Friday, June 13, 2008

Further work on the Inside outside - signs



Welcome to the OUTSIDE!

Please leave something at the entrance to be a symbol of loss-pick it up on the way out….

Artists loose, we all loose when people, ideas, feelings and Art are kept outside.

Outsider or Visionary Artists practice unusual art using techniques that are not common, ordinary or traditional. We challenge the mainstream but we are still people, still artists.

Often we as visionary artists practicing techniques and creating art that is outside the mainstream are kept on the outside as people, as artists. We are not "in the loop" of the local Arts scene. Organizations and sponsors bring us to festivals but they do not bring us into the conference rooms for planning events as members of the team. Local cartists are not paid to be at events or helped in any way. We draw the crowds but do not draw the "support for the arts" which is so often proclaimed.

Many types of art and many mediums used by artists once were outside of the mainstream. Modern artists such as Pollack and Rothko struggled for acceptance so that they could stay alive. Leonardo Di Vinci was a bit strange after all the brilliant artist wrote backwards, Vincent Van Gogh cut his ear off and had a most difficult time winning acceptance.

The Wrap- Why?

This has been the year of wrapping in Baltimore- A fence was placed around a popular city park. Here we have placed a barrier around a well known artcar. The barrier is a symbol of the barriers that cultures and groups put up to keep the new, unusual and different away from the mainstream. The barrier here symbolizes the "glass barrier" that separates visionary and outsider artists from local organizations and institutions and cultures. We are here but often you don't see the barrier. We are here but no one knows that we really are not a part of the team or involved with the institutions that are associated with us.

These tragic barriers keep art from spreading. New ideas and techniques are kept apart. Often we can see the barriers by the words people use.

Weird, Strange, Crazy, Wild, Madcap, What the ****.

How would a child ever choose to pursue an art form and become an artist if they knew that they would enter this off limits category?

Why not- Innovative, creative, expressive, daring, modern?

Today we ask you to think of how you might be maintaining that barrier. We call out to the arts communities- "Artists Tear down That wall"

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