Two fine artists: B.F. Perkins and Jimmy Lee Sudduth at Perkins’ environment in Bankston, Alabama. Sudduth gave me this Polaroid in 1990 or thereabouts, along with directions to Perkins’ place. Sudduth was a genius with mud. Perkins’ environment was continuous with his art. He repeated himself, but his best themes, like the “Cherokee Lovebirds,” were quite nice.
Continue readingScenes From A Bottle Cap Inn
Enjoy this group of press photos (and two snapshots) of Miami’s fabulous Bottle Cap Inn. The press photos are circa 1940. I’ve also got a collection of Bottle Cap Inn vintage postcards.
Continue readingBest Spam In A While
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Continue readingR.I.P. Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi
Tom Magliozzi, of NPR’s Car Talk, was one of the most honest, funniest, kindest, smartest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. My favorite Tommy moment: A Cars.com team was meeting with the brothers at Car Talk Plaza early in our partnership and the person from our PR agency was going on about how we could get Tom and Ray on the TV morning shows. They could do it from Boston and would just have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. or so to get on the satellite. Tom stared at him and said “f— that s—“, and that was it for
Continue readingOutsider Art for Sale — Intuit’s Collect-o-rama
See a sample of art I will be selling at Intuit’s Collect-o-rama event, Saturday, October 25, 2014, 10 to 4 at Stanton Park in Chicago, 618 W. Scott St. There is a preview the night before, 6-9. I’ll have more outsider, folk and vernacular art material, as will other sellers. Typically, there is a ton of interesting work at very affordable prices.
Continue readingVivian Maier: A Framing Narrative
With Maier, like Henry Darger, it’s hard to separate the work from the story What does it take to be a successful artist? More often than not: 1. Exceptional talent 2. Obsessive production 3. Savvy promotion 4. Great luck Vivian Maier, the “nanny photographer,” eventually checked all these boxes, even if
Continue readingBook Review: Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments
Jo Farb Hernandez’s study of Spanish art environments is so epic that even a large-format volume of nearly 600 pages can’t get the job done, so a bonus CD adds thousands more thumbnail pictures and hundreds more pages of text. If creating a world-class art environment requires obsessive devotion, Hernandez is a match for the creators she studies. Her devotion demonstrates Spain is a match for the rest of the world, even if its environments have not received the same attention as the great sites in France or Wisconsin.
Continue readingThe Art of Street Food
The National Mall, which stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and features most of the Smithsonian museums, is lined with hot dog wagons and food trucks, at least in better times. When last I saw them many of these trucks were extravaganzas of hand-painted signs promoting colorful snacks and refreshments. I fear photographed images are overtaking the paintings, but that’s life on the roadside, and at least they remain exuberantly colorful. Here are images from this portable, spontaneous art environment, August 2009 and July 2014.
Continue readingShort Review: The True Gospel Preached Here
The True Gospel Preached Here by Bruce West My rating: 5 of 5 stars Lots of people stumbled onto Margaret’s Grocery by accident, taking the cutoff from Highway 61 into Vicksburg, Miss. It was an incredible site and its maker, the Rev. H.D. Dennis, was just as incredible (and voluble). Bruce West not only stopped, he developed a continuing relationship with Dennis and his wife, the site’s eponymous Margaret. The book documents the evolution of the environment, from his early encounter to its decay after the couple had died. West’s photos and text gives the site, and the couple, their
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