Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built environments of Vernacular Artists

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	• Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists Leslie Umberger Princeton Architectural Press, 2007 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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Incredible "outsider" art

Over the last year there was an extensive display of "outsider" art at the Kohler Art museum in Sheboygan Wisconsin. I was fortunate enough to be there when the exhibit was on and went back three times to take in all the details of the exhibit. A subset of the larger show is still on display.

I have also gone to several of the art locations in Wisconsin to experience the artworks first hand. This book goes a long way to capturing these artists and their work.

Outsider art [if that is the correct term] is art created by common folks rather than professional or semi-professional artists [if that makes sense]. Their art is unusual, rustic in some senses and folkish. This book catalogues some of the more interesting artists and their work.

The locations stretch from Fred Smith's concrete garden in Phillips Wisconsin to Nek Chad's vast works in India. The types of art range from Nick Engelbert and Fred Smith's concrete statues to sequined houses to Emery Blagdon's strange wire and wood "healing machines" to the huge Evertron of Dr Evermore in Sauk County Wisconsin.

Look any of these people up on the web and you will begin to get the idea as a thorough review and description would result in a review as long as the book.

The book is very well done and of excellent quality. It is a book that you can spend hours reading and perusing.

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Going to Wisconsin soon?

If you are - do NOT miss planning a drive to or a drive by some of the sites described in this comprehensive collection. The authors have extensive experience and firsthand knowledge of these artists' exuberant installations and come by their enthusiasm from a deep empathy and masterful understanding of these self-taught, self-driven artists. Bring your camera. Bring your notebook - you WILL be inspired. If you're not going to this neck of the woods any time soon - not to worry, this book will give you an excellent and in-depth overview of Raw Art, Art Brut and whatever else you want to call these projects made by mostly hobbyist retired farmers and other non-artsy fartsy folk artists scattered throughout the nooks and crannies of the subject area. Prepare to be wowed by the sheer force of will of these often times whimsical visionaries. That they called into being representations of their often time hidden passions and inspirations until they had some time on their hands is what this is all about. That they accomplished more artistically in their sunset years than many trained artists do in a lifetime is cause for celebration. This is book is just that - a celebration of raw inspired vision as it manifests on the landscape - in between barns and villages here and there. Sort of artistic cheese curds - a little uncultured, but tasty nonetheless. Uniquely Wisconsoian. Inexplicable - but carefully documented here.

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Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built environments of Vernacular Artists

This is essentially a catalogue of the permanent collection at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. We had the good fortune to visit and see the collection and decided, after leaving, to buy the book. The book is beautiful and the photographs and essays are excellent. They should make anyone who sees the book want to go visit the museum to experience the exhibits.

The need to personalize our surroundings is a defining human characteristic. For some this need becomes a compulsion to transform their personal surroundings into works of art. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has undertaken the mission to preserve these environments, which are presented for the first time in Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds. This colorful and inspiring book features the work of twenty-two vernacular artists whose locales, personal histories, and reasons for art-making vary widely but who all share a powerful connection to home-as-art environments. Featured projects range from art environments that remain intact, such as Simon Rodia?s Watts Towers in California, to sites lost over the years such as Emery Blagdon?s six hundred elaborate "Healing Machines," made of copper, aluminum, tinfoil, magnets, ribbons, farm machinery parts, painted light bulbs, beads, coffee can lids, and more.

Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds is the first book to explore these spectacularly offbeat spaces in detail. From the "Original Rhinestone Cowboy" Loy Bowlin?s wall-to-wall glitter-and-foil living room to the concrete bestiary of the "witch of Fox Point" Mary Nohl, each artist and project is described in detail through a wealth of visuals and text. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds reminds us that our decorative choices tell the world not just what we like but who we are.