From the garden of imagination

I was excited to see the banner Outsider Art hanging above the Philadelphia Art Museum's august portals when we cycled past on Tuesday, and thrilled to find that there was free entry after 5pm on Wednesdays. And photography was permitted!

The exhibition was overwhelming. Outsider Art is the art world's term for work produced by untaught artists who work independently, following their own creative drive,  isolated from the mainstream art world or any outside influences. Often they take up art only late in chequered lives: after years in and out of a variety of jobs, in jail, on the streets or in mental institutions; others have lived hard-scrabble lives in rural poverty; all have resorted to the use of whatever material they could come by: scrap metal or wood, recycled waste, found objects, old books, wire, chicken bones, house paint, soot and spit. Some are driven by religious beliefs or visions but all seem propelled by a powerful urge to create, however unfavourable the circumstances.

Each artist (mostly born late 19th/early 20th century) had a compelling story, briefly summarised beside the work. Here are a few for those that are interested.

Hebert Singleton
Grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood in New Orleans called Algiers, in a small home with seven siblings. When he was seventeen he began work in construction, and he also carved and sold wooden canes. He got mixed up with a local drug dealer and eventually was incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. In all, he served almost fourteen years in prison. On his release he returned to Algiers and started carving again, as well as helping to stage voodoo rituals. In the late 1980s Singleton began to make large-scale bas-reliefs, often adapting found wooden panels such as doors or cabinet fronts, to which he applied house enamel or automobile paint.

Elijah Pierce
A barber and Baptist preacher in Columbus, Ohio, who made remarkable small bas-relief carvings of Bible scenes, animals, entertainers, famous African Americans, and other subjects, displaying them in his barbershop from the early 1930s. He worked with simple tools-a pocketknife, a chisel, a piece of broken glass, and sandpaper-painting his pieces in bright colors.

James Castle
Worked at his art from the time he was a small child until the last day of his life. He was born completely deaf, and despite five years at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind, he did not acquire the tools of language such as lip-reading, finger spelling, or writing, though he may have learned other things more to his liking, in particular the allure of words and the making of books.

Lee Godie
Dressed in colorful makeshift or cast-off clothes and wearing heavy makeup, Lee Godie was a well-known sight on the streets of downtown Chicago from the 1960s through 1980s, peddling her art at prominent locations-including on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago. She drew people, birds, and still lifes in ball-point pen and watercolor on pieces of canvas, some of which were discarded window shades. Many of her subjects sport fancy hats, stylish garments, and remarkable eyelashes.
Born into a family of eleven children, Godie married and had three children, two of whom died.

The only living artist represented is George Widener
A numerical savant who can mentally calculate long sequences of numbers and dates. In his works of art, he turns complex mathematical sequences into minutely rendered, patterned compositions. He is also fascinated by disasters, especially the sinking of the Titanic (1912).

The picture I have blipped, Three Horses with Red Frame, is by William Hawkins.
Grew up on a farm in Kentucky and attended school only through the third grade. He moved to Columbus, Ohio when he was twenty-one and held various jobs ranging from plumber to truck driver to brothel manager. He began making art in his thirties but was not recognized for it until 1981, when he was in his eighties.His typical subject matter included Ohio landmarks and buildings, animals, and current events. His images are often adopted from magazines and other print media. He worked on found cardboard and plywood or Masonite panels, using semigloss enamel house paints.

My title is from Consuelo González Amezcua.
Born in Mexico and moved to Del Rio, Texas with her family when she was ten. She attended school for six years, learned English, and wanted to study art, but her father's death necessitated her finding a job. She lived in Del Rio for the rest of her life in the family home with her sister, never married, worked in the S. H. Kress 5 & 10 Cent Store, and continued to make art without formal training. This seemingly uneventful existence is belied by the richly imaginative and decorative world that González Amezcua created in her drawings. She worked in ballpoint pen, crayons, and chalk on pieces of paper or cardboard.

For anyone as interested as me in this sort of thing, this museum guide to the artists, and their work, in this exhibition can be found here .

To me this work is so pure, so passionate and so resourceful that it quite knocks me out.