Outsider art -- Unusual Minds Speech '05

Outsider art/Unusual Minds

Hello my name is Kelly X and I am the Owner of the outsider's art gallery in Cornwall Bridge, CT.

I started falling in love with "Outsider Art" in 1978 while helping facilitate art at the Mary Short Foundation in Sacramento, California. An art outlet and art rehabilitation facility for retarded and autistic people.

While working at the foundation I met the most amazing artists. I
Learned that honest art comes from somewhere deep and untouched and pure within you. With their art they were completely Unself-conscience and proud to show a private part of themselves.
Their art always told a story and reviled a secret about their lives.
My long career took over and I lost touch with the art until twelve years ago. I found renewed passion for art when I came across this strange art from the South. It shared a similar honesty and likeness to life stories told through. I called it the art that could make you laugh and cry at the same time. It fell under the new term at the time of "Outsider Art". I got so into this art that I began to go to the Deep South to seek out the artists just to meet them in person. I then began building a huge collection and actually pushed the art and all of the stories on my friends and family. Eventually everyone I knew had enough of my compulsion so I had to open a gallery.

What is Outsider art? The term "Outsider Artist" is used as loosely as any term could be. Its real meaning is "outside the main stream" outside the norm" outside of academic art it really boils down to a story each artist is trying to get out through his or her art. Outsider Art has been around long before any of us were born. It started with Cave men then biblical Visionaries these artists were self-taught artists with a vision or a message they wanted to get out to the world. They told there stories through art, although this art had no name at the time it did have a message and the messengers had an un-stoppable quest to pass their message along some call it Folk Art and this art was and still is passed down through generations.

In the Seventies this art was named "Twentieth Century Folk art" Then "vernacular Art" (which means story telling) in the eighties and now, Outsider art covers all the categories: visionary art, vernacular, intuitive, naive, Institutional Art and Art Brute (raw Art in French).

"If there is any characteristic that marks all outsiders it is that for them the restraints of academic theory is unimportant, In effect, the vision of the Outsider is a private one, a personal universe, of his or her own making. There only exists one desire, to create with a free flow of ideas". They seem to be driven from a place that could be called compulsive and obsessive (at one point Outsider art was named compulsive art but it sounded too clinical). What I've found through this art is a wonderful close and personal relationship between the artist and the people who become involved with their art.
(Partial quote: Herbert Hemphill "20th Century Folk Art")

The art often can start after a tragedy, very late in life, or out of a special calling from "God" as in the case of Reverend Howard Finster, Missionary Mary and Reverend R.A. Miller

Reverend Howard Finster was an ordained Baptist minister who had a calling from God. God came to him and said; "If you preach on art you will get the word out to more people". So, he gave up his pulpit and spread his own personal gospel on art. He then opened "Paradise Gardens" and transformed alcoholics and drug addicts into artist spreading the word of God. By the time he died he himself sold more than 47,000 pieces. I'd say his plan worked His followers are still hard at work passing on the word through art today, Big Chief and Swamp Rose, CM and Kelly Lester, Beverly Finster and Howard's sons and grandsons. I would say that was getting the word out.

Missionary Mary Proctor is a friend of mine. The way she started was after her grandmother died. She had a vision to spread life changing positive messages through art. She along with most Outsiders work night and day If she gets an idea that might inspire or help someone she must immediately put it into art forms with bold writing saying things like: "Success is not like ten Minute Rice-it takes much longer", "Every day I drink a coke and read the Bible, Always God and always a coca cola

These artist don't do hundreds of pieces they do thousands!

RA Miller is a tent revival preacher from the south who had God come to him to do art specifically on used roofing tin. He says even as a preacher he was going off into the wrong direction with "The Women" and God came to him and said the art would set him straight.

Some Outsiders use art as a sole form of communication as in the case of Mickey Doolittle a severely autistic artist we represent at our gallery. He is unable to speak other than in barks as his brother calls it. Mickey is an autistic savant with a photographic memory; he records his memories, current events, and his daily life with lighting speed sketches and paintings that have tremendous detail. At age 64 years he did a memory painting of a factory building he and his father visited when he was eight years old and he got the sign correct along with spelling as well as it's 101 windows, Recently his brother went back to the building and there were 101 windows. Through the art Mickey is able to communicate with the world as well as the specialists in the group home where he lives.

Educated, uneducated, old or not old, from the US or from another Country. These artists have this in common: As far as art they are self-taught, and the inner world they paint or sculpt, is there's alone and does not come to them through cultural associations or the study of art. They are free to create with total honesty their inventions, their memories, their dreams and even the life around them as they only experience it. Because the art comes from him or her, each artist has his or her own very distinct style.

The reason I started the Outsider Gallery 7 years ago is because after collecting and meeting the artists I felt the need to share these personal works and unusual stories with the public. Also Naive and Outsider artists tend to be so easy to work with, uniquely creative, and most importantly. They paint from their heart and soul.

Kelly's speech; New Britain Museum speech '05

the iO gallery
131 Kent Road South
Cornwall Bridge CT, 06754
(860) 672 6631

kelly@theiogallery.com