No, I am not talking about art out in my yard. A discussion of art is always happening on the Art Quilt List. The topic of Outside Art came up and some of us volunteered to show our collections.

I found this definition on line:

Creative works– paintings, drawings, sculptures, assemblages, and idiosyncratic gardens and other outdoor constructions — by people who have had little or no formal training in art and who produce (or at least began by producing) art without regard to the mainstream art world’s recognition, marketplace or definitions. These are people who make art for themselves or their immediate community, often without recognizing themselves as artists until some collector or expert comes along to inform that what they are doing is making art.

My sister-in-law, in Florida, is an expert on outside artists. She teaches at U. of S. Fla, and has discovered many artists and has an enviable outside art collection.

So here are photos of what I consider my outside art. We have a lot of paintings, photos and prints in addition to these. I collect a lot of ethnic, particularly Mexican, art. I also like naive religious art which I consider to be outside art. My daughter, Lisa, when she first started making art, was very much the epitome of an outside artist. She was untrained and just making stuff, and a lot of it was for me.

Since I am uploading a lot of photos, I am using thumbnails which can be clicked to see them larger.

Here is the stuff that Lisa has done for me over the years, before she became “famous”. The candlesticks are by Ben Owens in North Carolina.

Here is some of my ethnic art.

Here is my cross collection and some of my other naive religious art. The last photo also has a tin angel by an outside artist in the south.

The following items fall under the category of American Outside Artists. The last one is our latest acquisition, a gift from my sil and bil for Christmas. It is a painting done on yellow legal paper. The writing says, “If a young man knew, would he grow old.”

The church in this next photo was painted by a woman I knew in NC, who started painting in her 80’s. It is the chapel where Stephanie was married, in Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, NC. Then, there is the drawing of an angry Viking by my grandson, done a year ago when he was 5.

That concludes the tour. I have other things which I just didn’t photograph, but you get the idea.

I am feeling a great deal of malaise and post-holiday depression, which has be exacerbated by the dark, dreary, damp weather of Portland. I took two walks and did some work on the SDA website and some puttering in the studio, but I am feeling fallow in the creative department. I am working on a piece with some of my wonderful art cloth, which I am reluctant to cut up, but to move forward, I think I must take the plunge and snip, snip. I will try to report back tomorrow with some results.