latter half of
the 19th century. In his own words:
The site focuses on the facilities built on the "Kirkbride plan", but it is not necessarily limited to the Kirkbride
hospitals. Known Kirkbride hospitals are indicated by a Kirkbride building symbol in the listings. A few asylums
outside of this scope, such as ones constructed in the 20th century and a fictional asylum, are also included.
To some, the asylums of the 19th century represent a darker period in mental health care, with involuntary incarceration,
barbaric and ineffective treatments, and abuse of patients.
However, there is also a legacy of progressive institutional treatment left by Dorothea Dix, Thomas Story Kirkbride, John Galt,
and others represented by these buildings and sites: treatments and philosophies which seem rather outdated today, but at the
time were a great improvement in the treatment of the mentally ill.
A large proportion of these historic institutions are no longer mental hospitals. What remains are the magnificent castle-like
buildings wrought of brick and stone in incredible detail, a legacy of an attention to detail in architecture which seems to have
been long forgotten.
Scope of this site: Presented here are hospitals which are still in operation, hospitals which are still standing but are now
closed, hospitals that are still standing but are no longer used as hospitals, and hospitals that have been long since or recently
demolished. This site focuses primarily on mental institutions (and facilities for the developmentally disabled) run by State
governments (most commonly called state hospitals).
Of course, the subject is so close to that which I frequently write, it seems only appropriate
I mention it here. That site, again, is Historic Asylums of America
Drying grapes & visitors | My friends Dean and Di stopped by
yesterday while I was drying a couple of cookie pans of grapes on the
woodstove. Now, Dean has one of these fancy shelf dehydrators which he
uses all the time, but Di doesn't do this kind of taks all that much.
And she looks at the grapes, discolored and partly shriveled, and asks if
they are edible. Kind of like when I went to visit my brother in San
Diego, looked at the trees in his front yard and asked if I could eat the
oranges growing on them.
But, no, the visitors didn't dry up. Indeed, the night before, at our
annual Post-Turkey Day gathering, we found that wine and beer continue to
be far more popular that hard liquor. While that, too, was available, it
didn't get consumed. So that goes away again till next year.
 Essential Software for Writers | Someone sent this to me. It really speaks for itself.
Check it out
Tomoko Takahashi: Word Perhect
From the opening explanitory text:
As word processing software becomes ever more
advanced, with the ability to correct syntax and spelling
errors, these familiar programmes begin to impose a
standardised corporate language onto our writing -
subtly altering its meaning. Working with the
programmer Jon Pollard, Takahashi has produced a new
and fully functioning online version of these platforms
which undermines this dehumanising process. Reclaiming
the initiative back from the software, Word Perhect
presents an idiosyncratic hand drawn interface leading
to a set of functioning but strangely altered tools.
Post-election stuff | After so much talk about outsiders and insanity on today's
entry page, it is perhaps fitting to close by talking about the USA national elections.
All of the undecided presidency
brouhaha makes me happier I wasted my vote on Nader. While it bothers me
that Shrub is irate about Florida recounts, it does not surprise me that
neither candidate is willing to concede. After all, both of 'em are
now in debt to fat cats for about half a billion dollars each. What do they do
as payback? When it comes down to it, its the rest of us that pay the
consequences.
And maybe I'm having a paranoid moment, but should we be
wondering about who Strom Thurmond has in his shadow cabinet?
Seriously, what the **** are the media talking heads up to when they
spend all their time harassing registrars of voters about hand counting
ballots when they ought to be doing real news coverage about other
critical issues that are going to face all of us down the road. So far I
have heard only Daniel Schorr cogitating about the impact of the USA's
election uncertainties and how this has affected international affairs.
What's more, he only spoke of what Russia has been doing in the middle
east; who knows about the drug wars in Columbia, or what plans
Japanese business moguls, Korean politicians, and (for that matter)
Saddam Hussain has for strengthening the Euro.
As for national, state and local affairs, well it may be because I was
out in California, but I have't seen anything in the
Hartford Courant
about local winners, nor any speculation about what the state-wide
elections have meant with regard to the new legislature's composition, or
about prospective issues before them next spring. Not that I expect to see
anything from a Times Mirror front organization that might actually aid
citizens in increasing their civic awareness, but that's another story.
It remains to be seen what shall come of the final count. A four year
"lame duck" presidency? Possibly. Loss of stature in international politics?
Without a doubt. The rise of small splinter parties? To be seen.
Perhaps it's time for Americans to learn something from their neighbors, north
and south. From Candaians, the campaign for Prime Minister lasts, oh, maybe 36 days
-not four years. And costs around 15 million dollars nationwide, not nearly a billion.
And Mexico's president-elect Fox is entirely correct in noting how corrupt
Americans who are in power have become. ...on all sorts of levels. He
noted that Mexican "drug lords" can't possibly have continued to operate without
coorperation from the USA market for their products. and that it is corruption that
keeps the illegal drug market going in the USA (except, of course, for legal drugs like
tobacco, ha ha). But he also pointed out that Americans who fight against open borders
because it would cut out cheap underpaid illegal labor schemes, he was quick to point out
that, too, is another form of corruption.
WAY past time for us to start looking for something else.
current entries |
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nov 11 - nov 17 |
nov 18 |
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nov 23 |
Catch you on the rebound!
~Will Brady
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