Rough Draft: No

I Dont Listen to the Man,

I Look Up To Heaven

Locating Outsiders and Visionaries

Within Aesthetic Hierarchies of High and Low

Charis Elizabeth Fisher

Advanced Research in Sociology and Anthropology IV

Warren Wilson College

Spring 2010

ABSTRACT. This paper deconstructs three ideas: the language used to discuss Outsider art, the stereotypes attached to terms such as nave, primitive, and visionary, and the social discrimination against Outsider artists that occurs as a consequence of debasing labels. I include discussion of taste as a cultural construction and artistic appreciation as occurring along a vertical symbolic hierarchy. I also examine the hierarchical structure of the mainstream art world and valuative patterns of appraisal as they reflect marginalization within greater society. Lastly, I attempt to illustrate the Visionary experience as a legitimate and transcendental state of creative expression. Once the many misconceptions about this group are shed, Visionaries and Outsiders may be better recognized as highly spiritual and intuitive individuals. The ultimate motivation of this analysis is to represent this group of highly talented individuals as candidly as possible in the midst of their cultural and creative contexts. While the appeal of Outsider art tends to center on artists unique and often remarkable biographies, I want to encourage a greater emphasis on the creative capacities of the artists that make them so extraordinary.

CONTENTS

I. Introduction

4

Overview of Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

II. Fundaments: Inside and Outside the Mainstream Art World 8

III. Methodology

15

Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

IV. Categorization and Labeling: Searching For an Emic Epithet19

V. High and Low: Vertical Hierarchy Within the Art World

24

VI. The Outsider Artist as Exotic Other

30

VII. The Visionary Experience

36

VIII. Conclusions

41

Finster never tired of telling the story of how he came to be an artist. In 1976 he dipped his finger in white paint and saw a perfect human face on the ball of his finger, and while I was lookin at it a warm flash kinda went all over me, all the way down, and it said, Paint sacred art. And I said to it, I said, I caint do that. I know professionals can, but not me. And it comes to me again and it said, How do you know? I said, How do I know that I caint paint. I tuck a dollar out of my wallet, and I pasted it on a piece of ply board and went out in front of my shop, and I started drawing George Washington off that dollar bill. (Kirwin 2002: 90).

Born in Valley Head, Alabama, Howard Finster was one of thirteen children. When he was sixteen he preached his first sermon, and by the 1940s he was leading tent revivals and pastoring in several Alabama churches. He supported his family as a bricklayer, a carpenter, and plumber, and he took up the hard times business of bicycle and lawn mower repair (Kirwin 2002: 2) so that his five children and wife, Pauline, would be provided for. He was infamous for making light of hard times, and was a charismatic fisher of men.

His most magnificent piece was his farm home in Pennville. He began constructing his environment there in his yard, Paradise Garden, in the 1960s. The environment was comprised of two acres of winding pathways and stone walls, embedded with Biblical scripture and found objects, accumulations intending to display all the inventions of mankind. Abandoned bicycle parts, pop bottles, and various jewels and treasures were amassed all around, lining the garden walls, including his sons tonsils put up in alcohol, (Kirwin 2002: 90) washed by rain and dried by sun a million pieces all in one (Finster, poem undated). His environment defied definition. Was it architecture or monument? A visual sermon? A pice de rsistance or the collection of an obsessive?

Audiences similarly groped to categorize French postman Ferdinand Chevals Palais Idal built in Hauterives in the late 19th century. The same sorts of questions were posited to Thorton Dials multimedia works, found object assemblages, and painted sculptures. Such questions as to where the work fits into art-historical movements tend to be solved with sweeping, blanked terminology that seems to communicate, We dont know but its not normal.

The preceding inquiry confronting Visionary modes suggests the transcendental nature of Visionary art. They reveal the truism that what creators produce within this category is nearly impossibly to describe. And as lovers of categories and labels, our society becomes uncomfortable when faced with the indescribable. This analysis seeks to examine social discomfort with the Visionary category of aesthetic production in order to uncover the reason for its marginalization. It seeks not only to uproot the stereotypes that have filled in holes of doubt associated with unconventional artists, but also to offer a new language that will embrace and celebrate rather than stigmatize the creation of art that is not culturally indoctrinated or socially conditioned.

OVERVIEW OF SECTIONS

In the first section of the paper, Fundaments, I present the theoretical framework and supporting literature that provided the basis for my research. The most important theories I reference are Edward Saids work on Orientalism as it applies to the exotification of Outsider art by the elite, and Stallybrass and White who wrote on the topic of symbolic aesthetic hierarchy. I also drew from Bourdieus Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, in which he posits that taste is a cultural code, and mastery over its deciphering is a means to achieving social status. These among other discussions ground this analysis in a range of theoretical foundations.

Next I include a discussion of my methodology. Here I include descriptions of the interviews I conducted with artists and scholars within the field of Outsider and Visionary art in the Southeast. My fieldwork consisted entirely of interviews, and was supplemented by extensive independent research. I use this portion of the paper to introduce my informants and provide their narratives. This section also imparts the limitations and delimitations I encountered during my research, including the inaccessibility of living Southern Visionaries.

The next major section of the paper, Categorization and Labeling, is focused on language surrounding Outsider and Visionary art, as I argue in this paper that its exclusions and distinctions perpetuate the social stigmatization and marginalization of artists within the field. Categorization of this genre of art is widely based on social and psychological factors rather than stylistic tendencies. This, I argue, detracts from the creative faculties of the artists, and delegitimizes them within the art market. My hope is that after reading this section, the reader will begin to understand the relationship between the subject of Outsider art and broader social issues. This section also relays the ambiguity of the language in question. It is often difficult to pinpoint which artists fit neatly into the Outsider category, and as such I feel it necessary to evaluate characteristics that qualify artists as outsider. Through the presentation of my findings, this section demonstrates that an artists self-identification helps to determine membership within this category.

High and Low revisits the work of Stallybrass and White (1986), employing their notion of a vertical symbolic hierarchy through which art is valued. This ranking system is designed in accord with social class, reflecting social stratification on a spectrum, between high and low art forms. This section delineates the high from the low, and explains factors demarcating power within this spectrum. It also includes a discussion of appraisal and its signification of artists symbolic value.

My next section, The Outsider Artist as Exotic Other, addresses the irony of the Outsider genres position outside, and yet inside the fine art world. Here I hope the reader may come to an understanding of why Outsider art is at once coveted and stigmatized by elites. I explain how this tension results from the exotification of the Outsider artist, drawing from Edward Saids notion of Orientalism.

In the last portion of this analysis, The Visionary Experience, I direct the discussion toward a particular instance of stigmatization: the stereotype of the deranged Outsider. Here I explore the true meaning of the Visionary experience, bringing to the foreground the transcendental qualities of Visionary consciousness as a legitimate spiritual experience. Invariably, when discussing alternative states of consciousness, debates about insanity arise. I also address within this section the subject of insanity among Outsider artists, noting misconceptions about its prevalence. Here I end with a brief analysis of the manner in which insanity both authenticates and delegitimizes Outsider status. FUNDAMENTS: INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM ART WORLD

Exhaustive definitions of the terms outsider and folk are not consistently used within the existing body of scholarly art literature, leaving authors on the subject to formulate working definitions for their own individual purposes. While these terms are used frequently and plainly within the mainstream art world, exact definitions for folk art are controversial and overlapping, (Delacruz 1999:24). As Muri writes, Conclusive definitions cannot be found in a glossary (Muri 1999:36). The first section of my paper is concerned with terminology and categorization so that working definitions for the purposes of this paper may be established.

Outsider art evolved from the term Lart brut, which was created by artist Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s, literally translated as raw art (Muri 1999:37). DeBuffet created the term to liberate the art of the mentally ill from the stigma of psychiatric labels such as art of the insane,(Muri 1999:37) as interest in outsider art grew from Printzhorns 1923 publication of the book Artistry of the Mentally Ill and a spattering of exhibits by the mentally ill in Paris. DeBuffet was also known to collect art created by individuals in mental hospitals in Switzerland. The definition of outsider art, according to Muri, has evolved since then to include any work that is markedly obsessional [and] reveals unique creativity and intensity, [having] little or nothing to do with the conventional motives underlying the so-called traditional reasons for creating art (Muri 1999:38).

As a precursor, it is important to understand that outsider art is not synonymous with folk art. However, the relationship of folk art to outsider art is apparent despite the vagueness of definitions for each. According to the speaker and context, outsider art is sometimes classified as folk art and vice versa. Chuck and Jan Rosenak, leading scholars on contemporary American folk artists provide a commonly used definition of folk art, encompassing a wide variety of art objects created by individuals who had no formal training in art (Rosenak 1984:139). The Rosenaks sub-classify folk art into the category of Outsider art, drawing the two categories together under one shared characteristic: the artists are untrained. A definition left to lie here would be far too inclusive.

In addition to being untrained, outsider and folk artists have identifying characteristics that distinguish them from one another. One distinguishing quality of outsider art is the way that it flows directly from the artist to the material with little censorship Outsider artists do not want to translate their inner worlds to the viewer; they are interested in creating what flows within (Muri 1999:37). Folk artists, on the other hand, work with ordinary materials found in their environs, and working mostly outside of the art establishment, create, primarily for themselves and for members of their immediate social groups, stylistic narratives and visions of the struggles and aspirations of daily or spiritual life (Delacruz 1999:24). Here, it is intentionality that separates the two forms.

Outsider and folk art forms are also distinct in the way they are learned. Both art forms are learned outside of the domain of formal art institutions, however Outsider art is generally assumed to be self-taught, while folk art is passed down. J. Ulbrichts discussion of self-taught art includes expression that occurs outside the conventions of the dominant art world, but not necessarily outside broader cultural standards (Ulbricht 2007:45). Outsider art fits this description by definition, however the creators of outsider art are, in fact, identified by characteristics that are considered marginal to cultural norms. Simon Bronnor contributes to the discussion with the notion of identity art, which by definition includes both outsider and folk forms of art. According to Bronnor, art work may be labeled identity art when the characteristics of the artists and their life stories are just as important as the formal features of the created objects (Fine 2003:153). Biography informs the art and infuses it with meaning. This is the basis for a large portion of this paper, as I argue that while the biographies of Outsider artists are so compelling, value should not be placed on the art according to how eclectic an artist is, but rather how raw and magnificent their visions are.

It is often the case that all non-academic artists are lumped together under the label of folk artists (Muri 1999:38). Gary Alan Fine pushes this notion in his claim that labels such as outsider art and folk art require artists to hold low positions of societal status and lack social capital. In practice, according to Fine, these artists may be uneducated, elderly, black, impoverished, mentally ill, criminal, or rural (Fine 2003:156). According to Fine, artists are required to remain outside of the market in order to maintain authenticity. The marginal positioning of the artist is appealing because audiences view the art as pure, sincere, and unmediated. Bourbonnais, a colleague of DuBuffett who founded a museum for folk and outsider art in Dicy, France, believed that this art was the only real art (Muri 1999:37). I will discuss the role of race socioeconomic status more explicitly in the section on High and Low.

This brings us to the conceptualization of the term authenticity. Barbara Gimblet suggests that authenticity is linked to [the artists] absence of cognitive understanding, creating an unmediated experience (Fine 2003:155). As I will discuss in a later section, the signifiers of authenticity that arose in my findings were navet to art categories, and the distance of an artist socially and artistically from the dominant paradigm. In this excerpt Gimblet supports navet and distance as such signifiers.

Martin Friedman provides an interesting viewpoint on what constitutes visionary art, another term for outsider, in the introduction of Naives and Visionaries. His description of visionary art refers to expressions that are often chaotic, individualistic rather than collective, and fundamentally symbolic, not utilitarian (Friedman 1974:7). His definition of folk art, on the other hand, is the collective expression of a cultures values, passed along to succeeding generations (Friedman 1974:7). He also emphasizes folklores recurrence within geographic regions. In this way Friedman asserts that both may be considered symbolic, the difference residing in that outsider art is the expression of an autonomous personality, and folk is an expression of ones identification with a social group. Both are largely concerned with identity construction and the dynamics of social roles and statuses.

Paul Willis contributes to this discussion by making theoretical connections between art and identity construction. The objective of Paul Willis, a postmodern Marxist who worked from adaptations of symbolic-interactionism and the ideas of Foucault, was to re-cognize symbolic expressions, signs, and symbols of everyday life and activity, through which individuals and groups seek to establish presence, identity, and meaning (Garner 2007:573). In his work Common Culture, Willis defines symbolic work, the application of human capacities to and through, on and with symbolic resources and raw materials (collections of signs and symbols images and artifacts of all kinds) to produce meaning (Garner 2007:573). He describes this process as a necessary component of human life. Willis was interested in examining the wellsprings of expression, creativity, and art as the essence of self-hood and self-consciousness. He asserts that through symbolic work, we place our identities in larger wholes, producing and reproducing ideas of who we are and what we can become (Garner 2007:579). This serves to explain the way in which art is an extension of the identities of the artists I interviewed. Grasping this notion is helpful in understanding how hierarchy and discrimination in the art world reflects real social phenomena.

Snow and Anderson view social identities as imputations gleaned on the basis of appearance, behavior, and the location and time of action (Snow, Anderson 1987:1347). Social identities are those that are used for the categorization of others into the known social arena. Dissimilarly, personal identities are those that are self-ascribed. Self-concept is then ones view of her- or himself as a physical, social, spiritual, or moral being (Snow, Anderson 1987:1347). They emphasize that self-view is supported by both idealizations and ascribed characteristics. The most valuable portion of the text, for our purposes, is perhaps their notion of identity work, which is behavior, decision-making, and intentional association with specific groups that asserts ones identity. One of the examples given of identity work is the procurement or arrangement of physical settings and props, which would include the creation of art and identification with material objects produced by social actors (Snow, Anderson 1987:1348). All of these notions point to the ways in which artistic appreciation is a means of achieving and reflecting social status, which I will explain further in the last two sections of this paper.

While art is widely appreciated within dominant culture, its usefulness is rarely considered, and its meaning varies immensely depending on individuals relationships with art. Mahon highlights art-making as a transformative space, where concepts of cultural, gender, status, and class identities may be contested, uprooted, evaluated, and reaffirmed (Mahon 2000:481). Nancy Pauly suggests that, individuals fail to critique their influence or acknowledge their own potential to transform negative messages through alternative social acts, such as art-making (Pauly 2003:264). Both Pauly and Mahon explore relationships between artists and art-making processes, and the nature of these processes as the exercise of human agency.

Bronnor supports the notion that despite social barriers, authentic forms of outsider and folk art are in high demand, and are appreciated for their biographical characteristics. If this is true, then audiences ought to be sensitive to social issues communicated through the art of marginalized, outsider artists. This is reason enough for optimism surrounding the potential role of art as a catalyst for social change.

Fine argues that art is a social concept: audience valorizes art. As Bourdieu notes, There is a need for a creator of the creator a consecrated discoverer who legitimizes the work and the art (Bourdieu 1987:168). Collectors, dealers, academics, and curators are the discoverers Bourdieu speaks of, exercising authority to deem types of artworks valuable. In effect, mainstream culture accepts value judgments about the artist groups who create them. Willis also discusses the ways in which genres and terms of high art are currently categories of exclusion more than of inclusion (Garner 2007:575). This attitude, Willis asserts, relegates art to art galleries, labeling everything else non-art. The influence of selective exhibition of art work has social implications that are significant and unavoidable.

METHODOLOGY

My approach to this research was to cast a wide net, refining my topic and research questions as the project progressed. Each of the sections emerged organically as I collected interviews and data. I aimed to speak with those considered outsider and visionary artists, as well as experts in the field, and from those narratives, find patterns in meaning and experience to gain a clearer understanding of the nature of the inside- outside dichotomy as a social phenomenon. I focused predominantly on the artists I could find within Asheville, and then pursued participants recommended to me, living in Kentucky and Georgia. With artists and scholars living outside of Asheville, I found telephone interviews to be the most effective method of gathering information. It proved to be far more difficult to find living Southern visionary artists for three prominent reasons. The first is the reclusive personality many of them share in common. Often, such artists create within their homes and yards apart from the hustle and bustle of society, and are only brought to public attention once discovered. The second reason is similar to the first in that the accessibility of the art relies on its discovery: that many of the most well-known outsider artists in the South are no longer living. The third is that art dealers rarely allow artists to display information where it is readily available within cyberspace or a public directory, because this would undermine the dealers position, and therefore livelihood, as the middle man.

I was able to find a sufficient number of artists with which to do interviews, though not nearly as many as I would have hoped. If time were not a factor and I had several more months to arrange interviews, perhaps I would be able to finagle my way further into the Visionary network. As this was not the case, I made do with more immediate resources. Where I could not find artists themselves, I instead found those closest to them. It seemed as though everyone I spoke with about the project knew someone in the field that would be willing to speak to me, whether they were scholars, professors, curators, gallery owners, collectors, or artists. And so, the interviewing process unfolded, with each one leading to the next.

Each interview was planned in advance with the exception of a few happening more spontaneously, on occasions where I would happen upon people while downtown and they would offer to phone artist friends and arrange impromptu meetings. All of the interviews were recorded on an audio-digital recorder, whether in person or over the phone, and later transcribed in full. In order to protect the confidentiality of each participant, I obtained recorded or written consent from each individual before beginning each interview. Consent in this sense, indicated permission to use each interviewees comments in my writing, and affirmed awareness of their right to end the interview at any time. None of the participants requested that I use pseudonyms, and I ultimately decided not to, as the identity of each participant is significant in understanding the role they played within the field, especially the artists themselves and authors who have written extensively on the subject. In order to gain a true sense of the artists in question I found it imperative that my readers would be able to access the work, because it is the art that speaks most clearly about the true innovative energy of the artists this field of research is interested with.

Narratives

Each of the artists interviewed were untrained in art, though highly intellectual individuals, with specialized knowledge in a variety of fields. The artists I spoke with were Chas Llewellen, Jason Scott Furr, Eric Legge, Bob Seven, and Phil Cheney. Chas Llewellen lives and works out of a studio in the Wedge gallery of the River Arts District of Asheville, where he builds large mechanical junk sculptures. He is known as the carrier of John Paynes legacy, a late sculptor who worked with apprentices constructing large metal raptors and robots out of scrap steel and other found metals. Jason Scott Furr is an outsider artist as well, with very little formal training in art. Furr creates avant-garde films which are made and broadcasted live in conjunction with experimental audio accompaniment.

Eric Legge has been driven to creative expression since he began painting at the age of three. Legge was born in Decatur, Illinois and raised by his mother in Valdosta, Georgia. Though he was compelled to paint from an early age, his creativity was cultivated throughout his upbringing as he worked and learned from his father, Joe Legge, a renowned folk sculptor. Eric lived and worked for a short time with his father in Rabun Gap, Georgia overlooking a beautiful valley. Here Eric collected remnants, trinkets, and enchanting objects from the surrounding mountains. I had the pleasure of walking through Legges apartment in Asheville, where one by one he told me the story of each assemblage he had built from these objects. Erics creativity is intertwined with his spirituality, an outlook he described as a special way of seeing. Eric was especially helpful to me throughout the duration of my project. He offered to go with me to the house of a friend of his, Visionary artist Bob Seven, whose house is full of his artwork, shrines, sculptures, collections, and fixtures.

Even the most functional features of Bobs domestic arrangement were artistically designed. When asked about his mediums outside of painting, Bob cited materials such as fudge icing, leftovers, the shower, and shapes. His paintings include prophetic and paranormal writings, spiritual messages, and diagrams. His inventions lined the room in which we sat down for our interview, a group interview in which Eric, Bob, and another friend of Bobs, Phil Cheney, participated.

Phil Cheney grew up around Delray Beach on the East Coast of Florida, but moved to North Carolina with his parents when he was ten years old. His mediums are painting, drawing, and silkscreen printing. He said in our interview that art is something that has always come naturally to him, and for as long as he can remember, it was something he did without premeditation. When asked whether art was a spiritual process for him, Phil replied, Yes absolutely. Ideas are everywhere, in anything there is something. There is never any reason to have a block its all around, like electric in the air. Phil is now collaborating on a childrens book for which he provided full color drawings. The book is a celebration of difference, showcasing mismatched animals in a jungle full of creatures with names like hippopottoplatypus and tyrranannarhinosaurus.

In introducing my research project to participants, I presented my research questions as honestly as possible, while emphasizing the possibility that the direction of my focus would change. I described the project as a collection of narratives from those considered outsider artists and visionary artists as well as experts in the field of outsider art. From those narratives, my intention was to locate patterns of meaning that emerge in order to understand what exactly outsider artists were outside of, culturally and artistically. I relayed to each individual that I was examining hierarchy within the art world and the way it reflects hierarchies within society. The cultural implications of this particular genre of art were at the epicenter of my interest. Subjects responded well to this, and especially to the notion of a collection of narratives. This allowed each individual the leeway to speak freely about their own experiences, without having to negotiate whether their story was pertinent. At the same time, I had laid a foundational set of guidelines that encouraged participants to expose points of those experiences that would compliment my endeavors. The organic emergence of topics of discussion from interviews are represented in this paper as parallels between emic points of view.

Categorization and Labeling: Searching for an Emic Epithet

In order to examine the cultural and social context of Outsider Art, we must first devote attention to the language surrounding the field. Outsider identity and the symbolic marginalization of artists within the genre are inextricably linked to systems of categorization. I would like to start by illustrating the planes upon which this conversation can take place, by identifying the boundaries, exclusions, and universal characteristics that define the category of Outsider Art. Then we can move forward in our understanding of the way the language used to discuss art reflects social stigmatization and hierarchy. Meanwhile, I will reveal emic perspectives of categorization that emerged from my research. In doing so we see that Outsider artists conceptions of artistic categories are paradoxical. Authenticity and qualification as Outsider are highly dependent upon artists self-identification, rejection, and redefinition of existing labels.

In recent years the term Outsider Art has been employed to describe a vast range of artistic activity situated outside of or in opposition to, mainstream art and culture. More specifically, it has been used to refer to self-taught artists representing a strata of marginalized individuals. It is important in consideration of such artists, to delineate between self-taught artists and amateur artists creating for purely recreational purposes. Categories including folk and grassroots are also excluded from the genre, as long as they appear as products of specific geographical regions or traditions. Rhodes makes clear in his writing on Outsider Art that neither the category nor its sub-categories reference any definitive historical movement or stylistic tendency.

Instead, its descriptors tend to be based more on sociological and psychological factors that are held together principally by commonly made claims by Outsider Arts apologists about the artists difference to or antagonism towards a supposedly dominant cultural norm. This difference is not merely marked by exclusion from the mainstream of the professional (western) art world, but also by exclusion from, or marginalization in relation to, the very culture that supports the market for mainstream art (Rhodes 2000:15).

Volumes could be written about the terminology saturating this genre of art, because the terms overlap and intersect. Exclusions and inclusions are circumstantial, and the boundaries are ambiguous. As Rhodes described, While it is surely desirable to maintain flexibility, there is a danger of the terms becoming all-inclusive and therefore meaningless (Rhodes 2000:14) while simultaneously, the categories are at times far too limiting. In grasping an understanding of the parameters it is vital to remain safely vague. One conclusion that can certainly be drawn is that Outsider, Visionary, and Self-taught artists tend to be solitary creators, distancing themselves from dominant society and conventional modes of expression. Rhodes explains a lack of community typical among such characters:

Rarely are the designations embraced by the artists who are inscribed in them. Compared with insider movements in western art such as Impressionism or Cubism, which functioned in socially sophisticated ways, individual outsider creators seldom even know of each other, let alone from a cohesive group. In other words, Outsider art does not follow the usual art-historical patterns (Rhodes 2000:14).

Outsider artists I spoke with fit the discursive mold, in the sense that each artist seemed unconcerned with the categories into which their art was sorted by professionals. In this sense, navet to systems of classification arose as a signifier of authenticity among the artists. A second characteristic that emerged was a sense of distance from broader networks of artists, especially mainstream fine artists.

My interest in emic definitions peaked as Seven explained his viewpoint that those who create these terms are those interested more in intellectualizing the process than experiencing it. I asked Seven, Cheney, and Legge in our group interview what they would prefer to be called, if they were able to choose. Sevens answer demonstrates an emic perspective on defining the outside:

An artist friend of mine refers to himself as a Turnip Farmer. Its kind of like admitting to being an outsider makes you not an outsider, so even being called an artist may have its own limitations. I probably identify more with the term art missionary than artist because part of the message Im trying to get through is art is everything each day is a painting.

Laster has a termsomething about delusion oh, abstract delusionist, something like that a great term. One term I also like to use is bricoleur. Its not a common term, somebody said it to me one day and it made the hair stand up on my arm because bricoleur or bricolage is really more akin to starting something in full faith that by starting it the steps will become evident.

When I asked Chas what was going through his mind when he was working, he replied, Well, I make a lot of stuff just for the hell of it, just because I want to. Chas spends most of his free time working, compelled not by artistic competition or desire for publicity, but by his inner desire to bring inanimate objects to life, to understand the mechanics of the materials he works with. He told me later in the interview that he had never put a price tag on anything he had created. And yet, this is his lifes work. His outlook interests me because it is a rarity; how often do individuals spend their days relentlessly working, unconcerned with monetary profit? Chas certainly does, and manages to live simply on the small amount of money he makes doing repairs and maintenance work at the Wedge. Chas seemed to share Bobs sentiments, especially in his aversion to any terminology that might be employed to fixate personalized artistic ventures into something universal:

outsider art is one of those kind of obnoxious terms to me art is also an obnoxious term. We use them to shrink and enlarge the spheres but its annoying when people argue about what it means because its to the point where it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

A characteristic seemingly common among outsider artists, whether they are object makers, painters, or obsessive collectors, is that they have no conception of valuative artistic categories. The following excerpt is from an interview with Chas, a metal sculptor working out of an industrial building in the River Arts District. The interview was conducted on stools in his studio next to two gigantic steel birds suspended with cables overhead:

Its one of those terms that has been high jacked to the point where its not even very useful anymore. What I consider outside art is people who are really really far removed from the art world. Like, uh, Ferdinand Cheval, who was a postman in nineteenth century France. He lived in a small village and he was a walking postman. He had a thirty kilometer route every day. One day he tripped over a stone. He was about to turn around and curse at it and he looked down to see this really striking stone with this strange shape, and he immediately cooled down and picked it up. He took it home and it sat in his yard and every day thereafter he just started picking up stones along the route. So his wife got tired of sewing up his pockets! So he carried a basket with him every day which lead to a knapsack. And then eventually a wheelbarrow he would push in front of him. And he began accumulating this big pile of stones and decided to do something with it. He got a hold of some mortar and started throwing it all together and thirty six years later he had built up this massive fantasy palace. And everyone thought he was nutso. It was never a tourist attraction where youd charge money. He just did it because it was this compulsion. And thats the kind of thing that I usually think of you know, making something just because you like it.

The notion of being far removed Chas points to in this excerpt demonstrates both a spatial distance maintained by outsider artists in regard to working conditions and living preferences, as well as an unconscious rejection of cultural norms. A sense of intention, an element that provides intellectual legitimacy in high art, seems to be lacking in Chas anecdote about the impulsive artist.

In my interview with Tom Patterson, I inquired about his mention of what Jenifer Borum has dubbed term warfare in an article he wrote about the Self-taught. Outsider art field. He expressed his frustration both with the way these debates detract from the essence of the work itself, as well as with the tension that arises between attempts to over-intellectualize Outsider art as a highly intuitive creative process.

There are all these individual artists out there and when you start looking at them individually there are all kinds of quirks that separate them into a lot more than two categories.

Though it is imperative not to invest too much energy in forcing individual artists into universal categories, the terminology itself is also the root of a great deal of stigmatization. Terms such as nave and ethnic art have connotations that perpetuate a culture of dominance. The point of concerning ourselves with the categories is to understand that it is these systems of categorization that reflect our systems of creating symbolic meaning. Hierarchies within society are implicit in the language used to discuss art. Through the cultural categories of high and low, such hierarchies are perpetuated and sustained.

High and Low: Vertical Hierarchy Within the Art World

We have just examined the terminology used to describe the field of Outsider Art. It is useful now to understand how and why the systems of classification in question perpetuate stigmatization, and how status and identity are created and internalized through language. I will demonstrate in this section how duality is used to create value, and how value in relation to artistic appreciation is used to communicate social status. More specifically, I will show how Outsider art is positioned along a vertical symbolic spectrum, juxtaposed with high art, deeming it low, and therefore of lesser cultural value. We will see, as a consequence, how discrimination against marginalized groups is perpetuated through the devaluation of Outsider art.

Brenda Jo Bright and Liza Bakewell confront the evaluative distinctions that characterize the domain of art categorization. Categorical distinctions are diverse, ranging from the high-low dichotomy (high art vs. low brow) to terminology including popular, vernacular, outsider, contemporary, and ethnic. The writers emphasize that the use of such distinctions among art critics, writers, and scholars within the mainstream art world perpetuates exclusions and cultural boundaries. The ways in which art is appreciated reflects social processes closely tied to the classist marginalization of ethnic groups and the social stratification of poor artists, particularly in rural areas.

Stallybrass and White make the claim that social hierarchies are reflected in degrees, or a system of categorizing literature and poetry according to rank.

It is the contention of the present book that the cultural categories of high and low, social and aesthetic, like those mentioned above but also those of the physical body and geographical space, are never entirely separable. The ranking of literary genres or authors in a hierarchy analogous to social classes is a particular example of a much broader and more complex cultural process whereby the human body, psychic forms, geographical space and the social formation are all constructed within interrelating and dependent hierarchies of high and low (Stallybrass, White 1986:2).

I employ this excerpt as one example of many forms of distinctions that aid us in making sense of the social world. I argue here that the cultural categories of high and low serve this purpose. However, in the process, discriminations occur according to what Stallybrass and White refer to as a vertical symbolic hierarchy (Stallybrass, White 1986:3). This discriminatory classification system implies a spectrum of value within which social marginalization is perpetuated. Effectively, terms such as primitive, nave, and outsider have discriminatory connotations, implications, and consequences. In an interview with Tom Patterson, he discussed how context determines which terms are appropriate, voicing his belief that sensitivity ought to be paid to the ways in which artists regard themselves.

Well with outsider, its just the most marginal kind of term you could use, you know, and some artists I know whove embraced the term are like okay call me an outsider, Ive always kind of felt like an outsider, or on the other hand its kind of like, what an insult, you know? Especially a lot of African American artists, you know, Ive been an outsider all my life, I dont want to be lumped in like that. So it can easily be read as a derogatory term, although I think its kind of an honorific for some people, like well cool, I identify with outsiders I think a lot of it is identification with the outsider in society.

The hierarchies themselves originate and are reinforced within a definitive symbolic space: the museum. It is often choices or exclusions made by curators in prestigious art galleries and museums that place particular artists and works within valuative art categories. In an interview, Philip March Jones spoke impetuously about this phenomenon in the context of Henry Darger :

Well I mean, the powers that be, I mean its such a small world. The powers that be are basically the people that hang it in places like New York, I mean, its as simple as that or the people that dont hang it on the wall, you know? You hang Henry Darger at the MOMA and all the sudden hes a modern artist

This excerpt serves to exemplify how the reputation of an artist like Darger, who is otherwise described in the art world as a deranged visionary speculated to have suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, is easily shifted as soon as his work is hung in prestigious art galleries in New York. The marginal artist is in this sense a pawn at the mercy of puppeteer collectors, or as Philip mentioned, the powers that be.

A convenient means for measuring the position of an artist or piece of work within the vertical system is to observe patterns in appraisal. The value of art speaks volumes about its symbolic and cultural significance. This might be better illustrated in relation to the consumption of art as a process of status enhancement when we notice that the more one pays for piece of art, the higher the status of the individual. Thus, collection in itself is a symbolic act, and the value of artwork tends to decide the symbolic value of the art and the status of the artist who created it. Rarely is collection a process of browsing a gallery or museum for something beautiful or moving, but more often a process of buying according to reputation. The process is easily comparable to high fashion buying. The clothing itself is less important than the designer.

Even the most well known Visionaries and Vernaculars make it only to the lower echelons of the art market. According to Jones, they fall somewhere in between amateur art school students and crafters, with a few exceptions. Those few exceptions have made names for themselves with the help of powerful puppeteers, museum curators, or as Seven called them, the people who swing big bats.

It is also interesting to discover the strange ways in which higher echelons of art depend on and are defined by their low counterparts. Robert Rauchenberg, one of the worlds most famous contemporary artists, was undoubtedly influenced by a group of Southern black quilt makers living in a hamlet of a community in rural Alabama. The Quilts of Gees Bend have received publicity and had a show at the Whitney, but never reached the outrageous status Rauschenburg saw, despite their chronological precedence and striking resemblance to his modernist paintings. There is an undeniable and direct connection between the work of the Gees Bend quilters and several modernist paintings, but as Philip March Jones argued, they will never receive the attention they deserve simply because they never marketed themselves the way the modernists did. These artists were black, poor, and uneducated, and were creating cultural representations of a particular vernacular, rather than for the sake of art. They were creating the visual counterparts of blues, jazz, gospel, and hip-hop. As the sons and daughters of sharecroppers, who were themselves the sons and daughters of slaves, these artists were creating a visual culture that was incredibly submersive. In our interview, Philip March Jones appropriately praised the, highly developed visual vocabulary, in the place of formal education, exhibited by the Gees Bend artists. As we conversed about this, Jones linked valuative categories to race, exposing a clear parallel between lower artistic status and socioeconomic background.

white people in the South, its like they always felt sort of entitled to what black people were making or doing. They never felt like they should have to pay a lot for it, which is why still a lot of those great artists from the south that are black, like look at someone like Smith Oliver, any of these guys, and when they were painting people were paying like five and ten dollars a paintings, or a hundred dollars. Theres not a kid a middle class white kid that went to art school that would sell a painting for five dollars, you know? And Smith Olivers in the Smithsonian. So its like at what point at what point is this about anything but race and socioeconomic status?

The lower status of Vernacular artists may be accorded to their detachment from art-historical traditions, the progression of which has been defined by the elite strata of Western art historians. Those who have little cultural competence in deciphering this historical code, are considered by society to have less refined aesthetic taste. Bourdieu refers his readers to the notion of the nave spectator, drawing a convenient connection to our discussion of Outsider art, which has also been commonly called Nave Art.

Like the so-called nave painter who, operating outside the held and its specific traditions remains external to the history of art, the nave spectator cannot attain a specific grasp of works of art which only have meaningor valuein relation to the specific history of an artistic tradition (Bourdieu 1984:4).

Though Bourdieu was not directly writing about Nave Art as a dominantly accepted artistic category, his distinction undoubtedly applies. Later on Bourdieu explains the difference between low and high art as the shift from an art which imitates nature to an art which imitates art, deriving from its own history the exclusive source of its experiments and even of its breaks with tradition (Bourdieu 1984:4). This point demonstrates that in order for aesthetic appreciation to be deemed legitimate within society, taste must base itself upon refinement and savvy of cultural codes. It is not enough for a collector to have a liking for a particular work, for example, but instead the work must have inherited value through its historical references and position within the legitimate system of appreciation. A works references and situation within the art world are what designate it as good or not. This allows us to cultivate an understanding of the low status of outsider art, as the basis for the genre rely on its rejection and inversion of these systems of legitimacy. As a consequence, Outsider art is both rejected by the mainstream art world, and invited into it for its exotic value. I will expound on the exotic value of Outsider art later in the essay.

The Outsider Artist as Exotic Other

After I immersed myself in discovering exactly who Visionaries were in context, and examining the social setting within which they operate, I was left wanting to learn more about the irony inherent in the genres existence both within and outside of the art world. Questions so far left unanswered, and indeed the most difficult to cover fully, were: why is the structure of the art world hierarchical and discriminatory? Why are Outsiders discriminated against and sought after by the same audience? Here I aim to demonstrate why Outsider art is at once coveted and stigmatized by elites, and how the exotification of Outsider art both authenticates and delegitimizes individual creators. This requires brief discussions regarding ways in which taste is culturally constructed and functions as a mechanism for status achievement.

Speaking with Philip March Jones and reading on the discriminatory nature of the position of the Outsider genre within the mainstream art market left me wondering why it remained a growing field. It was obvious to me that collectors and curators were still lured to Outsider art under certain circumstances, sustaining its submersed but undeniable popularity. Jones agreed that collectors tend to include outsider art into their repertoires, but at the same time will only pay a certain amount to do so. The tension between the low value of Outsider art, its position on the margins of the mainstream, and its simultaneous popularity, reminded me of Edward Saids work on Orientalism. Orientalism may be defined as the myths surrounding the Middle East constructed by the West to reaffirm or legitimate its own authority. Just as the Orient and its exotic essence was an European invention, so is the deranged Outsider a construction of the elite strata, and it is romanticized in the same way. Stallybrass and White refer to this phenomenon as an operative ambivalence to the lower strata, a hierarchical contradiction:

The political imperative to reject and eliminate the debasing low conflicts powerfully and unpredictably with a desire for this Other. The high is in a sense dependent upon the low for the maintenance of its prestige and status. It includes that low symbolically, as a primary eroticized constituent of its fantasy life (Stallybrass, White 1986: 4).

The authors of this quote are getting at the way in which those with power and prestige in society like to designate specific groups as inferior in order to validate their own superiority. They claim here that the groups that are debased are often symbolic of the characteristics they secretly desire. Stallybrass and White go on to explain that what is socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central. It is most useful, in other words, to examine what a society deems deviant in order to better understand its values.

Bourdieu brings to our attention that taste is far less subjective than we would like to believe. We privy the notion that we are each unique individuals with tastes in painting, reading, musicianship, and other aesthetic genres as proof of exercised personal agency. Our aesthetic preferences are looked upon as expressions of the unique personalities we were born with. The cultural objects of our consumption are symbols representing our individual identities. We prefer to think that we are drawn to particular works of art as we are drawn to flavors of food; that those works of art call out to us, and we thus fall in love with them at first sight. Taste as we know it, is natural and personal. Bourdieu offers a contrary perspective, of social origin:

A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded. The conscious or unconscious implementation of explicit or implicit schemes of perception and appreciation which constitutes pictorial or musical culture is the hidden condition for recognizing the styles characteristic of a period, a school or an author, and, more generally, for the familiarity with the internal logic of works that aesthetic enjoyment presupposes.

Thus the encounter with a work of art is not love at first sight as is generally supposed, and the act of empathy, Einfhlung, which is the art-lovers pleasure, presupposes an act of cognition, a decoding operation, which implies the implementation of a cognitive acquirement, a cultural code (Bourdieu 1984:3).

A discussion of taste as cultural code is necessary in order to speak further about the embellishment of the Visionary as an exotic other. Collectors and intellectuals on the elite end of the spectrum are on one hand drawn to Outsider art, and on the other perpetuate its inferiority and marginality. It seems that a distance is maintained between the collection of the works and the source from which they came It is as if elites are interested in an with the exotic notion of the Outsider, without appropriating the qualities that make that kind of art possible: specifically, marginality and oppressive circumstance. This, too, seems to be a form of status signification.

Phillip began to seem upset as he described a contemporary artist who recently received a great deal of media attention for a Polaroid series of his friends in various situations using drugs, binge drinking, and having sex. The photographer recently died of a heroin overdose in his hotel room. The puzzling question at hand is how Dash Snow came to receive so much popularity. What was it about his story that deems it merit? One might argue that the raw and dangerous life he chose for himself symbolizes a pain that only a few are able to experience, a hardship that seems almost romantic or unnattainable. He offered an exotic lifestyle for others to taste. Philip posed a rhetorical question: Why were people, rich white collectors, buying polaroids of people having sex, laced on drugs? Why, in the same vein, does Thorton Dial attract the same demographic, even though his work is vernacular, based on the trials of the Civil Rights movement and his family history of sharecropping, a narrative with which his collectors could never identify?

I know exactly why, theyre buying that character, that lifestyle, that personality. Theyre buying into that artist, okay? Its never about the art. People will say it is but its not. I mean, its about that artists vision. Its about the personality, its about that cultural cache, its about a lot of things. But its never just about the way it looks, right? And essentially these guys are saying I can buy into this vision of whatever, you know, like the atomic bomb, and jesus Christ, and gardens of bees and weird things, I can buy into this kind of person and people like, you know people like the biography.

In order to better understand this, it is necessary to evaluate the qualities of Outsider art that are considered exotic and tasteful. What is the attraction, exactly, to the work of an untrained prisoner, farmer, or schizophrenic? This an inquiry of aesthetics, one of taste as a cultural code as we established previously.

Tom Patterson offered a descriptive response to this question, citing the common qualities that make Outsider art so unique:

A lot of this work is just really packed with imagery and really exemplary of whats called horror vacculli a fear of empty spaces, basically, uh kind of a compulsion to fill the whole page, you know leaving no space without some visual action going on, and thats certainly a common trait. Certainly not to all this work, there are minimalists within the field too, but this kind of, just dense imagery is a real common thing, I think. Theres a lot of work that looks almost seething and looming, theres so much going on on the whole surface of the thing. Theres a lot of that a lot of the work refers directly to religious sources, a lot of biblical references...

Dense, packed imagery is in fact a common characteristic of much of the work produced by the artists interviewed within my fieldwork. Though, minimalism and biblical references are also characteristic of the genre. However, if we look back on Rhodes attempts to draw a dividing line separating the inside from outside, we remember that Outsider art is not necessarily categorized by stylistic tendencies.

Philip March Jones also ruminated on this thought during our phone interview:

I dont know what the fascination is, I mean I would think that it would be this idea of something that is pure and something thats untouched and something that is just raw I mean, look at the names like Raw Vision, and you know, the way they talk about it, I mean, there is something thats different from a white trained artist, and people get mad when you say stuff like this, but you know theres something that quite often feels sterile in contemporary art. The craft is. All these perfect straight lines and these outsider quote unquote artists, you know, are making these raw things

Inversely, it is poverty that creates the conditions for and fosters such raw qualities in a majority of the work. Thus the position of an artist along the high-low spectrum is highly reliant upon accessibility of materials and institutional instruction. The inaccessibility of materials to Outsider artists is both what draws attention to them, and at the same time installs a glass ceiling within the professional art world, restricting their credibility and material success.

Its usually what they have access to, because rarely are they people that have lots of material wealth, so you know Henry Darger painted on butcher paper, and whatever, you know like these weird covers of books, and things and Charles Stetson was using basically craft paper... andThorton Dial you know was always making things out of tin and sheet metal and wood, and just whatever all these guys Lonny Holly, you know, found objects. You could compare Lonny Holly to Marcel Duchamp, though in doing these [Objet Truvee] kind of sculptures and assemblages and I mean its just but Lonny Hollys poor and black so hell never be viewed like Duchamp was you know?

Another possible conclusion one could draw from the fixation on Outsider art as a process of othering, is that the process is, in a sense, an attempt to appropriate the cultural biography present in the work of Vernacular art that is lacking in dominant American culture.

Thornton Dial making a book about being the son of a sharecropper and civil rights and all that its the same thing, right? People are buying that cause these middle-aged, rich white dudes arent gonna do that theyre not gonna take their wives out and do these explicit photos and things theyre not! They can buy it, they can own it, they can be a part of that. Its really funny, its like a way for them to be wild, you know what I mean? Shock their friends.

Western privilege allows collectors the freedom to pull Vernacular art out of its cultural context and transform it into expendable commodity. While many Vernacular artists, such as Lonnie Holly and Purvis Young, are aware of the way their art is demeaned, it is not publicity that has ever compelled them to create. The more I read the words of these artists, the more I realize that their paintings and sculptures are visual sermons, and the messages will reach those who appreciate their meanings. As long as we who appreciate them continue these discussions, the system will not enslave them.

The Visionary Experience

Now that we have examined Outsider art as a category positioned within a social dichotomy of high and low and discussed the power dynamics associated with valuative ascription in the art world, we can move on to look at a specific stigma attached to the genre of Visionary art and begin to deconstruct it. The goal in doing so is to shine a new light on Visionary art in its transcendence of the raw quality of an untrained creator through the metaphysical state often described as the Visionary experience. I hope in this section to dissolve stereotypes surrounding the deranged outsider or lunatic Visionary and bring legitimacy to the spiritual dimension of this artistic genre.

A descriptive term often used to discuss Outsider Art is Visionary, which in its connotation is admittedly more positive or at the least, neutral, directing attention more to the visions of artists rather than their social locations. Visionary, though, depending on with whom one is speaking or in what context, implies not only the act of giving themselves entirely to creative urge, (Rhodes 2000:140) Rhodes conveys in describing American artists Mose Tolliver and Bill Traylor, but also more directly entails a particular state of consciousness which most Visionary artists exhibit, ranging in form and extent.

Invariably, when discussing Visionary consciousness, debates about its synonymy with insanity will arise. Though, such discussions often lead to a broadly unanswered question: is there not a parallel drawn between a vast number of artists and abnormal psychological dispositions? Furthermore, why are Outsider artists singled out as the genre that is most associated with insanity? The answer to the latter of these questions is more obvious, considering its nativity as literally, art of the insane, Art Brut. However, in the contemporary body of Outsider creation, insanity is certainly not a prerequisite, nor nearly as prevalent.

Remnant associations with Art Brut facilitate misconceptions about the prevalence and significance of insanity as a shared characteristic among Visionaries. While true mental instability is featured among a large portion of artists in this field, creators across all genres of art indicate varying degrees of mental instability. Art scholars and historians, lacking the qualification to diagnose such individuals with disorders, are thus only able to speculate about such matters. It is clear, though, that Visionary artists often occupy worlds Rhodes refers to as alternative universes, a state also referred to for our purposes, Visionary Consciousness. In an interview, Tom Patterson emphasized the necessity for greater recognition of Visionary Consciousness as a legitimate state of creative and spiritual existence. His reflections were drawn from his extensive fieldwork with Visionaries Howard Finster and William Bill Fields.

The visionary experience actual visionary experience, such as biblical visions visionary experiences inform a good portion of the work. And it is considered by a lot of the audience just insanity, basically but insanity that produces interesting results. I put a lot more credence in, I certainly dont chalk this up as insanity, visionary experience, I think its to be taken seriously.

Howard was very much that kind of Shaman archetype in a way a transformer a real transformer. Definitely you had this sense of being connected to more than one world when you were in his presence. And more than just two It was more than heaven and earth and hell, there were a lot more worlds than that so it was a pretty rich experience. All of this was kind of like fodder for his preaching. The visions were usually religious in nature.

Tom is currently compiling interviews and preparing to write a book about William Fields, a close friend of his with whom he has spent ample time with in Atlanta. Tom described Fields as a transcendental individual. Fields is steeped in and very well-versed in occult sciences, hermetic science, and Egyptology.

[Fields is] interested in magical techniques, the trance states contacting spirits, his work is very much involved with that, and hes deep, deep into it I mean Im talking decades into this stuff, hes seventy now. He is the most high level hermetic practitioner Ive ever been around, certainly. And his work he draws essentially, portraits. Theyre visionary portraits of spirit beings that he contacts in trance states he puts himself into using a variety of different time-honored, mystical techniques.

Like Jones argument that the Quilters of Gees Bend exhibited highly developed visual vocabularies in the place of formal education, Visionaries tend to have highly refined spiritual sensitivity. Rhodes devotes a section of his book on Outsiders and Visionaries to Mediums and Spiritualists, claiming:

The factor that unites all mediumistic artists is the practice of automatism- abandoning all claims on sense of selfhood, they become conduits through which the spirit world makes contact with the mundane sphere (Rhodes 2000: 111).

An understanding of Spiritualists and Mediums in this fashion breaks down the enigmatic mystery attached to the artistic category, hopefully deconstructing stereotypes and dismissals of the Visionary genre as a lower art form, or as the regurgitation of the insane. Instead, it provides a new light under which to examine, define, and appreciate the genre of art as it transcends inexperience or inadequacy into a more metaphysical mode of expression. Once seen this way, one must recognize the fascinating transcendental qualities of Visionary art, whether that denotes insanity, or simply a rejection, whether imposed or chosen, of dominant cultural norms.

Dubuffet viewed Visionaries as extremists in questions of representation. Though he was interested in developing a space within the art world for the insane, he seemed to define insanity in an entirely different manner than the contemporary sense of the word. His following articulation of insanity provides a positive light in which to view Visionary Consciousness, contesting current cultural definitions of the insane:

I believe that the creation of art is intimately linked to the spirit of revolt. Insanity represents a refusal to adopt a view of reality that is imposed by custom. Art consists in constructing or inventing a mirror in which all of the universe is reflected. An artist is a man who creates a parallel universe, who doesnt want an imposed universe inflicted on him. He wants to do it himself. That is a definition of insanity. The insane are people who push creativity further than professional artists, who believe in it totally (Rhodes 2000:104).

According to this definition, one might argue that a slight degree of insanity is necessary for the most creative of expressions to take place. Most artists exhibit qualities that render them outside dominant paradigms of thought. This might be seen as an indication of the ambiguity of insanity as a cultural category. It seems that it is the way such states are communicated and carried out that deems their degree of deviance and legitimacy, regardless of the quality of work they produce. Artists who are highly skilled at mimicking accepted cultural code, however, as discussed in a previous section, tend to be more highly esteemed, redeeming them partially of any marginal social categories including insanity, criminality, or poverty.

Visionary consciousness is not limited to spiritual mediumistic practices or religious dispositions. Eric Legge described the Visionary state as a sensory experience.

Eric: Its just all around you. And it has to do with a particular way of seeing. But also being touched when youre touched in that special way, and it inspires you.

Charis: Thinking back on the work youve done, do you mean being touched by things in everyday life, or is it more being touched by something spiritual?

Eric: Yeah I think its both I think its just a matter of having your eyes open for it.

This discussion serves to explain several things: How in a sense, Outsider Art, or Art Brut cannot be compared with production from trained artists, because its wellspring of inspiration is entirely different. One is automatic, and the other is learned, appropriated, and practiced. One could argue that although Outsiders do not adhere to normative cultural codes, they operate according to a code nonetheless, one that assigns meaning to Outsider identity. As must be acknowledged, Outsider identity does entail a code very much its own. This code is, strangely, defined by its contention with normative code. I would argue, however, that there is an impulsive component to the Visionary experience that is truly automatic, rooted deep within the artist. As my informants revealed, Visionaries are inspired by spiritual and internal sources more so than conventional artistic principles and the intellectualization of artistic expression. While the mainstream fine art paradigm champions refinement and conceptual sophistication, the Outsider code champions intuition and purity above all else.

CONCLUSION

I have shown in this paper that much of the categorization that has taken place surrounding this peripheral group of artists has unfortunately been based on psychological and social characteristics. The language used to discuss outsider art has in effect detracted from the creative faculties of the artists, delegitimizing them within the art world. I have also shown how artistic paradigms are structured in a way that stifles the voices of Visionaries, by confining them to the aesthetic polarities of high and low. At this point it is imperative that audiences shed the preconceptions produced by these systems. I hope to convince audiences to direct their attention away from the biographies and back to the art itself, as the extraordinary and supernatural talents of these artists speak for themselves.

In reflection of the contributions of this research, I realize first that this paper has been an incredibly opening experience for me. I feel indebted to the many artists I met and spoke with, and hope that my work will engage its audience in a provocative and constructive way. I believe that the discussion has only begun, and that there are many gaps remaining to be filled. The contribution I hope this research has made to the broader discourse, is a new lens through which audiences may receive raw vision, and a language by which it may be embraced and praised. I hope that the framing of this paper might allow for similar discourses to take place outside of the art world, that readers might turn sociological eyes to other institutions and hegemonic systems.

Furthermore, this research contributes to our understanding of insanity. It shakes the boundaries and barriers we have erected to shield us from the unknown. Hopefully, it might also empower us in our ordinary lives to realize our individual agency to transcend the tangible and liberate ourselves from oppressive circumstance. To think that Cheval, the French postman, created a palace out of the pebbles found along his route, think of the extraordinary masterpieces each of our individual ordinary tasks may yield with the recognition of their value.

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