Outsider Art

Outsider Art is a term I had never heard until the Library of Congress used it as a subject heading in for book I wrote posthumously about my father; and in which I included over a hundred of his 'outsider art' works. In the link above is a sentence describing an outsider artist: "Outsider artists are the fringe-dwellers of the world, the outcasts of society. They are the ones left over and left behind. These people are in the gray area of art, quite literally outsiders to the modern gallery / agent system which seems to be required for one to be recognized as a legitimate artist. " That was pretty much my dad except for the outcast of society remark.

I tape CBS Sunday Morning, programming it to automatically turn on and tape the hour and a half program for watching later. This afternoon I rewound and watched the program aired January 30. One of the features was Outsider Art. It appears it is a big deal right now. " OUTSIDER ART CBS News correspondent Serena Altschul learns about the colorful characters behind Outsider Art, a creative movement whose artists are untrained and often mentally unstable but who nonetheless remain unceasingly imaginative."

This 'creative movement' does not describe my dad at all. He was the shy guy painting day and night in a ranch community and if that made him odd, and I suppose it did, but was he mentally unstable? Not at all. Just about as solid a citizen as one could possibly be. But he was very introverted. He and George W and I have one thing in common. Sentences don't come out of our mouths quite like we had imagined. But we know what we meant.

I am wondering if all this 'outsider art' I have hanging on my walls might be of interest to EBay or Amazon customers. Perhaps I should write one of those disgusting little query letters. I haven't figured out how to do anything but order books, old and new.