Nellie Mae Rowe

Another outsider artist discovered through Misfits.

Hartman Rock Garden, Springfield, Ohio

Built during the Depression by an unemployed–and later terminally ill–outsider artist. These kinds of roadside grottoes–so personal and yet also religious and patriotic–seem to draw from a wellspring of imagery. Why Noah’s ark? Why stone? Why the obsession? I’ll always care, and go out of my way to see these pieces.

Noah Purifoy Desert Outdoor Museum

Rich and I were at Noah Purifoy Desert Outdoor Museum (http://www.noahpurifoy.com/joshua-tree-outdoor-museum)

It has an apocalyptic feel. I asked Rich for some words to describe it. He said:

junk
trash
vernacular
art

which I thought made a lot of sense!

I jotted down
sad
serene
boundary
portal

I might add

horizon

Noah Purifoy

Born in Snow Hill, Alabama in 1917, Noah Purifoy lived and worked most of his life in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California, where he died in 2004. He received an undergraduate degree from Alabama State Teachers College in 1943 and a graduate degree from Atlanta University in 1948. In 1956, just shy of his 40th birthday, Purifoy earned a BFA degree from Chouinard, now CalArts.

His earliest body of sculpture, constructed out of charred debris from the 1965 Watts rebellion, was the basis for 66 Signs of Neon, the landmark 1966 group exhibition on the Watts riots that traveled throughout the country. As a founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center, Purifoy knew the community intimately. His 66 Signs of Neon, in line with the postwar period’s fascination with the street and its objects, constituted a Duchampian approach to the fire-molded alleys of Watts. This strategy profoundly impacted artists such as David Hammons, John Outterbridge and Senga Nengudi. For the 20 years that followed the rebellion, Purifoy dedicated himself to the found object, and to using art as a tool for social change.

In the late 1980s, after 11 years of public policy work for the California Arts Council, where Purifoy initiated programs such as Artists in Social Institutions, which brought art into the state prison system, Purifoy moved his practice out to the Mojave desert. He lived for the last 15 years of his life creating ten acres full of large-scale sculpture on the desert floor. Constructed entirely from junked materials, this otherworldly environment is one of California’s great art historical wonders.

http://www.noahpurifoy.com/joshua-tree-outdoor-museum

Here is a piece of his we saw in the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Photo by Rich Feldman.

Yesterday we visited his outdoor museum in Joshua Tree. Had seen it ten years ago. It remains an inspiration–a very challenging one but a true source of vision and the ability to perceive.
I hope to have more to say about this anon!

Robo Lights

In an ordinary neighborhood in Palm Springs…photos by my travel guide Richard Feldman, who is in himself an Atlas Obscura.

Outsider Art, Prairie Moon, Fountain City, Wisconsin

99 Bottles on the Wall

This might be the most amazing piece of outsider or visionary art I’ve ever seen. The Bottle Houses by Edouard Arsenault are on Prince Edward Island. They include:
The Chapel
The Tavern
The House

And speak to the creator’s Acadian roots. Not only are they an individual vision, but a communal one.

www.bottlehouse.com

Outsider Art!

I bought these two little pieces recently.

Gabriel Shafer’s on a tag:

He is an African-American artist from South Carolina, second generation visionary painter. The title is “You’re Just Smiling Away.”
I’m particularly taken by the winged houses because there is an esoteric Jewish idea that when the Messiah comes buildings in which good deeds have been performed will fly to Jerusalem. The belief is that this will be houses, humble but full of mitzvot, more than synagogues or formal places.

Matt Sesow,who often represents war and “Shock & Awe” but in this case a bird, another flying creature.

Christian Roadside

In our travels through the south, it would seem inevitable that we’d find some Christian outsider or roadside art. Paradoxically, it was the least welcoming.
Here is the Minister’s Tree House:

Presumably a house for spirit as well as flesh. (And looking like parts of the Mindfield). But unlike the friendly signage we were used to at such places, we found

And then, hilariously, four trespassers hurtling over the gate (looking like middle aged church goers instead of vandals).

We also stopped at Millennium Manor Castle, built as a fortress in the late 1930’s to survive Armageddon. Surprisingly, we found the current owners working on it, and were treated to a tour of the rather eerie underground spaces, now sporting a medieval theme.

The 14 room fortress has a two-car garage and a gazebo. And a throne for Jesus.

We also, later on the trip, saw Foam Henge, which is what it sounds like–and rather amusing. Back to the secular (Or Druidic) and friendly signage.