Archive for April, 2009
Mo and the Giant Cap Gun
Mo here. I’ve been talking about the World’s Smallest Version of the World’s Largest Cap Gun for two months, but I never saw the big one until today! I just happened upon it when I got lost in the Bottoms looking for a diner. Your bro in KC,MO
Mo and the Giant Cap Gun
Mo here. I’ve been talking about the World’s Smallest Version of the World’s Largest Cap Gun for two months, but I never saw the big one until today! I just happened upon it when I got lost in the Bottoms looking for a diner. Your bro in KC,MO
Kansas City Star review of the Rare Visions, Detour Art show
Belger Arts presents works collected from folks along the ‘Detour’ route
Inez Marshall broke her back in a truck accident.
She spent a year and a half in bed, until one day she felt compelled to get to the front door of her home in Northbranch, Kan. Her parents helped her to a rocking chair, and when they opened the door Marshall spotted a small rock. She asked her father for his knife and her mother for a dough board from the kitchen. Marshall began to chisel and carve.
The rock turned into a squirrel and became the first piece of Marshall’s legacy: a wealth of stone carvings and the creation of the Continental Sculpture Hall, housed in an old gas station in Portis, Kan. Before her death in 1984, her personal museum held 10,000 pounds of her hand-carved limestone, including a 600-pound Model T, complete with motor, transmission and working taillights.
“Rock, to me, had a very special meaning. It denoted strength, determination, something to anchor to, something to hold steady when all else failed,” Marshall wrote in her autobiography.
Today you can find Marshall’s work at the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, Kan., and two of her pieces — a limestone church and a bicentennial water bowl and pitcher — join the celebration of outsider art at the “Rare Visions: Detour Art” exhibit at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut St.
The brainchild of co-curators Mike Murphy, one of the creators of KCPT’s “Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations” show, and Kelly Ludwig, collector and author of “Detour Art: Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Environments Coast to Coast,” the exhibit tells the story of artistic expression through the works of 65 untrained artists.
“It’s the spirit of both the art and the artists that captivates,” says Ludwig, whose personal collection of about 400 pieces of art helped feed the exhibit’s vision. These pieces speak to a time, place and personal history — whether it’s a trip to the Appalachian Mountains after surviving breast cancer or a painted sign that tells visitors exactly what they can do with their money.
“It’s time for this show right now, and as hokey as that sounds, there’s something here that resonates with people,” Ludwig says. “Many of these artists are products of the Depression era. They made do with what they had.”
Drawing from such unlikely artistic materials as water heaters, scrapboard, house paint, aluminum cans, cabinet doors and house siding, many of these artists use common objects in uncommon ways to create the palatial birdhouses of Texas artist Sam Mireles, the Dubuffet-like portraits of Alabama’s Mose Tolliver or the joyful celebration of God and Coca-Cola in the work of Florida’s Mary Proctor.
“You can go anywhere in America and find people making wonderful things,” says Murphy, who with his crew, Randy Mason and Don Mayberger, has traveled 46 states to collect the stories and document the work of the country’s outsider artists. “They are making their statement about the world. You just have to get off the highway and find the stuff.”
The south gallery, where you’ll find Marshall’s work, features outsider artists from the region. It houses, among others, the comic carvings of Kathy Ruth Neal, a pop-top suit by Herman Divers, the signpost confrontations of Jesse Howard and the exquisitely penciled imaginary cities of Dennis Clark.
In the north gallery, the exhibit travels beyond the Midwest to celebrate the artistic wonder and even compulsion of outsider artists, including the glittery glass collages of the “Baltimore Glassman,” the delicate Brancusi-esque wood sculptures of Linvel and Lillian Barker, and the proselytizing paintings of the Rev. Howard Finster, whose commissioned artwork for the Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures” won album cover of the year in 1985 from Rolling Stone magazine.
And no outsider art show would be complete without a room dedicated to the fantastical interpretation of a red-hued underworld, where unfortunate souls are stuffed into well-worn soles and the spin of a wheel ensures your afterlife never lacks John Tesh tunes.
“Rare Visions: Detour Art” continues at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut St., through May 1. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (until 9 p.m. on First Friday); noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment. For more information, call 816-474-3250 or visit www.belgerartscenter.org.
Kansas City Star review of the Rare Visions, Detour Art show
Belger Arts presents works collected from folks along the ‘Detour’ route
Inez Marshall broke her back in a truck accident.
She spent a year and a half in bed, until one day she felt compelled to get to the front door of her home in Northbranch, Kan. Her parents helped her to a rocking chair, and when they opened the door Marshall spotted a small rock. She asked her father for his knife and her mother for a dough board from the kitchen. Marshall began to chisel and carve.
The rock turned into a squirrel and became the first piece of Marshall’s legacy: a wealth of stone carvings and the creation of the Continental Sculpture Hall, housed in an old gas station in Portis, Kan. Before her death in 1984, her personal museum held 10,000 pounds of her hand-carved limestone, including a 600-pound Model T, complete with motor, transmission and working taillights.
“Rock, to me, had a very special meaning. It denoted strength, determination, something to anchor to, something to hold steady when all else failed,” Marshall wrote in her autobiography.
Today you can find Marshall’s work at the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, Kan., and two of her pieces — a limestone church and a bicentennial water bowl and pitcher — join the celebration of outsider art at the “Rare Visions: Detour Art” exhibit at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut St.
The brainchild of co-curators Mike Murphy, one of the creators of KCPT’s “Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations” show, and Kelly Ludwig, collector and author of “Detour Art: Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Environments Coast to Coast,” the exhibit tells the story of artistic expression through the works of 65 untrained artists.
“It’s the spirit of both the art and the artists that captivates,” says Ludwig, whose personal collection of about 400 pieces of art helped feed the exhibit’s vision. These pieces speak to a time, place and personal history — whether it’s a trip to the Appalachian Mountains after surviving breast cancer or a painted sign that tells visitors exactly what they can do with their money.
“It’s time for this show right now, and as hokey as that sounds, there’s something here that resonates with people,” Ludwig says. “Many of these artists are products of the Depression era. They made do with what they had.”
Drawing from such unlikely artistic materials as water heaters, scrapboard, house paint, aluminum cans, cabinet doors and house siding, many of these artists use common objects in uncommon ways to create the palatial birdhouses of Texas artist Sam Mireles, the Dubuffet-like portraits of Alabama’s Mose Tolliver or the joyful celebration of God and Coca-Cola in the work of Florida’s Mary Proctor.
“You can go anywhere in America and find people making wonderful things,” says Murphy, who with his crew, Randy Mason and Don Mayberger, has traveled 46 states to collect the stories and document the work of the country’s outsider artists. “They are making their statement about the world. You just have to get off the highway and find the stuff.”
The south gallery, where you’ll find Marshall’s work, features outsider artists from the region. It houses, among others, the comic carvings of Kathy Ruth Neal, a pop-top suit by Herman Divers, the signpost confrontations of Jesse Howard and the exquisitely penciled imaginary cities of Dennis Clark.
In the north gallery, the exhibit travels beyond the Midwest to celebrate the artistic wonder and even compulsion of outsider artists, including the glittery glass collages of the “Baltimore Glassman,” the delicate Brancusi-esque wood sculptures of Linvel and Lillian Barker, and the proselytizing paintings of the Rev. Howard Finster, whose commissioned artwork for the Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures” won album cover of the year in 1985 from Rolling Stone magazine.
And no outsider art show would be complete without a room dedicated to the fantastical interpretation of a red-hued underworld, where unfortunate souls are stuffed into well-worn soles and the spin of a wheel ensures your afterlife never lacks John Tesh tunes.
“Rare Visions: Detour Art” continues at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut St., through May 1. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (until 9 p.m. on First Friday); noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and by appointment. For more information, call 816-474-3250 or visit www.belgerartscenter.org.
Loi Vo’s chrome bumper creations in Lincoln
Loi Vo makes great art from chrome bumpers, that can be seen throughout Lincoln, Nebraska. Loi hails from Vietnam, and works at Lincoln Industries, a chrome plating company whose clients include Harley Davidson. When the gang from Harley saw the motorcycle viking woman, they had to have one for themselves.
Loi Vo’s chrome bumper creations in Lincoln
Loi Vo makes great art from chrome bumpers, that can be seen throughout Lincoln, Nebraska. Loi hails from Vietnam, and works at Lincoln Industries, a chrome plating company whose clients include Harley Davidson. When the gang from Harley saw the motorcycle viking woman, they had to have one for themselves.
Crazy about Glore
Not far from home is a well-kept secret of oddity. Originated by George Glore, a lifetime employee of the MO mental health system, Glore Psychiatric Museum specializes in an unusual collection of dioramas of the history of treatment for mental illness…witch burnings to devil stompings, the Bath of Surprise to a giant human version of a gerbil wheel, and your usual suspects of electro shock therapy, lobotomies, blood letting and leeches. The campy use of department store-donated mannequins makes the museum even more surreal. The signage throughout the museum expresses incredulity at such practices.
One of the more amazing/disturbing displays features the artfully arranged 1,446 items swallowed by a female patient. (She died during surgery to remove the 453 nails, 42 screws, 9 bolts, 105 safety pins, 63 buttons, 52 carpet tacks, various beads, stones, bent teaspoon handles, and earrings.)
In 1971, a patient was observed stuffing paper into a slot in the back of a television set on the ward. An electrician was called in to open the back of the set to remove the piece of paper. There were 525 letters and scraps of paper found in the TV, some charred from the heat. It is not known if the patient was collecting and disposing of the papers, or if he was delusional, and though he was mailing them.
detour art travels 