Bob Watt

This is the home of Bob Watt, an 86 year old Milwaukee based artist and writer who creates more than he knows what to do with. Upon entering his home one has to first find the narrow pathway through the mounds upon mounds of paintings and sculptures. It was hard to imagine that someone could actually live and work in such a place.

Bob Watt began painting in the late 60's when his sister, an artist, asked him to create an abstract painting of sorts. Bob said that after this piece, "the rest just kind of happened by accident." He claims that his artwork is 99% luck and 1% planning.

In 1993, Bobs luck took a turn for the worst. While out one day, his home caught fire and 900 of his paintings went up in smoke. The fire department said that it was the biggest house fire they had ever seen. This didn't deter Watt's will to create, he saw the event as an opportunity for a new start.

Upon meeting Bob I was struck by his quirky charm and equally delightful attire. His shirt was covered in what looked like homemade decorations and pins, and the pockets were filled with pens and trinkets. He started things off by changing his television station from the weather channel to a pornographic film. He said that there was nothing better to ease the mind than the playboy channel. Despite what he may do in his free time, I think he may have turned on the film just to rouse the crowd. He was most likely laughing inside every time one of the students turned to look at the television instead of listening to him speak openly about art.

Judging from his subject matter, it is accurate to say that Bob holds a strong love for the female anatomy. He claimed that not many people truly appreciated the female form, and that he was one of the few that did. Most of the artwork that Bob produces shows evidence of inspiration from the female form.

While most of the rooms were filled with canvases depicting modified Picasso paintings, in the kitchen lie a stack of over 500 hand bound magazines. These booklets were composed of landscape images with nude photographs of women taken by Bob himself xeroxed on top. It was these booklets that I found most intriguing. Just like his self proclaimed attempts to better Picasso's paintings, Bob has taken these images of landscapes and beautified them with the female figure. His unconventional way of compositing the images together leads me to believe that this idea came from Bob alone, and had little to do with outside inspiration or modern photopshopping techniques. It is something that he may have truly stumbled upon by accident.

Sources:
Miracles of the Spirit

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Born on an Alabamba farm in 1910, Jimmy Lee Sudduth's first contact with mud was at an early age. He watched one day as a boy dripped syrup from his mouth, taking notice to the hardened clump of earth which remained the next day. He would go on to use this concoction of clay and sugar to create countless works of art.

Sudduth's earliest memories of creating were at the age of three. He recalled trekking through the forest and leaving marks on all of the trees. After his experience with the syrup, he began mixing different colored clays with sugary substances including syrup, honey, and even Cocacola. This sticky compound allowed him to finger paint the earthy mixture onto makeshift plywood canvases. The sugar not only kept the clay from falling off, but also dried and hardened it in place.

Jimmy's passion for nature manifests not only in his chosen materials but in the subject matter of his art as well. The farm hand loved to paint fish, birds, snakes and alligators. To increase his gamut of colors he would crush leaves, pine needles, and other foliage depending on the season. For red's he would mash up different kinds of berries, and for dark stains he would use coffee beans, and walnut shells. Sudduth claims he could identify 36 different shades of mud, and with the addition of natural additives his color palette was very large.

Despite his love for natural materials, Jimmy couldn't resist when neighbors started leaving buckets of latex paint on his front porch. By 1970 he was using latex paint almost exclusively in his work. Along with other assorted prefab materials such as egg coloring, carpenters chalk, and grease. The paint allowed him to create more and work faster, and that was a good enough reason for him.



In his later years he began drawing rural and city scapes, including homes, town events, and automobiles. Some of these paintings even depicted architectural landscapes of New York, which he may have seen after his work gained exposure and was put on exhibit.

Jimmy Lee Sudduth died in 2007, at the age of 97. The prolific artist outlived two wives and a son. Two years prior in 2005 the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts held a major exhibition of his paintings.

Once when Jimmy was asked why he used his fingers to paint, Jimmy replied, "Brushes wear out and my fingers don't. When I die, the brush dies too."

Sources:
Web:
Ginger Young Gallery
NY Times
Print

Outsider Art

What is it?

"Art Brut", or "Outsider art", consists of works produced by people who for various reasons have not been culturally indoctrinated or socially conditioned. They are all kinds of dwellers on the fringes of society. Working outside fine art "systems" (schools, galleries, museums and so on), these people have produced, from the depths of their own personalities and for themselves and no one else, works of outstanding originality in concept, subject and techniques. They are works which owe nothing to tradition or fashion.

- Michel Thevoz, Curator of the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne

The term "Outsider Art" was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as the English synonym for Jean Dubuffet's original French term "Art Brut," which loosely translates to "rough art" or "raw art." Both hold connotations of an unadulterated form of self expression. The artwork is generally produced by individuals who have had no training in disciplinary art forms, live outside of a cultured society, and exhibit a relentless drive to create.

Interest arose in this form of art when several psychiatrists began documenting their mental patients work in the early 19th Century. Interest soared particularly in French artist Jean Dubuffet, who with several others, collected the work and created the Compagnie de l'Art Brut in 1948.

Today the term "Outsider Art" has grown to encompass much more than just the works of mental patients, extending to all individuals living outside of modern society, who were born with a divine calling to create. Relying on only their intuition and ingenuity to create these works of pure expression.

Sources:

WEB
Raw Vision
Anthony Petullo Collection
PRINT
Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives, Colin Rhodes