Outside the Boundaries of Official Culture

“When I try to hold onto images and experiment, even something as straightforward as a tree, when I try to paint it – can’t do it, and anger comes over me and the tree is forgotten; it becomes something else – hair!” -Albert Louden

I signed up for an Aesthetics class my first year in college and found out that the word art is something people wish to define. The first day, the professor told the class that we would be asked the question, "what is art?" many times throughout the semester and that we were to attempt to answer the question. I ran the other way immediately. Maybe I should have continued to attend the class for better or for worse, but I felt as if someone might take the most sacred thing in my world and dissect it with irritating philosophical discussion the way I find myself philosophically dissecting things that are sacred to other people. I really just didn't want to read Leo Tolstoy.

I’ve been wanting to blog about Outsider Art. I decided this week would be the week. I’ve done a lot of research into Outsider Art, Art Brut, Self Taught Art, Visionary Art, (the list of definitions is long). I don’t feel any less irritated or puzzled by the definitions or any less intrigued by the work of artists labeled as “Outsiders”. I have an aversion to the term "Outsider". It brings to mind other words, labels and images I’d rather live without. What I discovered after spending some time digesting the immense amount of information I found about Outsider Art and the Artists who create it, is that the definitions aren’t important to me. The art is powerful, beautiful and intuitive. Outside of the definitions and classifications there is only the art. It is possible that this is exactly the point I've been trying to understand.

In this blog, I've included images of work that is said to qualify as the work of Outsider Artists, or Art Brut Artists. I believe the label Self Taught has also been applied in some situations. Regardless, here are a few pieces that appeal to me. There is also a photo of Judith Scott hugging one of her fiber art works. If you click on the photos you will find out more about the artists and their work.

I hope you enjoy the images and anything else you may find as you follow the links. When I tire of everything else I see around me, I turn to the visions of those defined as anything but mainstream for a fresh perspective.