Circus and Carnival outsider art.

 My current original work is available for purchase here

Wow. The home and collection of Frank Marseca. No home better illustrates the fine line between outsider art/self-taught art and modern design. Just spectacular. Click on the links for the original interview with Frank as it appeared in the New York Social Diary in 2011.

Frank Maresca, part-owner of the Ricco/Maresca Gallery, is one of the leading experts on and collectors of outsider art in the country. He’s something of a natural educator, carefully defining for us the distinction between ‘outsider artist’ and ‘self-taught artist’. His apartment, so restrained and pristine that it is a little eerie, is a kind of foil to the collection of extraordinary work and found objects that he owns.

Original interview in The New York Social Diary with Frank Marseca here

Ricco/Marseca Gallery here

One of my very favorite American paintings. "The Janitor Who Paints" by Palmer Hayden (1890-1973). Property of The Renwick Gallery in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

 Harlem Renaissance ca. 1930

Luce Center Label

Palmer Hayden was known for his paintings of the African American scene. In a 1969 interview he described The Janitor Who Paints, created around 1930, as "a sort of protest painting" of his own economic and social standing as well as that of his fellow African Americans. Hayden said his friend Cloyd Boykin, an artist who, like Hayden, had supported himself as a janitor, inspired this piece: "I painted it because no one called Boykin the artist. They called him the janitor." Details within the cramped apartment—the duster and the trashcan, for example—point to the janitor's profession; the figure's dapper clothes and beret, much like those Hayden himself wore, point to his artistic pursuits. Hayden's use of perspective was informed by modern art practices, which favored abstraction and simplified forms. He originally exaggerated the figure's facial features, which many of his contemporaries criticized as African American caricatures, but later altered the painting. He maintained the janitor as the protagonist as it represented larger civil rights issues within the African American community. (John Ott, "Labored Stereotypes: Palmer Hayden's 'The Janitor Who Paints,'" American Art 22, no.1, Spring 2008)

The Shed Project: Lee John Phillips

Fascinating documentation of every single single item contained in the tool shed of the grandfather of artist John Lee Phillips. This is an ongoing, ever-changing, monumental task that can be followed here

Vintage and antique cigar boxes are getting tough to find. Even common ones can fetch $8-$10 each. Here is a fresh picked lot of 20 for you.

 Available for purchase here

From the "Heres a Museum You Have Never Been To" Department: The National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Frederick, Maryland. Divided by Conflict, United by Compassion. The ugly reality of the cost of freedom combined with good that has been gained from this four year long, living laboratory of trauma. 1861-1865.

From the museum website:  Our main museum, located in historic downtown Frederick, Maryland, contains five galleries, over 1200 artifacts and knowledgeable docents as well as a gift shop and research facility. It is located at 48 E. Patrick Street in the Carty Building, a building that once belonged to furniture maker James Whitehill in 1832, and was the site of his undertaking business, which he sold to Clarence Carty after the Civil War.  Nestled in historic downtown Frederick, MD, considered the crossroads of the Civil War, the Museum is surrounded by eclectic museums, shops and restaurants as well as scenic vistas and numerous yearly special events.

The History

The creation of The National Museum of Civil War Medicine started as the idea of Gordon E. Dammann, D.D.S., whose collection of medical artifacts from the Civil War forms the core of the Museum’s holdings.  Dr. Dammann began collecting in 1971, and felt that a museum would be a good way to share his collection and the story of Civil War medicine with the public.   With the help of F. Terry Hambrecht, M.D.; Sam Kirkpatrick, M.D.; John Olson; the Reverend John Schildt; and Thomas Adrian Wheat, M.D., the idea began to take shape.  The Museum was incorporated in 1990, and the Board of Directors began the search for a location for the Museum.

With the support of the Governor of Maryland and the Mayor and Aldermen of Frederick City, in August 1993 the Board chose to locate the NMCWM in Frederick, Maryland.  Placing the Museum in Frederick was a strategic decision designed to attract the large number of tourists who visit the area every year.  The city is centrally located within a thirty-minute drive to five major Civil War battlefields: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Antietam, Maryland; South Mountain, Maryland; and Monocacy, Maryland.  It is also near the major tourist destinations of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland.  The Carty Building, a city-owned building in the heart of Frederick’s historic district, was chosen as the site of the Museum.
Once a location was established, the board began a fund-raising campaign and hired the Museum’s first executive director in March 1994.  Local banks, the City of Frederick, Frederick County and numerous private citizens donated to the cause.  The board and staff’s efforts received a major boost when the State of Maryland awarded the Museum a $1 million challenge grant for the much-needed renovation of the historic Carty Building.
A membership program was instituted and the Museum began publishing its quarterly newsletter, Surgeon’s Call.  On June 15, 1996, the first exhibits were opened to the public.  These exhibits included dioramas, cases and informational panels on recruiting, camp life, medical evacuation, field hospitals, pavilion hospitals, and the home-front.  The displays were highlighted by a Confederate ambulance on loan from the Lincoln Memorial University, a nineteenth-century holding coffin, stretchers, amputation kits, uniforms of medical personnel, and numerous other medical and surgical items.
In July 1997, the Museum received a $1 million gift from the Judge Edward S. Delaplaine Charitable Trust, fully matching the State of Maryland’s challenge grant.  Plans for the major renovation of the building and the design and installation of new exhibits began in earnest, and a temporary location was found so that the Museum’s exhibits, store and research library could remain open to the public.
A team featuring the exhibit designers, board members and staff planned the layout and the content of the new exhibits in the renovated building.  The restrictions imposed by the floor plan of the historic structure had to be considered in the design process, but the goal of the team was to tell the story of Civil War medicine in much the same order as it would have been experienced by the soldiers themselves.  In the finalized layout, the first gallery establishes the context for the Museum by discussing the state of medicine and medical education at the beginning of the war.  The remaining galleries follow the soldiers through recruitment, camp life, the evacuation of the
wounded, field dressing stations, field hospitals, and pavilion hospitals.  The last gallery highlights specific subjects such as indigenous plants used by the surgeons, embalming the dead, the Civil War hospitals in Frederick, and a comparative look at modern military medicine.
On October 21, 2000, the newly-renovated Museum opened its doors to the public.  In addition to the two floors of exhibit galleries, the Museum features a large Dispensary Store at the front of the building, the Delaplaine Randall Conference Room on the second floor, a secure, climate-controlled collections room, and a research center and administrative offices on the third floor.

 All photos courtesy of The National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Bizarre, satanic, outsider art drawings by Clifton Harvey 1979 discovered during an inspection of an abandoned Detroit home.

(From the Detroit Metro Times, Thursday April 23rd, 2015)

Trip out on these Satanic drawings found in an abandoned Detroit house

Posted By Lee DeVito on Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 7:28 AM

Reader Joseph Goeddeke found these drawings in an abandoned Detroit house that he was inspecting for asbestos while working for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The house was scheduled to be demolished later that day, and Goeddeke (who says he's "not an art guy" but thinks "they are great drawings") decided to save the art and send it to us. We're glad he did.

We don't know anything about the artist other than that one of the pages is signed “Clifton Harvey” and dated “12/79." We dig his depiction of Satan as a giant with a snake arm and a three-headed snake pitchfork, and the drawings remind us of the works of Henry Darger and Hieronymus Bosch.

Enjoy. (And if you know who Clifton Harvey is, please drop us a line at arts@metrotimes.com.)

[Update 8:09 a.m. Friday, April 24, 2015: We asked Goeddeke where the drawings were found. "As I recall, east side. The area between Cadillac Blvd and St Jean, and Jefferson to Mack Ave," he says. "I found them last summer and they have been in my desk since, so I’m trying to recall. As you probably know, there are thousands of homes demolished each year, so I don’t think I can pinpoint an address, but it was definitely in that area."]