As Modernism lost its grip on the collective imagination in the second half of the 20th century, adding a mansard roof to a building must have seemed like an easy way to affix substance and class. Mansards proliferated, on buildings both residential and commercial. So why not achieve the same sort of upgrade by putting mansards atop signs, which were likely even more in need of classing up? I can’t speak for the whole country, but in the Chicago area our streets were once lined with this oddball expression of 1970s-era mansardism — signs with roofs. Back in 2003 I published a
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Review: Outsider Art
Outsider Art, Updated and Revised Edition, Colin Rhodes, Thames & Hudson, 288 pages, 200 illustrations, 2023. ISBN: 978-0-500-20486-3. Paperback $24.95 Colin Rhodes has written an accomplished survey of outsider art, its history, its current state and its future. His deep understanding of the field makes this book an authoritative and important document. About that title: He is not defensive about the term “outsider art,” arguing that its well-established use makes it still a useful label. It’s also the name not only of Roger Cardinal’s seminal 1972 volume, but also of Rhodes’ own 2000 book (Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives) of which this
Continue readingReview: Singular Spaces II: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments
Singular Spaces II: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments, Jo Farb Hernández, 5 Continents Editions, 2 volumes of 532 pages each, 1,050 color illustrations, 2023. ISBN: 979-12-5460-018-4. Hardcover, $350 I began my review of Jo Farb Hernandez’s first study of Spanish art environments, 2013’s Singular Spaces, with the observation that is was “so epic that even a large-format volume of nearly 600 pages can’t get the job done, so a bonus CD adds thousands more thumbnail pictures and hundreds more pages of text.” Turns out it wasn’t enough. In the 10 years since that publication, she
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Ernie Bushmiller: Master of Modern Art
Ernie Bushmiller loved making fun of modern art in his Nancy & Sluggo comic strips, but it turns out he was a master at creating the very art he ridiculed. When people talk about Bushmiller’s artistry they’re usually referring to things like his formal simplicity, the perfection of his line and the compellingly odd proportions in his cartoon universe. When they talk about surrealism and Ernie Bushmiller, it’s usually about the absurd goings-on, like all the times he broke the fourth wall and had his characters speak to him, the inexplicable geography and out-of-place factories, the martians and ghosts that
Continue readingThe Poles of D Bill – Near Normal
When D Bill, a retired toolmaker for Caterpillar Tractor, began carving utility poles, it must have seemed natural to him to create detailed engineering drawings for each design. The carvings are whimsical and imaginative, the drawings, technical, detailed and to scale. D Bill, who preferred an initial to his full name Darwin, mostly sold his work at the annual Sugar Creek Arts Festival in the nicely named Normal, Illinois. But he also used it to decorate his spread in Danvers, a few miles west. The poles were scattered around his house and workshop and lined the long driveway up
Continue readingMartha Timm Memorial Rock Garden
The Martha Timm Rock Garden is fenced off in New Hampton, Iowa’s Mikkelson Park, making photography a challenge but visiting easy. You can just walk up any time and look. An information sign supplies what little information I can find about this modestly scaled art environment: “Martha Timm and her husband were retired to a home in New Hampton from a farm southeast of the city when she began the building of her rock garden. It includes rocks from every state of the union, collected by her and for her by relatives and friends in their travels. The shards of
Continue readingThe Hammond Rock Carvings
An out-of-the-way corner of Hammond, Indiana, hosts 12 straggling carvings on six limestone blocks that line the lakefront just south of Chicago’s Calumet Park, which itself boasts nearly 1,500 carvings. Access to the carvings, adjacent to Veteran’s Memorial Park, is through an archway that belonged to the NIPSCO power plant once located here. This map is both printable and interactive — each carving links to its image. Or scroll down for a gallery of all the carvings at Veterans Memorial Park. Hammond Carvings Gallery Find lakefront carvings by location.
Continue readingPoland: Plenty to Love
I originally wanted to go to Poland as a matter of family heritage. But it turns out there is a ton to like there beyond the ancestral village. Quaint, baroque, modern, lovely, horrifying — the country’s history makes for a rich and varied experience. Click to see.
Continue readingTiktin
Tiktin (in Polish, Tykocin) is a small town in eastern Poland, near the city of Bialystok, that seems to have peaked in the early 18th century. It’s also my ancestral village. The main draw today is a synagogue that managed to survive World War II, though of course its congregants — including my relations who had not emigrated — did not. There are a few other sights worth seeing, and all in all it’s a pleasant place to spend an afternoon. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingZakopane Cemetery
This cemetery is well worth the trip to Zakopane, the town’s other virtues aside. It’s not huge, but its mix of folky and modernist memorials — sometimes combined in a single monument — makes it an artistic treasure. Back to Poland index page
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