What's new
Dec. 29, 2002
More outsider links: Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, the Kansas City Public Television show devoted to art and oddities of the roadside; L'Aracine one of the great collections of art brut; ABCD, another great art brut collection; the talented Inez Nathaniel Walker; the Word of God 77x7's strident, hand-written religious messages at my site and at spinnwebe; great creative insights from D.C. eccentrics; Barrister's Gallery in New Orleans; Found Slide Foundation's collection of anonymous found photography; Spillway.com's found photography; images of Fred Smith's Concrete Park and roadside memorials; more stuff at the sprawling Sybil Gibson site; work from the collection of the late Selden Rodman; Brussels-based Art en Marge; Carrie Art Collection in Haiti; Who-Ha Da-Da; and TAG Art Gallery.
Oct. 18, 2002
A new bottle-cap art gallery plus a couple of additional sculptures and a seated tallboy.
Oct. 5, 2002
19 more anonymous drawings from Chicago's lakefront.
New outsider links: The Ames Gallery in Berkeley, Calif.; Narrow Larry's site with a dozen great environments and his own scale model of the Watts Towers; The Fortune Society's prison artists display; and another page devoted to Louis Wain, the great illustrator of cats whose own illustrations have been interpreted to show the advance of psychosis.
Two gyros links: Lincoln Town Gyros and
Gyros! Gyros! Gyros!.
September 27, 2002
Added to Roadside links Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman's beautifully designed photography site, which includes a section devoted to architecture both kicky and mundane.
Fixed a lot of navigation errors and reposted a number of images at higher quality in The Gyros Project. Also added some new images of D&V Gyros and Royal Cleaners.
September 19, 2002
Two new book reviews: Henry Darger In The Realms of The Unreal and
American Vernacular.
August 20, 2002
See the renovated Church Furniture tableau on South Cicero!
August 20, 2002
14 new outsider links: Casa da Flor a fabulous environment in Brazil; Norbert Kox's stunning, bizarrely conceived, meticulously crafted apocalyptic religious canvasses; Gugging, the Austrian residence/workshop for a number of important artists; Creative Growth the pioneering Bay Area program for artists with disabilities; Luise Ross Gallery; Galerie St. Etienne; Galerie Susi Brunner; Kentuck, a large annual fair in Northpoint, Ala.; Graves Country Gallery; Folkyart.com gallery; Vermont's GRACE (Grass Roots Art and Community Effort); Mayor's Office Folk
Art Gallery; The OutsidersArt Gallery; and Germany's Zimmer Gallery, which focuses on European naive art.
June 30, 2002
13 great anonymous drawings from Chicago's lakefront.
June 15, 2002
A huge batch of new store names for the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: Not just Futons and Barstools, Islamic Books & Things, Whoot! Hair It Is, Mohammed's Imports and Respect for Life Fish House, Save n' Have, Food Topic, Eat 'n Park, Short Funeral Service, Long Funeral Service, A-Ford-O Motel, Hav-A-Nap Motel, Sweat Bros. Auto Shop, No-Tel Motel, Funeral Supplies and Daycare Center, Mr. Gas Food Mart, Faver-Dykes State Park, Amigone Funeral Home, Sweet Septic Systems, Crooks Warehouses, Noel's Pee Pee Gas, Peed Plumbing, Poo Ping Palace, The Barking Lot, Fairly Reliable Bob's used cars, Our Heavenly Father's, Jesus' and Our Bake Shop, Puppies & Reptiles, Dick Blick art supplies, Flea N Eat, Gleed Feed & Seed, May Pop Tire Shop, Chuck-A-Rama, Pump n' Pies, Jot 'em Down used appliance store.
June 4, 2002
Dozens more images from the fabulous anonymous art along Chicago's lakefront, with everything re-organized and many existing pictures upgraded.
May 17, 2002
The story of Chicago's great lakefront art, and its likely fate.
May 7, 2002
Great photographs by Aron Packer of Chicago's beautiful but doomed anonymous lakefront stone carvings.
April 27, 2002
New outsider link: Jane's Addictions is easily the best outsider and folk art resource on the Web.
A review of the wonderful new E.T. Wickham catalog.
April 18, 2002
New outsider links: The Grassroots Art Center in Lucas Kansas; San Angel Folk Art;Eileen Doman; Margaret's Grocery; Andrew Edlin Fine Art; and Anthony Petullo's collection of self-taught and outsider art.
March 26, 2002
A collection of great new signs in the Western Avenue and Vicinity Art Gallery. This time: The Montrose Strip.
March 16, 2002
There are scores of anonymous stone carvings along Chicago's lakefront. Many are doomed by an Army Corp of Engineers anti-erosion project. The more than 50 shown here are north of the project area, but representative of what can be found up and down the lake.
March 3, 2002
A new page of automotive art in the Western Avenue Art Gallery
February 23, 2002
Tons of new roadside links:
Nicole Ferentz's superb Typographic Signage Project; the Route 66 Association of Missouri; Stuckonstuckeys; Diner City; The U.S. mile by mile; America's Landmark: Under the Orange Roof, dedicated to Howard Johnson's; Historic Asylums of America; the world's largest catsup bottle; All Scenicruisers; Roadies' eclectic collection of articles and images; Author Brian Butko shares pictures of diners, the Lincoln Highway and more; Traffic Signs of the World; American Dream Road;
The American Sign Museum; an admirable tour of Florida's disappeared Tiki Gardens; Ohio Diners;
a links page devoted to American ruins; interesting roadside images; motels along Route 66; Junior's Juke Joint explores the world of Delta nightlife; Krispy Kreme; Route 66 links.
February 17, 2002
Important new E.T. Wickham photos have made it to the Web: powerful photos from the recent Clarksville, TN, show, Show setup shots, plus details of the scale model of the site, a selection of Clark Thomas' photos from the catalog, and some that weren't in it (caution: large files) mnand more family photos from Joe Schibig.
January 6, 2002
Reviews of three new books:
Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South
Let It Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection
The Highwaymen: Florida's African-American Landscape Painters
January 5, 2002
New Emma pix, mostly from Florida 2001 (family only): Florida 11/01; More Florida 11/01; More miscellaneous antics
January 2, 2002
A big backlog of old Emma pix (family only): Florida, 4/00; More Florida, 4/00; New England 7/00; Miscellaneous antics
November 9, 2001
More postcards of Miami's fabulous Bottle Cap Inn.
New story about the Columbus, Ind., face.
Additions to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: Islamic Books & Things, Flea N Eat, Gleed Feed & Seed, May Pop Tire Shop, Long Funeral Service, Chuck-A-Rama, Pump n' Pies, Save n' Have and Jot 'em Down.
A design upgrade and a ton of new roadside art links, including: A Web site for John Baeder, a titan of the roadside art world; Weird Wisconsin; Shaun O'Boyle's photographs of ruins; Philip James Chmiel's
signs, ruins and other vistas; Road Trip USA; a different Roadtrip USA; hojoland.com; fading wall advertisements; the National Historic Route 66 Federation; RoadAge Media, from the founder and former editor of the once-wonderful diner publication Roadside Magazine; Wacky Hospitality Sites; North Texas Explorer's roadside art gallery; Eccentric America; roads qua roads; American Folk's roadside-related material; Stafford Farms Mobil, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired gas station; photos of of roadside interest; Lucy, the Margate, NJ, elephant; and more Lucy.
October 5, 2001
A new crop of outsider links: a grandson's tribute to E.T. Wickham's monumental group of statues in north central Tennessee; Barbara Archer's Atlanta gallery, which includes work not widely exposed on the Web; FocalArt Gallery, also a source of work not everywhere else on the Web; Ody Saban's site has numerous scans of her striking work; the Macondo gallery in Pittsburgh carries non-Western art; Grey Carter Objects of Art is a nicely designed site that features a good sampling of work from Justin McCarthy and Sybil Gibson, among others; the Dixie Folk Art gallery in Florida is stocked with an electic collection of work, from the the Highwaymen group to Mama Johnson; Florida's Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery has work by the Highwaymen, Ruby Williams and Mary Proctor, among others; and GoodArtGallery's roster includes Eileen Doman and Levent Isik. If you're interested in building your own environment, visit The Joy of Shards to learn techniques of pique assiete.
August 18, 2001
A page of my semi-vintage photos of Howard Finster's Paradise Garden.
New sock monkey links to The Bridge and shawneemonkey's world.
More outsider links: Kristin Fiore's site on The Palais Ideal of the Facteur Cheval, one of the world's great environments, plus the official site and an essay; a variety of Wisconsin environments; Chuck and Jan Rosenak; Barry Cohen; the IF Art Gallery from Ukraine; Switzerland's Sardine gallery; Pedro Martin De Clet and lots of Howard Finster at David Leonardis Gallery.
July 22, 2001
Reviews of two books: a biography of J.B. Murray and a guide to community art in Chicago.
Cleaned up Roadside links.
Emma in Maryland (family only).
July 3, 2001
A collection of vintage views of the great Bottle Cap Inn environment in Miami.
New outsider links: The Folk Art Show, developed in conjunction with a big Internet auction scheduled on Ebay starting Aug. 15; Kimball Sterling's July 14 auction at outsiderartauctions.com; Main Street Gallery in Clayton, GA; the Needlepoint Museum; Nancy's Nanlets, original crochet; and Nova Scotia folk art at Black Sheep Gallery.
May 8, 2001
Lileks.com is humbling. The amazing assemblage of cultural marginalia here includes an in-depth look at Wisconsin's monumental Gobbler motel, pages and pages of really bad decorating ideas from the '70s, walldog art, Fargo, a selection of roadside postcards , and much more. It's all lavishly illustrated and annotated.
April 29, 2001
Some important new outsider links, including: The absolutely important art brut museum in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS; more about Louis Wain, who specialized in drawing cats and whose illustrations became increasingly bizarre as his mind failed, and another page; another Henry Darger page; the work of William Thomas Thompson;
the Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery in Winter Park, FL; the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art; and the Atelier Galerie Herenplaats in Rotterdam.
March 25, 2001
On nearly every page, you can now search Interesting Ideas.
Key information on Nancy's importance.
Another big batch of Grog and Groc. nominations, including Armegeddon Carpet Cleaners, No Name Nothing Special Produce Co., King Dollar Discount A-Go-Go Liquors, White Swallow,
Venus Demilo Arms apartments, S&M Motel, Dave's Drink and Drive, Frank's No-tel, Philippino Five - O, Terry's House of Heartburn, The Dead Cow, Takhomaburger, The Nut Bush, Museum of the Sea and Indian, Peggy's Poodle Parlor All Breeds.
March 6, 2001
If the world is lousier than ever, why are so many things so much better?
February 14, 2001
A review of Michael Bonesteel's new Henry Darger book.
January 20, 2001
Two new pages of beautiful Stan Szwarc metal work, courtesy of Rich Bowen.
January 12, 2001
An important new roadside link: Jane and Michael Stern's Roadfood.com.
Lots of new outsider links: Chris Hipkiss' immensely detailed and imaginative pencil and ink drawings;Henry Boxer's imporant UK gallery; Shelly Zegart's beautiful quilts; the Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Lee Godie at The Blank Institute of Technology; Passion Works Studio in Athens, Ohio; S.P. Dinsmoor's historic Garden of Eden environment in Lucas, Kansas; Nick Engelbert's Wisconsin environment, Grandview; Canada's Minivan Gallery; and last year's Southern Spirit show at the Tallahasee Museum of Art.
January 1, 2001
A new gallery of work by the brilliant sculptor Stanley Szwarc.
A new roadside link: It's always sad to find old family photo albums at flea markets and antique stores, with no one left to treasure them. Paul Nagai is a wonderful counterexample with his site, Grandma's '37 Road Trip. He has meticulously placed his grandmother's meticulous photographic and written diary of the trip online -- and thoughtfully provided a complete zip-file version that eliminates Internet latency.
Two sock monkey links. One for shirts and one for some stylish readymades.
Three Emma holiday pages (family only)
September 23, 2000
Lots of new outsider links: The Japanese edition of John MacGregor's magnum opus on Henry Darger; Creative Heart Gallery's self-taughtart.com; About.com's very rich section devoted to folk, outsider and related work; The Friendly Toast Gallery's thrift-store art; San Diego's Primitive Kool Gallery Indigo Arts Gallery internationalism; photos from the Owl House environment in South Africa; Gasperi Gallery of New Orleans; Glenn Earl Newman's drawings at The Last Strawberry Patch; The Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery in Winter Park, Fla.; Street Life Gallery in Seattle; and ArtBrut.com.
Two new roadside links: Roadies and A pilgrimage to White Castle.
July 23
A new set of interesting vistas.
The record is set straight on the Vacation Motor Hotel sign, and the picture is slightly improved.
A beautiful photo from Kat Schilke of Saints and Sinners in Espanola, N.M.
May 26
Some modest cases of needlepoint, plus a link to the exciting Needlepoint Museum at Hoopla.org.
A whole lot of Grog and Groc. nominations, including a bunch of Kansas City sites from my old college chum Bill Debauche: Git-Yo Chicken Fish and Burger, Steak'M Take'M, Wok-N-Stix, Little Jake's Eat It An Beat It, plus Hung Far Low, Herbie's Ramrod Room, Crummy Funeral Home, Jinks Funeral Home, AH WA GA barber shop, Life-The Ultimate Dry Cleaning, Hob Nob Cafe, Poodle Dog, Tacoma, Spout 'N' Toad, King Lear Motel.
Three pages of Emma.
May 14
A page of major new bottlecap figures, plus a couple new ones here and a new basket here.
March 18
The rest of Emma's second.
March 11
More vintage motels!
A bunch of new outsider links: The return of Selftaughtart.com; The Halle saint Pierre's show of outsider and folk art from Chicago collections; Axel Erlandson's Tree Circus environment; Ginger Young's upgraded site; artnet.com's account of this year's Puck Building outsider art fair; drawings by Chicago's Wesley Willis; The Mennello Museum of American Folk Art in Orlando; Art Haus Gallery; Nashville's Ghost Dog Gallery; and Robert Hughes' opinions on Henry Darger.
February 19
Slimmed down the homepage and made some usability enhancements, including abandoning graphics in the footer navigation.
Added a link to Aron Packer's pictures of Chicago lakefront carvings.
February 13
New gyros!
A new Hall of Fame entry: The Reef and Beef
The first of Emma's second.
February 6
A snippet from Steven Schomberg's notebook at Richard Hell's site.
Cleaned out a bunch of bad links from the outsider links page.
January 16
Nominations for the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: Eat It And Beat It, Maywood, Ill. (Liz Milner); Come As You Are and Eat in Your Car, Chicagoland (Liz Milner); Fat Boys Pork Palace, Brandywine, WV (Frank McPherson); Big Boy's Steel Erection (construction company), St. Louis (D. Snow); Bathe Electric (electric supply) , St. Louis (D. Snow).
Alternative Castling: The truth, from Castle #41, St. Louis.
New outsider links: Aron Packer gallery, including the the truly mysterious work of Uncle Joe; Paul Edelstein Gallery in Memphis; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI; Dahlonega Georgia's Pottery Plus; ReTech's furniture from recycled materials; Signature Studio XI in North Carolina; Matter of Perception, featuring work from a 1998 Maine show of work by artists with disability; and Lindsay Gallery in Columbus, OH.
New roadside links: The official Waffle House site; oldgas.com 's gas station collectibles and information; Happy Chef Systems; In Our Path's documentation of the destruction of a community by the construction of the Century Freeway in LA; The UCM Museum, a mix of oddball roadside and artistic stuff; The House on the Rock;Jim Hejl's site documenting the inappropriately large; the Lincoln Highway Association; and James Lin's Lincoln Highway site.
December 18
It's Motels! 16 classic vintage views, and more to come.
November 24
If you're in the know, lots more Emma.
November 23
New outsider links: Kimball Sterling's monthly online auctions; the by hand gallery, which shows a number of lesser-known artists alongside some stalwarts; The Splendid Peasant's traditional folk art; Modern Primitive Gallery in Atlanta; Select Southern Pottery a source for face jugs and other folk ceramics; At Home Gallery in Greensboro, N.C.;and Eva Johnson a 102-year-old self-taught Indiana painter.
November 2
The wonderful mysteries of art with no name: The Anonymous Portrait Gallery
October 22
Just the home-page notice of the bottle-cap figures on display at the Arts Club of Chicago.
Plus some new Emma pix.
September 13
More tips for living like it's a sitcom (Nos. 15-17)
New roadside links: Roadside Peek is a blockbuster of a site, and the source of a bunch links that follow.
Googie, one of the core concepts of roadside architecture; The Modern Committee's Modcom.com, which is dedicated to the preservation of Southern California's great modernistic architecture; USA Yesterday, with lots of pictures of roadside wonders; Fort Worth Yesterday; The 66 Drive-In in Carthage, Missouri; The 99W Twin Drive-In in Newberg, Oregon; Drive In Theater, a umbrella site devoted to drive-ins everywhere; Virginia's Lendys, with lots of vintage art and trivia; and photos from Route 66.
August 28
New vistas from the North Woods and the Rocky Mountains
New entries for a somewhat reorganized Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: Let's Pet Puppies, I am a Print Shoppe, Food 'n' Scat, Crawford Coal and Mattress Works, and S&M Auto Parts & Machine Shop.
New picture of a fabulous Stan Szwarc box
Various Emma content, including words and woods.
July 10
Mildred's House Of Signage is Tracy Jo Seneca's fabulous contribution to documenting the great signs of Chicago.
Update on the Columbus, Ind., stone face
Forgotten New York presents fabulous bits and pieces of the city, and tons of them.
Two great Don Knotts sites: The Shrine to Don Knotts and
The Don Knotts Department.
More entries to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: The Bunghole, Shop & Shop, Beer World, Little Taste, Fractured Prune, Big Wong, Fur, Feathers, and Fins, El Cheapo, Sip 'n' Bite, Harry Little Pizza, Cluck-U-Chicken, Murder Burger, Fill Ya Belly Deli.
Five new outsider art site: Bruce Shelton specializes in interesting work at a fair price. Now you can reach him via Shelton Gallery Online. If you're in Sheboygan, visit the Riverfront Gallery. Otherwise, click here. Among the benefits is a collection of work by Wisconsin artist Rudy Rotter. The Rainbow House of Vancouver, Wash., is a fabulous-looking environment, new to me, that bears repeated visits. America Oh Yes! gallery has an extensive site with lots of inventory and a good deal of explanatory information. American Pie offers a selection of self-taught, vision and folk art.
June 27
New Emma pix. If you're an emma fan, write me at bill@interestingideas.com for the password.
May 27
Bottle-cap art extravaganza: A totally revamped section on bottle-cap art, including dozens of new images.
May 23
The miracle pepper!
April 25
It's Bottle Cap Art Heaven at Philip Lamb's beautiful site.
A bunch of Grog & Groc Hall of Fame nominees:
Ooo-La-Lodge, Pets Ahoy, Toot And Tell It, Billy Bob's Park & Pork, Weenie Beenie, Chat n' Rest, Franks A Lot, Liquor Lotto Pizza Video Check Cashing, Human Electronics, Yogi Limousine Service, Your Snappy Shop
Check out the home of toyland favorite Bill Ding
View Gordon Inyard's photorealistic diner paintings
Two new outsider links: Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, Texas, and Minds Wide Open art center, which features interesting work by artists with disabilities.
New Emma pix
March 20
Some great new sock monkey links, courtesy of Nate, whose site I've restored to my list after a brief absence. Other sites are: Intel, where the sock monkey ad is available for download; Sock it 2 Me!, which sells hip new monkeys; Sock Monkeys are the solution to the Y2K problem; The Red-Butted Sock Monkey of Death; The Sock Monkey Family; cool animation for a Dallas store; Hey, Hey, We're The Monkeys!
Some new outsider links: Wares for Art, the French and English site for the association Art brut etc., Weathervane Folk Art, Gilley's Gallery and Judy Saslow Gallery.
January 30
E&T Muffler's muffler man
January 24
More Emma
January 16
Another page of cool roadside vistas.
Emma update
January 5, 1999
Just because art by inmates seems like classic outsider territory, it's not necessarily any good. But in some cases it is.
Link to 293 pieces in the Smithsonian's folk art collection.
Link to some example from thrift-store art impresario Jim Shaw's collection.
Check out the update to thrift-store art mega-collector Paul Belker's collection.
December 7
Here's a link to an amazing site of the sort that made the Web
famous: Jvincent's
Road House. It's a monumental collection of road signs - not
special road signs, just signs. Big green ones. State and U.S.
highways. All kinds. The begin and end highway signs are especially
cool.
The Trash Cans of
Disney is another example of the kind of Web-enabled publishing
that couldn't happen otherwise.
Sock Monkey
Scrapbook.
An entry for the Grog and Groc Hall of Fame: Mr
Rib and Beef Pizza, Park Ridge, formerly Mr Rib and Beef
Three new outsider sites: Purvis Young, The Shade Gallery, Inside Out Productions, Visionaryart.com, Ethos Online Gall
ery, a Henry Darger
reference site, a Darger
page at the University Of Iowa, where the recent
touring Darger show originated and Sara Ayers' Darger page.
November 18
Really fabulous original furniture by Dan Pohl. I own a
bunch myself.
One guess as to who is too cute for words: More Emma, who took her first
independent steps tonight!.
October 17
If you're a regular reader of these pages, then like
me you'll have to be totally thrilled by the discovery of
the patent on
bottle-cap figures
October 10
There are great new Emma pictures for friends and family,
and the whole Emma section is reorganized for their
viewing convenience.
New links include one to a page that is eloquent testimony to the wonders of
the Web: Tracy Jo Seneca's page of Wigwam Motel links. Lest anyone
believe that life really was better in the good old days, keep in mind that
places like the Wigwam Motel get far more respect today than they
did when they were built, and the Web is one of the places where that respect is being played out on a mass basis. Meanwhile, there is a massive collection of Sybil Gibson paintings at www.sybilgibson.com
September 21
A trio of new links:
Donna Mitchell's "Signs: The Art of Southern Painters" at abcnews.com features a number of great hand-painted signs as well as some quotes from
their creators. Petie Bogen-Garrett has collected an immpressive group of roadside vistas.
Garde Rail Gallery in Seattle sells art by a number of self-taught artists, well-known and less so.
September 17
Back Street Bauhaus: Chicago's other international style triumphs
September 4
There's going to be lots more Emma for a long time.
August 21
Ten new images from the anonymous carvings along Chicago's lakeshore.
August 16
More Gyros! More Emma! More outsider links!
July 11
Folk Art in the City
June 21
It's more Emma!
May 26
A big truck joins the sign gallery and some great new car-related images take their place in the Western Avenue
Gallery.
May 9
Well, moved entire site to new host and domain name: www.interestingideas.com.
Cleaned out a bunch of broken links and other problems.
A contribution to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame:Squat and Gobble luncheonette
Added some outsider art links: Anton
Haardt, Adolf Wolfli, Anne Grgich Coosa Rustics Folk
Art Gallery and Dan Rhema.
Took the old stuff off this page and put it into a second file.
April 13
A new exhibit for the Western Avenue and Vicinity Gallery: Tableaus, including three fabulous new sites.
Also reorganized the gallery some to consolidate Chicago photos into one
place. If you haven't been lately, check it out.
March 21
More Emma
An entry to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame
Two new roadside links: Shellee Graham's beautiful touring show of Route 66 photos and
Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West
New outsider links: Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village, Joanie's house portraits and angels, a Japanese site with great pictures and some video clips of a number of southern artists,
Fundamental Soul: The Hager Gift of Self-Taught African American Art, Selections From the Collections of [curator and author] John Turner, Miracles of Mexican Folk Art: Retablos and Ex-Votos, Folk Art Net, Bruce Burris and John P. Kennedy.
February 21
New entries for the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame
A bunch of new outsider links, and a link to Electrolux.
February 2
It's the Jockos!: The sock monkey experience comes to Interesting Ideas.
Redesigned opening screen to The Outsider Pages.
January 28
Emma
January 25
Pictures of E.T. Wickham and his incredible environment before it was sacked by vandals.
A link to the The UberPage of the First Church of Shatnerology! If you feel Shatner, go here.
January 11, 1998
New pictures in the Roadside Art Online gallery. There's a page worth plus.
December 30
The House of 220 Volt Appliances, an addition to the
Grog & Groc Hall of Fame, plus some new outside submissions: The Common Sense Novelty Company and The Frigid Fluid Company from Tracy Jo Seneca and Beef People, Kiss My Glass and Blake's Lota Burger from Russ Duckworth.
A link to Cardhouse.com, whose rich sprawl makes my modest efforts seem a model of reticence.
Some new outsider links: Marcia Weber's strong gallery site; Lois Zetter's elegantly presented online gallery; Howard Finster's inevitable finster.com; and La maison sculptée de Jacques Lucas, an environment from Brittany.
There's just a handful of photo's at Bill's Special Place, but the places are cool, and they're accompanied by some nice stories.
November 12
New ruins for Roadside Art Online, including a Prince Castle.
The great car spindle joins the vista page.
White Castle world headquarters.
September 28
Lots of new links: A site for Ionel Talpazan, UFO visionary; fifteen screens of mailboxes;the Fort Fisher hermit; Roger Johnson with welcome signs in all 50 states; The world's largest catsup bottle; Oversized wonders found at the Gallery of Huge Beings; The Society for Commercial Archeology; artful treatments of urban ruins; USAcentric supplies more roadside weirdness; The Center for Land Use Interpretation, which includes roadside attractions in its collection of serious stuff about the landscape; The Wigwam Village; The Marietta chicken; Carhenge and more Carhenge; Two-Lane Roads a quarterly newspaper devoted to the American back road; What truckers know: RoadKing magazine online; The Houston Chronicle'a ambitious Route 66 package; Lucille's Route 66, dedicated to Lucille's historic store and station in Oklahoma; Ginger Young has joined the group of well-established outsider-art dealers who have migrated to the Web; Fat Cat Folk Art Gallery; and rhe folk art section at Main Street Gallery (Starkville, Miss.).
Two new submissions for the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame from Jim Godfrey:
We sell fried catfish and fix flats; The Tuck Me Inn, strip joint, now a CVS drug store
September 13
More pictures of Stan Szwarc and his work.
Four more outsider links: Epstein/Powell,'s site includes a page on Justin McCarthy, one of my favorite artists; Tom and Paula van Deest have some of the best folk/outsider art and related antiques to be found in the Midwest; gallery clips from the Connecticut Prison Association; and L. Haywood Coffey's art at http://www.mediadinamics.com/lhart.
September 6
So it's been two months. It's also been the summer. I promise there will be more content soon.
Today it's seven new outsider links. Louisville's The Anonymous Artist gallery; The NFMOA Gallery of Outsider Art and Artists, which is just getting going; Peter Gilstrap's Jesus of the Week collection of Christ images; Galerie Jacques' straight-ahead Eurostyle Art Brut; American Artistry's mostly Texas collection; La Luz deJesus Gallery's eccentric and visionary work; and Gates of Heck's extracts from genuinely disturbing artist Malcolm McKesson 's novel Matriarchy: Freedom in Bondage.
Added "Mr. Pizza King" the the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame. A pizza parlor can't get more important than that.
July 9
Barbie and Ken join Starfleet, where they can't help but be cannon fodder.
It's that time again: There's another dose of gyros, and now it's international.
July 2
More Wisconsin roadside genius: The Wegner Grotto in Cataract.
June 28
A look at Stanley Szwarc's stunning imagination, as revealed in his stainless steel creations.
Link to Two-Lane Roads, a quarterly newspaper devoted to the world of the Amercan back road.
June 18
Notes from Paris and around
New to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame: Loaf n' Jug (Holly Grassy ) and Guns Liquor and Ammo (Jayks9752)
Linked to the Boone family web site for information on their search for Daniel Boone roadside markers.
Linked to self-taught artist Matt Sesow's site
Linked to The Grotto of the Redemption, one of the great Midwest religious shrines
June 10
Visit Fred Smith's fabulous Wisconsin Concrete Park
Reader Richard J. Sikorski identified Betts Big Service and Grill as a Chiefland, Fla. location. He also shared several possibilities for the Cork and Fork:
Cork & Fork Deli, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Cork N Fork, Huntington Beach, Calif.; Rex's Cork and Fork, St. Saint Charles, Ill.; and The Cork & Fork, Temecula, Calif. My bet's on Rex, but I need to verify it. And a big thanks and top o' the hat to Richard.
Liz Parkinson's outsider art page
Australia's Treasure Island, source for Pauline an Oxley Moron Voodoo Doll, along with other interesting sculpture and painting.
May 20
Another exhibit in the Western Avenue Gallery
More of the North Avenue Deli
A new view of the Gemini Giant
Two new rants from 777 the Word of God
More entries and pictures for the Groc & Groc Hall of Fame (Adequate Electric Co., It'll Do Club)
Fried dough is back.
New links: PrisonZone: Website for Prison Graphics;
The Kitschen Sink, a personal site that is a genuine joy to bounce around; Mary Proctor, a self-taught artists whose creative fervor is spiritually fueled; and David Crotty's general-purpose, image- and attitude-rich self-taught art site.
May 5
Photographic proof that Hi! Let's Eat exists.
An absurdly appropriate page of "Why I'm Late" excuses
Roadside links: Motels of the Southwest, which includes a brief tribute to classic neon and a poster collage of great motel signs; The Route 66 Collection, which includes an archive for Roadsigns, the publication of the California Historic Route 66 Association; The Mysteries of the Wandering Cactus Unearthed, an in-depth treatise on the commercial use of the Saguaro cactus; and The Motel in America, info on the book from The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Outsider links: First Street Gallery Art Center in Claremont, Calif., a non-profit program that encourages art by people with disabilities, and Jim Popso's folk art, which has an industrial edge that makes it well worth a look.
April 25
The unyielding popularity of Jimmie Lee Sudduth.
Two new entries in the Grog & Groc. Hall of Fame: Hi! Let's Eat and Donut Doctor.
Yes, it's Pancake across America!, a perfect companion piece to The Gyros Project.
Art links: Carved toothpicks, Ellis Ruley, Nada Farm Museum of Archetypes, Self-Taught Art Online, Postcards from Hell, Humanitarian Centre - Outsider Art Museum and The Art of Recovery
April 10
It's roadside literature. The Grog & Groc. Hall of Fame, a collection of the best shop names ever, has been expanded, moved to Roadside Art Online and made interactive.
April 6
It may be hard to believe, but it's true: There's another page of gyros in The Gyros Project.
March 29
A new batch of signage for Roadside Art Online.
March 20
Two new links: one site for the great artist Carlo Zinelli , and one for fraktur, the Pennsylvania German folk art.
March 12, 1997
Added link for Creativity Explored, one of a group of agencies in the Bay Area devoted to artistic efforts by disabled adults.
March 8, 1997
Another page of roadside signage, including my current favorite, E&T Mufflers in Chicago.
A new addition to the Western Avenue Gallery: Tom's Auto Mart.
A view of roadside landmark Superdog
March 1, 1997
Rebuilt The Gyros Project, including a mini-poster and more great gyros.
Linked to Vanity Novelty Garden gallery and The Attic Gallery.
February 18 1997
Some new outsider links: Friends of the Prinzhorn Collection, which was a milestone in the history of outsider art; biographies of self-taught artists from the National Museum of American Art ; and beautifully scanned outsider art for sale from Giampietro, one of the country's leading antique dealers.
Add Feed N Fuel to the Grog & Groc Hall of Fame, courtesy of Varichak, Vicky ~ George.
February 1, 1997
Visit Paul's killer thrift-store art at Paul's Homepage of Doom and Destruction
Recoded the outsider links page to trap you in my world of frames.
Linked to Travels and Rants in an Eighty Four Mercury Station Wagon
January 22, 1997
Rebuilt and expanded Wickham environment tour with many new photos.
January 12, 1997
Brought up a new environmental visit: The Mary Nohl site near Milwaukee.
Linked to the new site devoted to St. Eom, whose Pasaquan is one of the country's great outsider environments.
Linked to The Heidelberg Project, a decorative extravaganza in the heart of Detroit that turns houses into works of art.
January 1, 1997
Updated link to Ricco/Maresca Gallery.
Revised 40,000 Murphy pages and art
December 29
Linked to the Outsider Art Fair page, The Outsider Gallery, Apocalyptic Folk Art: Robert Roberg's Home Page and to information about a fine new book on Howard Finster's Paradise Garden.
Added appeal for the Pasaquan Preservation Society.
Linked to Malcolm's Electric Cheese Page.
December 23
Junk food from the Walworth County Fair
Health care in Pilsen
Lots of articles on folk art, plus a special focus on Howard Finster, from y'all
December 19
A beautiful ruin from Flora, Ill.
A beautiful 40,000 Murphy collage.
December 9
Yes, it's several years later, but Sinatra almost dying, plus the nearness of a birthday, justifies revisiting Sammy Davis Jr.
November 23
Commentary has been added to all the pictures on the Signs page in Roadside Art Online. It's liable to spread. Plus, there's now an account of my favorite religious sign.
Enhanced the Don Knotts stuff with some North Carolina folklore.
New pictures in the Western Avenue and Vicinity Gallery: Visit Norma's and Luis y Raul as well as a Pilsen Psiquica.
If you're hungry for gyros, well, there's a bunch more coming. For the moment, visit the newly constituted gyros tool tryptich. It's the cutaway pan that only gyros guys use.
A modest new ruin (with more Wickham pix on the way).
Marilyn J. Brackney explains the Columbus, Ind., marker featured on the Vistas page.
Links: Updated listing for the important and useful Road Trip USA travel site. New listing for the important and useful Road Amerca site, based on the classic book of the same name. A Don Knotts biography! Kimball Sterling: now has info and pictures on his upcoming New Year's Day folk art auction. The Gold Well Open Air Museum is a group of colossi in Nevada's Mojave Desert.
Some formatting for "What's new."
I try to be sheepish about self-promotion, but still, here's another plaudit: Internet Underground magazine named Interesting Ideas to its top ten Web sites for 1996.
November 18: Truth be told, there's not all that much new here except some updated links, some tinkering with the opening screen, a new link to the Rapture index, plus this location was Sunday's Cool Site of the Day.
November 6: This time the great new gyros is all over the Web, with the unveiling of my gyros links. A new feature in the Western Avenue Art Gallery: Tools.
Also added links to two folk art galleries: Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery in Austin, Texas, and Rosehips Folk Art Gallery in Cleveland, Ga. There's a pointer to a U.S. News & World Report outsider art story, which includes a Real Audio extract from Outsider Pages featured artist Ionel Talzapan.
There also are new links to Kimball Sterling, who does periodic auctions of folk and outsider art, to Mark F. Moran Antiques, whose inventory includes a good deal of folk art, to The Palace Theater, a great site devoted to old movies and to Paul's Homepage of Doom and Destruction. Also linked to Suck.com's Jack Chick appreciation. More to come soon.
October 27: Added a link to a lengthy academic exploration of Howard Finster's life and work.
October 21: More worthy folk art sites: The Museum of American Folk Art in New York, The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, The Raleigh News and Observer on Q.J. Stephenson's North Carolina environment, Michael Finster, the most talented of Howard Finster's progeny, and some of Howard's work online and for sale.
October 12: Some new gryos pictures: 1, 2, 3 and 4. New outsider links include pages at Donna Kossy's Kooks Museum on the Garden of Eden, James Hampton's Throne, monuments to kookdom and an art car. You also may want to check out Ed Greenberg's pictures of Masonic lodges and Matt Hucke's tour of Chicago cemetaries. Finally, Mary E. Lyons writes for young readers about folk artists.
September 29: Catherine Yronwode's expansive site is full of ideas and fascinating pages on a remarkable range of subjects, from freemasonry to spiritual sexuality to comic books. The area that concerns us here is The Sacred Landscape, which includes pages decoding Margaret's Grocery in Mississippi and the classic Texaco gas station, among other pertinent topics. (It's quirky, thoughtful sites like this that justify the whole messy Web.) A Book In Every Home by Edward Leedskalnin, builder of the Coral Castle, has been placed on the Web, and Judith Paulson has posted materials on the Castle. The Lee Atwater Dead Pool has a valuable necrology -- any listing that includes Whit Bissel and Herb Edelman is something special.
September 20: Some great, really important, sites have gone up or come to my attention in the long hiatus since the last update. First, Raw Vision magazine, the world premier outsider art publication, has finally made it to the Web. The Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul has a major Outsider Art in the Midwest show up now (through October 20), and it's had a wonderful site built for it. Then there is Susan Niles' fabulous pages devoted to Grottos Of The American Midwest . One of the country's great grottoes, Holy Land USA in Connecticut, gets its own treatment from Khyal Braun at Blowtorch.com, which is a strong site with other wonderful things to view. Finally, there is Vanessa Powell's Don Knotts tribute, which, aside for some kind words for this location, has great stuff about one of the great underrated comedians. These are all important places!
August 20: It's self-promotion time. Some new bottle-cap art and a couple of Web sites (Homes and Auto Finder) produced by your current host for the Chicago Tribune.
August 11: I know it's cheap, but still more new links: The Folk Art Society of America, the official White Castle Page, another interesting root beer taste test and a discussion forum on outsider and visionary art.
August 1: A bunch of fresh links: The Rat Pack, a collection of historical materials from the Library of Congress, TV theme songs and vintage commercials, roller coaster pioneer John A. Miller, The Rockford Files, Japanimation and Sci-Fi toys, The Coral Castle, an Utrecht art workshop for mentally handicapped people, Jane and Michael Stern's road-food reviews, Long Island's roadside Big Duck, Face of the Gods (Robert Farris Thompson on African altars and their American counterparts), a visit to Vollis Simpson's windmill masterpiece; and Hospital Audiences Inc., which features art by "mentally ill New Yorkers who have spent as much as 25 years in state mental institutions before returning to live in the community."
July 7: Great rants and raves from Mr. "77x7"; reworked definition of outsider art; new annotation for outsider art links; and of course a modest rearrangement of the opening screen.
June 14: We're busy here at Science Headquarters. You may have noticed the new treatment of the opening graphic. There's also some new roadside Web sites.
June 13: A link to
J.P. Scott site. And indeed, the Don Knotts videos are out and as edifying as ever:
June 9: Some new signage for Roadside Art Online, plus a much-improved funnel cakes.
June 7: A nice image and several new outsider links:
Erminio Aili, a very impressive Australian artist; bottle-cap artist
Rick Ladd;
a
trio of Lee Godey photos; an amusing
account of one couple's failed efforts to visit the Painted Forest in Wisconsin; a
pan of the Ellis Ruley traveling show; and a
reviewof this winter's Labor of Love show at the New Museum in New York.
June 1: A new root beer page from
Chi-An Chien, Samad's masterpiece in the Western and Vicinity gallery, more sidewalk from Paradise, praise from Point and a few new art links: Southern folk art
images from the University of Mississippe Art
Department, The
Lynch Collection of Outsider Art at North Carolina Wesleyan College and
Warner Witt's Everyday Art.
May 15: Great new link: The official Red Vines
site. Another sight in the Western Avenue Art Gallery. Plus great information and swell graphics at a
Bushmiller biography.
May 8: Oh, no, it's even more gyros.
April 23: Linked to Also's
St. Eom page and his
censorship page. Also put on info about
St. Eom show.
April 16: St. Eom's fabulous Land of Pasaquan
April 6: A monumental bottle-cap creation in Kenosha, and some new links:
Art-Environs, home to a listserv about environmental art, plus links;
The American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore's new museum devoted to outsider and visionary art;
De Stadshof - Zwolle, a Dutch outsider-art museum;
Crunch: Cereal boxes, lots of them; and David's folk art
collection.
March 11: More great gyros, not to mention "The gyros experience," as well as more pictures from the Mukwa Motel. Also, some new links: a Dick Van Dyke
page,
Route 40 and the National Road and
The World Wide
Guide to Farmers' Markets, Street Markets, Flea Markets and Street Vendors.
February 21: Launched The Gyros Project. Added link to
Retro, a new multimedia Web magazine that has lots of hip stuff in it. Also shrunk bottom navigation links throughout.
February 17: New links to
Artisans gallery's strng folk art inventory, a fascinating
explication of the Large Glass, an
appreciation of Ward Cleaver, the
Museum of Ephemeral Cultural Artifacts and some of my colleagues at the Chicago Tribune. Plus,
Craig Underhill sends this great news:
Tell the world!!! The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut,
and The Love God? are all finally coming to home video!!!
All three titles will release on April 30, 1996 at a suggested retail
price of $14.98!!!
It's true!! MCA/Universal Home Video has finally done it!!! :)
Everyone call your local video store and tell them to order it!!
January 31: A link to an impressive
catalog of Minnesota's roadside architecture. Also, a pleasant kudo for this site from Internet Underground magazine.
January 22: Put in link to Nancy
archive and a personal
tribute, plus some fine-tuning.
January 8: Added apocalyptic history from Us Beings PTL, Zsa Zsa in jail and my tribute to Bert. Also pared-down the opening screens for the home page and The Outsider Pages, moving links to their own screens.
January 4: E.T. Wickham's ruined but still powerful environment in Tennessee, an ambitious visionary art
site from WNET in New York and Thomas Jahnke's on-line
gallery.
December 23: Added Coral Courts Motel shots.
December 20: Remembered to add
link to Museum of Bad Art.
December 19: A bunch of new outsider/folk art related sites: A
bibliography.
A strong
site from the Unsigned, Unsung show. A couple of artist sites: Oswald
Phills and Reginald K.
Gee. Some academic
materials on folklore, material culture and related issues. And some Howard Finster
images. Plus, a link to a strong collection of Gene Beecher
pictures.
December 18: Experience new vistas (Pig Out Hot Dogs, the bulbous sentinel and the Trilon fruit stand), plus the home of the smiling water pitcher and, in the Western Avenue Gallery, the Sexty Sex Lounge and another image from the Razzmatazz Hall.
November 30: Check out the Little Pigs sign.
November 24: Rebuilt the Western Avenue And Vicinity Art Gallery, including new pictures of some very strong automotive art, especially Regency Auto Sales, a significant environment. Also put in link to new root beer site,
http://spock.et.byu.edu.
November 15: Several new images: The Gemini Giant, the Marietta chicken, the E.T. Wickham environment (first in a series), Bert and two new roadside links.
November 8: Added Chick Publications
Web site.
November 6: Installed W.C. Rice's cross garden in roadside environments.
October 25: Added links to roadside sites, reorganized outsider art links, added link to Fred Smith
site, tidied up home page.
October 21: Reorganized roadside art galleries and added some pictures; added Nancy rant, added some folk art links; added definition of outsider art. Discovered 4-star rating from
The McKinley.
October 9: Added
link to fine collection of folk photography, put this file in its only sensible order and rearranged the home page a bit. (The history of cheese is moved to mis. interesting images.)
October 4: Added root beer report.
September 20: Narrowed my columns, added link to second Farmer's Retirement Home photo in roadside attactions, added Ruby Williams photos and E.B. Ott photos.
August 31: Fixed funnel cakes pic. Added 40,000 pic. Started upgrading thumbnails to JPEGs from GIFs. (Bandwidth and image quality take precedence over supporting outdated browsers.)
August 27: Added tour of H.D. Dennis environment.
August 25: More images in 40,000 Murphy, Western Avenue art gallery and Roadside Attractions. Added link to Also's
home page.
August 23:Added images, information to Other Roadside Attractions. Added outsider links. Also, Outsider Pages added to
Yahoo.
August 16: Improved logo, more redesign, better organization, added Florida folk artists piece and some pretentious, impenetrable musings on technology.
July 26: Added Voice mail verbatim and added art, formatting to 40,000 Murphy.
July 20: The Groc & Groc Hall of Fame
Tables! Tables! Tables!
June 9: Added more folk art links.
June 5, 1995: Housekeeping, added some links, plus new images at Other roadside attractions and
Misc. interesting images.
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