Two Favorite Recent Finds (Category Sculpture)

I spend a lot of time looking at folk art, outsider art, lowbrow art, ephemera, etc.

Sometimes I can't resist because I get the screaming mimis at how great something is and how I want to stare at it much, much longer. An object stamps its feet inside of me. I vibrate.

Love for the phenomenal world speaking through objects fashioned by humans or not.

This set of the usual suspects are solid wood and about a foot tall each and were found in Russia.

I believe they escaped from some debut de siecle paintings. So refugees. Like most beings in art.

 And this therianthropic beauty was found in a deep attic in deepest Connecticut. It bewitches me entirely. I think they were looking in the wrong state for the witches back at the end of the seventeenth century in America.

Could that be...sycamore wood...with that odd biomorphic relief to the grain? Also known as plane tree. And it has a third name, which I forget. It's about a foot tall.

It almost feels like Colonial period to me. I feel so lucky to have this weird, almost Druidic being watching over me while I sleep. I think I will have interesting dreams under that tutelage.

There is a larger monochrome watercolor landscape I have hanging on my third floor landing and I got tired of looking at it but didn't want to jettison it. So I bought this lovely bit of a tomesode in (online) Japan and covered just about half of the glass frame with this. So: a form of collage without glue and I love the way the landscape came alive again.

(so that's what's up)

I love folk art.

Why does this remind me of Raymond Pettibon?

If it's under ten bucks and this weird, I can't resist. Father is a what....C.H.U.D.?

I Couldn't Resist This Little Trio of Sculptures by a Folk Artist Named Gaines

Gaines? I did like a two second Google search and didn't see anything. But I didn't really care, because the pieces were so charming.

They're miniatures and they remind me of traveling in the family a la Russell Edson. Mom has a bird in the center of her skull; so does junior. Dad is always leveling his head to make sure his mind is okay.

I wish they were larger, but you can't have everything. The boy is missing one of his wings, but I suppose you just make up a story to explain that. They'll be good muses in my writing station upstairs.

They're totally the sort of carvings I'd expect to see in the Visionary Arts Museum. I felt a little twirl in my heart the moment I saw them.

Super Realistic Folk Art Carved Coconut Head Wearing Glasses c1920s

I swear I saw this guy working in a hospital one time.

Good thing I didn't bump into him. His head might have rolled off.

Okay, maybe the hospital was poetry. And the doctor was W.C.W.

Folk Art and Inuit Carvings

This was the summer I fell in love with folk art. I don't mean just American folk art, but all folk art,  the folk art of other cultures as well. I can't stop looking at it online and searching for it at flea markets, etc.

I really love theorem paintings and I want to try to update that idea for some contemporary projects involving recycling old clothing that would otherwise go to waste. Old shirts can become new theorem paintings.

Here is a set of folk art carvings I felt very lucky to find. (Photos not mine.)

And I found these burl wood carvings out of Ashbery's home town of Sodus. These remind me of De Chirico so strongly! These two figures really play on my subconscious. Strong in wabi-sabi! They refuse to resolve into the beings we sense implicit in them. More than a little sci-fi. They also remind me of that art show where the Futurists displayed a (natural,unmodified) tree root figure as art. (Photos not mine.)

Here is a small lot of pyrography plaques by Bettie Vretenar. I love the gender-fluid George Washington. Pronouns: they, them. And the spaceman is dishy too. These look even better "in person." (Not my photo.)

And this guy has such an interesting and flexible sense of balance! This piece of early kinetic art can be balanced numerous ways. The artist was quite ingenious. (Not my photos.)

I've started very slowly collecting Inuit carvings. Here are two I didn't nab for my collection, but whose beauty stayed with me. 

This first one is Levi Tetpon, who is just an amazing sculptor and totally under-recognized. (Not my photos below).

And this otter is attributed to Charlie Kasudluaq (b. 1927). This one also broke my heart in several places.

 I'll close with this nonpareil folk art carving of a Southern Baptist snake-handler. This went for over five hundred dollars even with the condition issues. I agree. It's going to haunt my dreams for years. Hard not to see a direct connection to those carved women of Knossos wearing the serpent-skirts. And yet the artist who carved this in the nineteenth century probably never saw those images.

I Love Outsider Artists

I love looking for work by interesting outsider artists.

Here are two watercolors by Chris Tsopanoglou (1949-2013) that I was so happy to find for my small collection.

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And here is a small mixed media work by Marion Scheller. It reminded me so strongly of Joe Brainard and folk art at once. I was so happy to find it.