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Tuesday, April 1, 1997

Amateur 'outsider' artists show professional talent, insight into the blues at Craft and Folk Art Museum

By Ismael Osuna

Daily Bruin Contributor

he blues is only one of the art forms that take center stage at the House of Blues.

The House of Blues, established five years ago in Cambridge, Mass., was created to celebrate a unique form of music called the blues. Yet the blues is much more than music: It is the tradition of a people which can be expressed through media other than music. With locations throughout the nation, as well as one in Los Angeles, the message of the House of Blues is being widely spread.

"I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art, Selections from the House of Blues Collection," at the Craft and Folk Art Museum through May 25, displays a colorful array of provocative art created by so-called outsider, or folk, artists. None of the art exhibited was made by professional artists. In fact, most of the pieces in the exhibit were created by African American blue-collar workers, some of which are from the Delta region of the rural South.

These artists are inspired to create their art in reaction to the problems they believe plague society and their community today. Very much in tune with the world around them, these artists have been inspired by their surroundings.

"Li'l Gary" by Roy Ferdinand Jr. captures the scene of a crime on a street corner. Here, one encounters a representation of real life on the streets of New Orleans, Ferdinand's home town. One is able to see the implications of gang warfare which rules the streets familiar to Ferdinand and can sympathize with the plight shown in the picture itself ­ not because it merely seems to be true, but because it is.

The same sentiments have apparently inspired Leroy Almon Sr. to make his paintings. By cutting flatboards into two-dimensional pictures and then painting them, Almon creates pictures of people surrounded by the contemporary temptations of life. In "20th Century Slave" Almon shows that the path of African Americans is wrought with temptations of the devil, such as drugs and women. A preacher and radio dispatcher by day, Almon is trying to get the message across that one should lead a healthy, enlightened, and sober life.

Having had no formal training as professionals, these artists have found the inspiration to create works of art from the most readily available material around them, whether it be a piece of found junk, an old tin roof panel, a tree branch or a door frame that is their canvas. The splashes of color and writing added to that canvas are made with leftover house paint, colorful beads or even mud.

Using a mixture of mud, molasses and natural dyes obtained from weeds Jimmy Lee Sudeth paints mainly simple scenes. The work shown at the CAFAM is a painting of a crowned king climbing up steps and capturing what seems to be a ray of lightening. As opposed to most of the other art at the exhibit, Sudeth paints scenes of joy, showing that a sort of escapist genre exists within folk art.

These artists further expand the claim that outsider art is as true an art as those creations made by academically trained artists.

Uninhibited by the constraints of the processes which artists of today follow, the creators of these pieces tap into a raw and unconstrained style that makes their art unique. Here, we are allowed to see the natural artist at work, creating from nature and working from a true blank canvas.

Featured here are artists such as Mose Tolliver, who began painting on leftover plywood, and Mary T. Smith, who uses tin roof panels as her canvas and leftover house paint to draw.

But the works of some incredibly gifted artists also on display at this exhibit are not to be forgotten or misplaced as purely amateurs. Ruth Mae McCrane's "A Way Out of Hell" has a very professional look to it. As if educated in the rudiments of early Baroque and late Renaissance art, McCrane's artwork hearkens to that bygone style of painting and structure due to the compositional elements utilized in the work.

In this small exhibit there is a vast array of styles, yet all fall under the category of folk art because of the artists' untrained status among the art world. But in every way these creations are truly art. Uninhibited by rules and defined by the message of a culture and tradition, this art responds to a higher power than notable art critics. More often than not it responds to a spirituality, to God.

In the post-modern world and tradition of today art seems to be made merely for arts sake. It is refreshing to see an exhibit with art that is truly inspired.

ART: "I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art, Selections from the House of Blues Collection" is on view at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, 5800 Wilshire Blvd., through May 25. Tickets are $4 general admission, $2 for students and seniors over 62. Information: (213) 937-5544.

CHARLES KUO/Daily Bruin

Leroy Almon's "20th Century Slave," a work carved on wood and enamel paint, is on view at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.Photos by CHARLES KUO/Daily Bruin

Samantha Garrick (top), with mother Laurie (not pictured), strolls by "Pedaling to Hell" by Ronald Cooper at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.

"A Way Out of Hell" by Ruth Mae McCrane, above, is part of the Craft and Folk Art Museum's exhibit "I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art, Selections from the House of Blues Collection."