Do You Collect Folk Art?

This post is a reminder that the Thornton Dial show at The New Orleans Museum of Art will close after the final day on Sunday, May 20. The museum is open until 9 PM on Friday. If you have not seen this show, get over there now!

Thornton Dial at work

We had a couple of guests for Jazzfest who stayed over during the week between the two weekends of festivities, and we suggested going to the museum to see the show. We all had a wonderful time, an emotionally moving experience.

Jane Fonda collects Thornton Dial and loaned a piece of it for the show at NOMA - This is her loft

The Thornton Dial show amazes you with creative virtuosity, but even more with the emotions you will certainly experience. You will cry and you will smile. The show is hung like a four act play. It starts out hard and heavy, and moves into humor and life, and then into romance, and finally leaving with you with a sense of hope and redemption. If you live in New Orleans, you are a fool if you don't see this show.

Alberto and I have a very small and modest collection of contemporary Southern art, done by what some call folk artists, or outsider artists. I have always been attracted to folk art, and somehow owning a few pieces naturally occurred when we moved to Louisiana.

We got this piece from Mary Proctor when we were evacuated to Tallahassee, Florida after Katrina - We were out on a drive and saw this incredible junk yard of a place decorated with folk art - There was  a little shack called a museum and we entered- No one was around, and once we walked though we went out into the enormous yard and saw hundreds of pieces of art - All of a sudden we saw a woman sitting in the dirt in the shade and shadows, and she was making art - We made the accquaintance of the amazing artist Mary Proctor - This drowning girl made us think of New Orleans and Katrina

I loved the folk art museum in New York and was familiar with a wider vernacular of American folk art from attending exhibitions there, but there is something extra remarkable about the Southern self-taught artists still living and working today.

This is a black cat made from corrugated metal by artist Charles Gillam that hangs in the laundry room

Life imitates art - Kitty Kitty Bang Bang with the black cat art by Charles Gillam

Le Tango by Charles Gillam, a wood carving done for Alberto and me (I had red hair then) that Alberto gave me for my birthday - In my dreams I have my eye on a Thornton Dial piece for my birthday this year if we win the lottery

The Funeral by Lottie - The description written by the artist on the back says "She put him away fine and looking out for another one" - Contact Lottie in Patterson, Louisiana at 504 395-6677 -  I love this painting for the Grandma Moses quality of it, showing so many delicately painted details

Words in folk art are an important component, the art not only conveying a message but spelling it out - This saying is now identified with New Orleans coined by the famous artist Dr. Bob  - I loved this one because the background looks like old wallpaper to me - Note how the frame becomes part of the work of art

We commissioned the French artist Simon to do this sign for us - His signs are seen all over New Orleans, but especially on Magazine Street near his shop

This sweet painting of magnolias was done by dear friend Anne Farmen as a gift to me - She passed away at age 90, and painted this a couple of years before that

This amazing piece was done by Mary Gillam the sister of Charles. It is made from found objects, and I just love it!

Does folk art have a place in your home?
Go to all the links and check out these amazing artists.

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Thornton Dial In New Orleans

The term outsider art is a tricky thing. It usually pertains to untrained artists who fall into a sub category of folk art. Anyone from Grandma Moses to Thornton Dial are lumped in.  Wiki says, that typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

Thornton Dial in a photo taken for Time Magazine. He has also been featured on 60 Minutes

When you see the work of Thornton Dial, you realize he is on par with any modern artist from Jackson Pollock to Robert Rauschenberg to Julian Schnabel, and very much the spiritual father of someone like Jean Michel Basquiat. His art defies category. It is in fact great art, monumental and museum worthy as evidenced at how many museums acquire his paintings and works for their collections. And he is very much alive, nor a man in an extreme mental state (more than any of us, or any artist). His ideas are no longer unconventional, though he expresses them in a totally unique and spectacular way. His fantasy world is one that allows civil rights and equality.

After more than two decades in which his work has settled gradually into the collections of a number of major museums, he may at last be achieving a kind of cultural velocity. What he does can be discussed as art, just art, no surplus qualifiers necessary.

In 1987, a remarkably prescient conversation occurred between Thornton Dial and Atlanta art historian/patron Bill Arnett soon after they met. A book resulted called, Truth and Consequences:The 25 Year Old Friendship of Thornton Dial and Bil Arnett.

Arnett said, “Mr. Dial, people value cultures according to how well they make art, and nobody believes black Americans are capable of making great art. You can become one of the most important artists in the world and make everybody realize they were wrong. You can open doors to so many people like yourself who’ve been kept out. You can bring civil rights to people in ways that Martin Luther King didn't live to do.”  Dial responded, “Man, if I’m that good they’ll have to kill me.”

Don't miss the Thornton Dial show at NOMA

I am a great admirer of Thornton Dial. So I am so happy that a major exhibition of his work is at the New Orleans Museum of Art until May 20. Don't miss it!

And here's another book you should include in your library of art books,  Hard Truths, The Art of Thornton Dial.

Get this book for your art Library

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Raggly

"Raggly Flag" by Thornton Dial

Today is Flag Day.

When I was in school we had to write a composition entitled "What Does The Flag Mean To You". It was a lesson in civics and history.

When you are a child you don't really think about the meaning of flags. You might learn to identify flags of different countries, maybe a first visual association with a world larger than your own.

In the 1970's I was fond of the saying "Let your freak flag fly".

Flags get all wrapped up in politics, self identification, emotion and pride for sure. Who doesn't get a lump in their throat when the national anthem is played and the colors are trouped out?

So I give you an image today of a painting by Thornton Dial called "Raggly Flag". Thornton Dial is an excellent example the American dream. He is an artist, self taught, who started painting later in life. Today he is considered one of the most important artists of the 21st century. I love his work.

People all over the world reinvent themselves during their lifetimes. Ditto for self made women and men. But somehow this idea of having the freedom to be anything you want at anytime in your life rings truest and perhaps the loudest when people think of the USA.

So today I salute my flag, and let my freak fly, grateful and proud.

I encourage you to check out Thornton Dial. If you live in Indianapolis the museum of art there is doing an important exhibit of a life time of his incredible work. Read more HERE.

Get this book on Thornton Dial HERE

This is a new Thornton Dial book HERE

And if you are one of those blessed art collectors you can buy this work of art HERE. If I had the money I would buy Thornton Dial for love and for the investment.

For sale: Thornton Dial oil on paper - 30 x 44