Tuesday, April 1, 1997
Amateur ‘outsider’ artists show professional talent, insight
into the blues at Craft and Folk Art Museum
By Ismael Osuna
Daily Bruin Contributor
he blues is only one of the art forms that take center stage at
the House of Blues.
The House of Blues, established five years ago in Cambridge,
Mass., was created to celebrate a unique form of music called the
blues. Yet the blues is much more than music: It is the tradition
of a people which can be expressed through media other than music.
With locations throughout the nation, as well as one in Los
Angeles, the message of the House of Blues is being widely
spread.
"I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art, Selections
from the House of Blues Collection," at the Craft and Folk Art
Museum through May 25, displays a colorful array of provocative art
created by so-called outsider, or folk, artists. None of the art
exhibited was made by professional artists. In fact, most of the
pieces in the exhibit were created by African American blue-collar
workers, some of which are from the Delta region of the rural
South.
These artists are inspired to create their art in reaction to
the problems they believe plague society and their community today.
Very much in tune with the world around them, these artists have
been inspired by their surroundings.
"Li’l Gary" by Roy Ferdinand Jr. captures the scene of a crime
on a street corner. Here, one encounters a representation of real
life on the streets of New Orleans, Ferdinand’s home town. One is
able to see the implications of gang warfare which rules the
streets familiar to Ferdinand and can sympathize with the plight
shown in the picture itself  not because it merely seems to
be true, but because it is.
The same sentiments have apparently inspired Leroy Almon Sr. to
make his paintings. By cutting flatboards into two-dimensional
pictures and then painting them, Almon creates pictures of people
surrounded by the contemporary temptations of life. In "20th
Century Slave" Almon shows that the path of African Americans is
wrought with temptations of the devil, such as drugs and women. A
preacher and radio dispatcher by day, Almon is trying to get the
message across that one should lead a healthy, enlightened, and
sober life.
Having had no formal training as professionals, these artists
have found the inspiration to create works of art from the most
readily available material around them, whether it be a piece of
found junk, an old tin roof panel, a tree branch or a door frame
that is their canvas. The splashes of color and writing added to
that canvas are made with leftover house paint, colorful beads or
even mud.
Using a mixture of mud, molasses and natural dyes obtained from
weeds Jimmy Lee Sudeth paints mainly simple scenes. The work shown
at the CAFAM is a painting of a crowned king climbing up steps and
capturing what seems to be a ray of lightening. As opposed to most
of the other art at the exhibit, Sudeth paints scenes of joy,
showing that a sort of escapist genre exists within folk art.
These artists further expand the claim that outsider art is as
true an art as those creations made by academically trained
artists.
Uninhibited by the constraints of the processes which artists of
today follow, the creators of these pieces tap into a raw and
unconstrained style that makes their art unique. Here, we are
allowed to see the natural artist at work, creating from nature and
working from a true blank canvas.
Featured here are artists such as Mose Tolliver, who began
painting on leftover plywood, and Mary T. Smith, who uses tin roof
panels as her canvas and leftover house paint to draw.
But the works of some incredibly gifted artists also on display
at this exhibit are not to be forgotten or misplaced as purely
amateurs. Ruth Mae McCrane’s "A Way Out of Hell" has a very
professional look to it. As if educated in the rudiments of early
Baroque and late Renaissance art, McCrane’s artwork hearkens to
that bygone style of painting and structure due to the
compositional elements utilized in the work.
In this small exhibit there is a vast array of styles, yet all
fall under the category of folk art because of the artists’
untrained status among the art world. But in every way these
creations are truly art. Uninhibited by rules and defined by the
message of a culture and tradition, this art responds to a higher
power than notable art critics. More often than not it responds to
a spirituality, to God.
In the post-modern world and tradition of today art seems to be
made merely for arts sake. It is refreshing to see an exhibit with
art that is truly inspired.
ART: "I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art,
Selections from the House of Blues Collection" is on view at the
Craft and Folk Art Museum, 5800 Wilshire Blvd., through May 25.
Tickets are $4 general admission, $2 for students and seniors over
62. Information: (213) 937-5544.
CHARLES KUO/Daily Bruin
Leroy Almon’s "20th Century Slave," a work carved on wood and
enamel paint, is on view at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.Photos by
CHARLES KUO/Daily Bruin
Samantha Garrick (top), with mother Laurie (not pictured),
strolls by "Pedaling to Hell" by Ronald Cooper at the Craft and
Folk Art Museum.
"A Way Out of Hell" by Ruth Mae McCrane, above, is part of the
Craft and Folk Art Museum’s exhibit "I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual
Found in Folk Art, Selections from the House of Blues
Collection."