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RV 77
WINTER 2012/13
DIGITAL EDITION

MARTIN RAMIREZ BRUCE NEW STEPHANIE LUCAS ART IN HOUSTON ELLEN GREENE
 RAWVISION77
WINTER 2012/13 CONTENTS
THE POWER OF
LOVE
Lynne Adele explores the
collage drawings of Bruce
New.

WORLDS BEST MEDAILLE DE LA VILLE

ART MAGAZINE DE PARIS

MARTIN RAMIREZ
Edward Gomez reassesses
the work of one of
Americas most celebrated
outsider artists.

UTNE INDEPENDENT AMERICAN FOLK ART

PRESS AWARD MUSEUM VISIONARY
AWARD MOTHERS MILK
Alicia Eler discovers the
Editor John Maizels strange kid leather gloves
of Ellen Greene.
Directors Henry Boxer, Sam Farber, Robert Greenberg, Audrey Heckler, Rebecca
Hoffberger, Phyllis Kind, Frank Maresca, Richard Rosenthal, Bob Roth

Art Editor Maggie Jones Maizels

Senior Editor Julia Elmore
Features Editor Nuala Ernest FANTASTICAL
Editorial Assistant Natasha Jaeger
Managing Editor Carla Goldby Solomon
WORLD
Roger Thompson talks to
Accounts Manager Judith Edwards
Stephanie Lucas about her
Subscriptions Manager Suzy Daniels
work.
US Assistant Ari Huff
French Editor Laurent Danchin
Contributing Editors Michael Bonesteel, Jenifer P. Borum,
Roger Cardinal, Ted Degener, Edward Madrid Gomez,
Jo Farb Hernandez, Tom Patterson, Charles Russell
HEAVENLY CITY
Advertising Manager Charlie Payne Tony Thorne discusses the
tel 859 305 6117 utopian academic world of
cell 859 537 6937 John Devlin.
adsalespro@comcast.net

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INSPIRATION
US Office 163 Amsterdam Ave, #203, New York, NY 100235001 Julie Thompson reveals the
(standard envelopes only) creative expressions found
in Houston, Texas.
Bureau Franais 37 Rue de Gergovie, 75014 Paris
tel +33 (0) 1 40 44 96 46

ISSN 0955-1182 TRANSPORT

cover image EXOTICUS
Bruce New, The Gathering Of The Moon Tribe, 2010. Cathy Ward examines the
dream machines of Ian
Ward.
Raw Vision (ISSN 0955-1182) December 2012 is published quarterly (March, June, September,
December) by Raw Vision Ltd, PO Box 44, Watford WD25 8LN, UK and distributed in the USA by
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Exhibitions and books.

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GALLERY &
MUSEUM GUIDE
Subscribe Online @
W W W. R AW V I S I O N . C O M RAWNEWS
Outsider events and
OR FILL IN THE ORDER FORM exhibitions around
the world.
 R AW N E W S Austria. Belgium. Britain.

FLYING AT GUGGING ALEXIS LIPPSTREU HAITI AND VOUDOU

until April 21, 2013
The Dream of Flying features works on the theme
by Josef Bachler, Laila Bachtiar, Franois Burland,
Leonhard Fink, Gregory Blackstock and others.
Also running from November 15, 2012 March 10,
2013, over one hundred religious scroll paintings
on linen and silk are showcased in yogini.! kunst
aus tibet.
GALERIE GUGGING, Am Campus 2, 3400 Maria
Gugging, AUSTRIA
tel: +43 (0)676 841181 200, www.gugging.org
November 30, 2012 February 16, 2013
Alexis Lippstreu shows at MADmuse from
December 1, 2012 February 16, 2013, and also in
Galerie Christian Berst from November 30, 2012
January 2013. Lippstreu takes inspiration from
paintings by Gauguin, Degas, Van Eyck and others.
MADMUSE, Parc d'Avroy, 4000 Lige - BELGIUM
tel: +32 (0)4 222 32 95, www.madmusee.be
GALERIE CHRISTIAN BERST, 3-5, Passage des
Gravilliers, 75003 Paris, FRANCE
tel: +33 (0)1 53 33 01 70, www.christianberst.com
until January 6, 2013
Kafou: Haiti, Art and Voudou is a major exhibition
of Haitian art inspired by Voudou, with 200 works
by 40 artists, from the 1940s to today. One of the
largest exhibitions of Haitian art ever in the UK,
these pieces reflect the sheer richness of Haitian
culture and history.
NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY
Weekday Cross, Nottingham, NG1 2GB, UK
tel: +44 (0)115 948 9750
www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

gerard valcin
gregory blackstock

alexis lippstreu

ART & MARGES ART FROM THE MARGINS

lionel

until January 27, 2013 until February 3, 2013

Lionel: Lenfant bleu dHenry Bauchau
offers a maze of monsters, enchanted
islands and cosmic visions, exploring
links between art, literature and
therapy. Art & Marges is also
exhibiting Robert Garcet, with
artworks, audio documents and
photos on display. The museums
permanent collection includes a new
display on the first floor.
ART & MARGES MUSE, 312-314 rue
A season of exhibitions at Pallant House Gallery celebrating art from the
margins, opens this autumn. Outside In: National showcases 80 new works
selected from pieces submitted to the competition for artists producing work
from the margins of society. Jean Dubuffet: Transitions is the first major review
of Dubuffets work in a public museum in the UK for nearly 50 years, featuring
paintings, drawings and sculpture. Roger Cardinal will be giving a talk on
The Marginal Arts on December 29 and Laurent Danchin will talk on Jean
Dubuffet on December 6, both at 6.30 pm.
PALLANT HOUSE GALLERY, 9 North Pallant, Chichester,
West Sussex, PO19 1TJ, UK, tel: +44 (0)1243 774557, www.pallant.org.uk
jean dubuffet

Haute, 1000 Brussels, BELGIUM

tel: +32 (0)2 533 94 90
www.artetmarges.be

DR GUISLAIN
shadi ghadinan

until May 26, 2013

Nervous Women depicts extreme
mental states of women such as
mania, melancholia, passionate love
and rebellion, exploring how our
times provoke and endure new forms
of disturbed behaviour. Includes
works by Eric De Volder, Diane Arbus,
Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin and
Shadi Ghadinan.
MUSEUM DR GUISLAIN
Jozef Guislainstraat 43 9000
Gent, BELGIUM
tel: +32 (0)9 216 35 95
www.museumdrguislain.be

RV/774
 R AW N E W S Denmark. France.

FREAK WAVE
HILDEBRANDT AT GAIA BIZART until April 15, 2013
February 5 May 4, 2013 December 10 23, 2012 Ltrange peuple de Freak Wave (The Strange
Showcasing the richly elaborated sculptures of 100 Cadeaux Extraordinaires (100 Extraordinary People of Freak Wave) includes works by Chlo
Danish shoemaker Kristian Hildebrandt (1924 Gifts) offers 100 examples of meaningful and rare Mathiez, Paul Torres and Anne van der Linden.
2011). Also until January 19 2013, LYS P works of many talents. MUSE DE LROTISME
KUNSTEN (Light on Art) features highlights from BIZART-BIZART, Mezzanine de LOppidum 72 Boulevard de Clichy,
the museums permanent collection. 39300 Champagnole, FRANCE Paris 18 , FRANCE
GAIA MUSEUM OUTSIDER ART tel: +33 (0)3 84 51 63 36 tel: +33 (0)1 42 58 28 73
Lene Bredahls Gade 10, 8900 Randers, www.bizart-bizart.com www.freakwave.fr
franoise sablons
DENMARK

anne van der linden

tel: +45 (0)8915 8338, www.gaiamuseum.dk
kristian hildebrandt

MR IMAGINATION COMMEMORATION ARIEL IN LYON

September 29, 2012 December 1 29, 2012
A special commemoration evening was held at the Halle Saint Pierre museum in Paris, where Ariel, son of Evaristo, depicts visions inspired by myths
dedications were given by Laurent Danchin and Martine Lusardy. The event was held in and legends, often focusing on the fears of exploring the
conjunction with a memorial exhibition devoted to Mr Imagination which presented a range of world between heaven and hell.
his work from French collections, including one of his magnificent thrones which he had presented GALERIE DETTINGER-MAYER
to Halle Saint Pierre a few years ago. Mr Imagination was a well-known and popular figure in 4 Place Gailleton 69002
Paris where he made extended visits over the years and ran workshops for young people. He Lyon, FRANCE
has also been represented in several important exhibitions held at the museum since he first tel: +33 (0)4 72 41 07 80
took part in Art Outsider - des collections de Chicago in 1998. www.galerie-dettinger-mayer.com
ariel
mr imagination

RV/776
R AW N E W S Switzerland. USA.

FARBER DONATION OF VERBENA TO COLLECTION DE LART BRUT

Pascal Verbenas monumental assemblage sculpture, Holocaust, has been donated to the Collection de l'Art Brut by Sam and Betsey Farber. Created mainly
from salvaged driftwood, the piece is over five metres long and comprises a multitude of drawers and secret compartments, containing graveyard soil and
photographs of people considered to have disappeared. The Museum now features a newly designed exhibition layout for its permanent collection, which
includes several other pieces from its Verbena collection. Also until April 14, 2013, an exhibition at the Collection will be displaying drawings, carved dolls
and photographic prints by Morton Bartlett.
COLLECTION DE L'ART BRUT, 11, av. des Bergires, CH - 1004 Lausanne, SWITZERLAND, tel: +41 (0)21 315 25 70, www.artbrut.ch

HAITIAN MASTERS KENNETH ROOKS
until December 1, 2012 until December 17, 2012
Haitian Art: Old Masters and New Visions features a selection of artwork from The Four Sisters Gallery has a
Haiti, from the 1940s to the present. The exhibition includes paintings, retrospective exhibition of the late
voudou flags and sculptures by artists including Montas Antoine, Alberoi Kenneth Rooks paintings and
Bazile, Gabriel Bien-Aim, Onel Bazelais, Mireille Delice and Serge Jolimeau. polychromed sheetrock carvings,
INDIGO ARTS GALLERY showing the artists development
The Crane Arts Building, over a 30 year period. Accompanying
1400 North American St., #104, Philadelphia, PA 19122 Kenneth Rooks is a display of carved
tel: 215 765 1041 www.indigoarts.com and painted decoys by prize-winning
decoy carver Carleton R. Lewis.
FOUR SISTERS GALLERY
3400 North Wesleyan Boulevard,
Rocky Mount, NC 27804
tel: 252 985 5268
pascal verbena
ERIC LEGGE
December 1 30, 2012
The Florida debut Eric Legge includes
the Georgia artists trademark images
of angelic faces, florals, and pastoral
images of his mountain home. From
January 25 February 10, 2013,
Enchanted features an installation of
tar paper paintings by Tres Taylor
and his daughter Lillis Taylors fabric
interpretations of his artwork.
JEANINE TAYLOR FOLK ART, 211 E.
1st St, Historic Downtown Sanford
tel: 407 323 2774
www.jtfolkart.com
eric legge

montas antoine kenneth rooks

RV/7712
 THE TRANSCENDENT
POWER OF LOVE
above
Share Your Secrets With a
Bird, 2012, pen and collage
on paper, 19.5 x 25 ins.,
49.5 x 63.5 cm, courtesy of
the artist.
opposite
Bruce New in Richmond,
Kentucky, 2011,
photo: Ted Degener.
RV/7720
Lynne Adele explores the collage drawings of Bruce New
T
heres something paradoxical about Bruce News
eloquent mixed media pieces. Employing his own
consistent and complex visual language, New
conveys symbolic messages that are at once universal
and extremely personal. The works share an affinity
with the ancient and primordial, yet are decidedly
modern. They invite deeper examination, but remain
somewhat impenetrable, rewarding the viewer with
more questions than answers. Theyre inspired by
romantic love, yet are hard-edged and mechanical.
Solid, monumental figures and objects populate
compositions created in the fragile and ephemeral
medium of collaged paper. The visual tension in the
work is based on the precariously balanced polarity of
these opposites, while a restrained, often
monochromatic, palette provides unity.
New is a self-taught visionary artist for whom
the act of art-making is first and foremost to satisfy a
personal need to leave a visual mark of his experiences,
and to reveal things that he alone sees. He is led by an
impulse to create art as an external manifestation of his
innermost visions, or as he describes it, a need to
document his existence. For New, art is inseparable
from life. He explains, I have a compulsive need to
make these things, to do this. It ends up going on so
long that it just becomes part of your life.
Born on the fringes of Appalachia, in
Somerset, Kentucky, on 1 January, 1970, New was the
only child of a Vietnam veteran who worked for a local
manufacturing plant and a beautician who took on
extra clients at home. He grew up with hair frostings,
Virginia Slims 120s, Cosmopolitan magazines, and the
smell of perm wave throughout the house. Country
radio stations provided the soundtrack, with Conway
Twitty, Porter Wagoner, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn
served up in heavy rotation. New describes his
childhood as a typical middle class upbringing, with
the adults working hard to provide everything we
needed and a lot of what we wanted.
Though he engaged in typical childhood
activities including Little League baseball and raising
hell with his friends and cousins, New also collected
 REVISITING RAMREZ
Now that the legendary Mexican outsiders last works have surfaced, and
better-informed research about his life has been published, new ways of
appreciating his achievements are emerging, too. Edward M. Gmez reports.
Who was Martn Ramrez? What does his work mean?
Those are the questions that have long intrigued
admirers of the skillfully composed, mixed-media
works on paper of the Mexican-born self-taught artist,
who has earned a secure place in the outsider art
fields canon of most-remarkable talents.
Except, of course, when those are not the
main questions a researcher might ask, as when those
WE MAY who take a postmodernist critical approach to their
subject matter, downplaying concerns about a body of
NEVER HAVE arts authorship, focus instead on the conditions
social, cultural, political, economic, historical in
ANY which a particular form of artistic expression develops
or from which it has emerged.
RELIABLE By contrast, a so-called formalist approach to
understanding and appreciating a work of art assumes
EVIDENCE that it can effectively convey to a viewer whatever it
has to say without the intervention of any kind of
INDICATING analytical or interpretative frameworks or theories, or
maybe even without any explanatory, biographical
EXACTLY information about its maker. For a strict formalist, form
is content, and therein resides a works meaning.
WHY Likewise, any work can, does and maybe even must
speak for itself.
RAMREZ However, notes Vctor M. Espinosa, a lecturer
in the Department of Sociology at Ohio State University
CREATED HIS (Columbus): From the sociologists point of view, the
work of art can never speak for itself. The sociologist
PICTURES. believes the work of art also has meanings that are
constructed socially. Espinosa notes that it is art
critics and other observers of works of art who derive
meanings from or imbue them with meanings. He adds:
Thats why Ramrezs work was thrown in the trash in (descendants of Spanish settlers, with enduring, strong
the 1950s (precisely) because it couldnt speak for
itself. Someone had to speak up on its behalf, pointing
out its significance in certain contexts, such as in an
art-historical context. At Dewitt State Hospital in
northern California, the psychiatric hospital in which
Ramrez spent the latter part of his life, the intervener
who recognized the diagnosed schizophrenics
creations as works of art was Tarmo Pasto, a professor
of art and psychology from a nearby college. He
visited Ramrez regularly after first meeting him at
Dewitt in 1950, gave him art supplies and showed his
drawings in public exhibitions.
Espinosa is the co-author or author of essays
that have presented his and Kristin E. Espinosas
findings from the pioneering research they have
conducted about Ramrezs life in Mexico and
Except for Untitled
(Alamentosa) on p.26, all California. They have spoken with surviving relatives
works reproduced here are of Ramrez and with former Dewitt employees who had
courtesy Ricco/Maresca known of him or had interacted with him there. The
Gallery, New York.All works
Espinosas tracked down documents, such as the
are copyrightthe Estate
ofMartn Ramrez. artists Dewitt medical records. They co-authored the unwittingly got it wrong when it stated that he had
main essay in the catalogue of the Ramrez
opposite retrospective that was presented at the American Folk
Untitled (Aztec), Art Museum (AFAM), in New York, in 2007. During its
c.1960-1963, gouache and
graphite on pieced-together
run, the artists so-called last works were discovered
paper, 24.5 x 15 ins., 62.2 x in the home of relatives of Dewitts last director, a
38.1 cm. physician who had kept more than 140 drawings
RV/7722
Ramrez had made during the final years of his life.
In 2008, AFAM showed some of those
drawings, prompting a re-examination of much of what
had hitherto been understood about the scope of
Ramrezs artistic production. That reconsideration of
his oeuvre continues today as the last works are
being brought to market not all at once, but rather in
batches by Ricco/Maresca, the New York gallery that
commercially represents the Estate of Martn Ramrez.
Vctor M. Espinosa, who is Mexican, also
wrote an essay for the catalogue of the 2010 Ramrez
exhibition that was presented at the Museo Centro de
Arte Reina Sofa in Madrid. There, he wrote: The fact
that we do not have any testimony about (Ramrezs)
intentions as an artist has generated a great deal of
speculation about the possible significance of the
central themes of his work. The 450 (Ramrez)
drawings that it has been possible to locate to date
are, therefore, our primary available source from which
to explore [his] vision and chart the worldview they
embody.
We may never have any reliable evidence
indicating exactly why Ramrez created his
extraordinary pictures. Did he even have an audience
in mind? In any case, the Espinosas research has
helped debunk earlier misunderstandings about it. For
example, when Ramrezs work first began to attract
the art worlds attention, some observers hypothesized
that his bio-cultural roots lay with those of some of
modern Mexicos indigenous peoples. In fact, though,
as Vctor M. Espinosa has pointed out, Ramrez came
from the Los Altos de Jalisco region of the state of
Jalisco in west-central Mexico, where criollos
ties to Spains culture), not mixed,
Spanish-and-indigenous mestizos, were dominant.
In 1981, a text about Ramrez by Roger
Cardinal was published in a British art-therapists
journal. It stated that the artist had lacked the capacity
for oral speech and proposed that, through his art, he
tries to speak to us about his experience of psychosis,
of acutely reduced contact with normal experience,
adding that (h)e communicates to us a sense of
desperate fragility and uncertainty. Based on the
incomplete information or misinformation that was
available at the time, one might have assumed that
Ramrez could not speak. However, later research
showed that perhaps he had chosen not to speak.
Overall, such observations helped establish a
perception of Ramrez and his work that has long
endured.
Similarly, the American art critic Roberta
Smiths 1985 Ramrez exhibition-catalogue essay
(Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia),
stopped speaking in 1915. Smith wrote, again helping
to establish a lasting view of Ramrez: The more you
look at [his] work, the more it seems in some profound
way to make perfect sense.Did he make it up in a
kind of visionary spontaneous combustion that the
nave, insane or devout are sometimes capable of? Or
RV/7723
 INVISIBLE MOTHERS MILK
Ellen Greenes kid gloves belie designs and messages that hit with an iron fist,
as Alicia Eler discovers

right
Little Omi(e) Wise, 2011,
acrylic on vintage gloves,
each 6 x 17 ins., 15.4 x 43
cm., photo: Bill Burlingham.

opposite, clockwise from

top left
Witch Milk, 2012, acrylic on
vintage gloves, each 5 x 21
ins., 12.7 x 53.3 cm., photo:
Bill Burlingham.

Hell Bent, 2011, acrylic on

vintage gloves, each 6 x 17
ins., 15.4 x 43 cm., photo:
Bill Burlingham.

Gloves Blame Her (for Cori
Winrock), 2012, poem by
Cori Winrock, acrylic on
vintage gloves, each 5 x 19
ins., 12.7 x 47 cm., photo:
Bill Burlingham.
E
llen Greenes oeuvre is a cacophony of symbols.
It is birthed from the artists visions, old school
tattoo flash turned feminine power symbols,
countless pairs of womens hand gloves and Invisible
Mother Victorian photographs. Greenes work defies
categories and time periods; she does not fit into
outsider art, fine art or high fashion, yet could slip by
in each one. Greene is a rebel girl at heart and a
steadfast mother of two young girls. In this new body
of work, her two identities collide and converge into

RV/7732
one she is a heavily tattooed, redheaded female
artist conjuring up mythic powers through classic
tattoo imagery, yet lives in a modern-day consumer
culture in which youth and beauty trump integrity and
devotion to the family. Greene seeks to carve out a
new vocabulary for the woman who is both and
neither, who is of this world while simultaneously
envisioning and seeking another one.
In her solo exhibition Invisible Mothers
Milk, at Packer-Schopf Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, Greene
RV/7733
 THE IMPOSSIBLE
ORGANISMS OF A
FANTASTICAL WORLD

RV/7736
 Roger Thompson talks to Stephanie Lucas about her man-made natural realms

S
tephanie Lucas never intended to paint. She started because
she had to, as though something inside her insisted that
she change not only what she was doing but who she was.
She had been working as a clothes retailer, selling haute couture
to tourists in Monaco, and one day her work ended abruptly in a
nervous breakdown, a collapse of all that she knew about herself
and her life up to that point. She entered a time of depression,
and only when she began to paint did her spirit return.
She calls her work automatic drawing, a term coined by
the Surrealists and detailed probably most extensively in Andr
Bretons 1933 article, The automatic message (Le message
automatique, Minotaure, No. 34). That essay draws a distinction

RV/7737
 HEAVENLY CITY JOHN
DEVLINS UTOPIAN VISIONS
above
Untitled, 1980-88, ink and
crayon on paper,
8.5 x 11 ins., 22 x 28 cm.,
courtesy Henry Boxer
Gallery, London.
John Devlins work will be
shown in Farfetched, Mad
Science, Fringe Architecture
and Visionary Engineering
at the Gregg Museum, North
Carolina, January 17 April
26, 2013.
RV/7742
Tony Thorne goes from Canada to Cambridge and back,
via the alchemy of John Devlin
A
fter receiving a sheaf of artworks in August
2011, Richard Rodriguez, the American
journalist, author and essayist, sent a
message to the artist: Your gift the magnificent
Nova Cantabrigiensis arrived today This is a
nave art that only the holy can aspire to I am
envious. I am in awe. The angels would draw this
way, if they could.
For the sender, the visionary artist John
Devlin, Nova Cantabrigiensis New Cambridge, the
imaginary city depicted in the artwork has become
an enchanted alternative to Nova Scotia (originally
New Scotland), the real province of Canada in which
he lives today.
Intending to join the priesthood, in 1979
Devlin left his native Canada at the age of 25 to travel
to England, where he began to study theology at St
Edmunds College of the University of Cambridge. It
was there, after less than a year, that he
simultaneously underwent an epiphany and suffered a
breakdown, the first of many psychotic episodes that
forced him back to Canada for hospital treatment
followed by a long drawn-out convalescence.
During the decades that followed, working on
the back of found documents, on notepaper and pages
from exercise books, John laboured to produce
hundreds of images inspired by the architecture of the
medieval city in which he had briefly been content. His
New Cambridge is a cityscape, a utopia, recreated, he
imagines, on an artificial island in the muddy tides of
the Minas Basin on the North Atlantic coast of Canada.
Though it resembles the real English city of colleges
with its juxtaposed classical and gothic building styles,
its ornamental gardens and carefully delineated

pathways, the artist has added embellishments of his
own invention: rotating fountains, islets, pyramids,
flags, even lasers. Here and there a pair or a trio of
tiny figures, Devlin himself and his friends, walking
with a dog between the colonnades and across the
parks. Above the little figures heads are haloes.
These are delicate, finely wrought drawings,
heightened with touches of vivid colour, at first sight
perhaps reminiscent of the notebook of a
seventeenth-century architect, or the sketches of an
eighteenth-century aesthete on the Grand Tour. But,
considered more carefully, the works betray a different
sensibility; they have a surreal quality, too. In
reproduction it is easy to miss the depth of detail, the
annotations with words, dates, formulae, diagrams and
symbols, but there is a further dimension to the
drawings that can be fully grasped only by the artist
I WAS ON A
FAUSTIAN
QUEST, FOR
ARCANE
KNOWLEDGE
TO EXPLAIN
THE MAGICAL
AMBIENCE OF
CAMBRIDGE.
himself. The drawings, for anyone who has seen them above
close-up, consist of layers and layers of various pieces Untitled, 1980-88, ink and
crayon on paper,
of paper, all glued together with white glue. They are 8.5 x 11 ins., 22 x 28 cm.,
more than just the frontal image one sees each courtesy abcd Collection,
drawing is physically quite thick, due to the slips of Paris.
paper interleaved and glued within, and on the back.
On the obverse numbers often appear; sometimes
these are dates, but sometimes they are numerical
sequences that have been developed by the artist
according to mystical principles. My theory, he says,
is that for ideal design, there is an Ideal Ratio. I have
been hunting for such a constant. I was on a Faustian
quest, for arcane knowledge that would explain the
magical ambience of Cambridge. I thought that if I
could capture that ambience as a mathematical
formula, then, I wouldnt have to go to England. I
thought I could think my way out of mental illness
RV/7743
INSPIRED BY THE EVERYDAY
Julie Thomson describes how beer, oranges, flowers and cars
led to monumental creations in Houston

above

H
Isaac Long, Word of God
aving a beer after work, drinking orange juice,
House; the front yard of driving cars, and growing flowers are all part of
3809 Linder Street, daily life, but in Houston, Texas these things have
Houston, photo: Larry been elevated to monumental status due to artists.
Harris.
Unique visions inspired by these ordinary things led to
the stunning Beer Can House, The Orange Show, the
annual Art Car Parade and the Flower Mans House.
Creative responses to the everyday also continue to
inspire the recent Smither Park, designed by Dan Phillips,
and Isaac Longs Word of God House.
John Milkovisch, creator of the Beer Can House,
enjoyed having a beer after work and saved the cans in

RV/7746
 above
Cleveland The Flower Man
Turner, the new Flower
Mans House at 2305
Francis Street, Houston,
photo: Larry Harris.

below
John and Mary Milkovisch
outside the Beer Can
House, 222 Malone Street,
Houston, 1987, courtesy of
the Orange Show Center for
Visionary Art, Houston.

opposite above
Jeff McKissack, The Orange
Show, Munger Street,
Houston, photo: Larry
Harris.

hopes of finding a use for them. In 1968 Milkovisch made
his first grand creative gesture. As a way to eliminate the
need to mow the lawn, he covered his yard with concrete,
a solution still intact at 222 Malone Street today. While
it sounds like this could be dreary, Milkovisch made it
colourful by adding rocks and marbles that sparkle when
illuminated by the sun. Soon after Milkovisch began
creating long strands out of the tops and bottoms of the
cans that he hung from the eaves all around his house.
With their dramatic visual impact and subtle sounds they
distinguished the bungalow from neighbouring West End
houses.

RV/7747
 TRANSPORT TO THE
LANDSCAPE EXOTICUS
Cathy Ward navigates the dream machines of her cousin, Ian Ward

above
Carriage Chandelier, 1963,
ink and gouache on paper,
30 x 22 ins., 76 x 56 cm.
The life we inhabit is pedestrian. Mentally we live behaviour against the norm.
another life or exist in another planet. After work, the dining table was employed,
and with paper and pencil he began drawing the

I
an Leslie Ward was born in 1942, a time of war and
upheaval. Britain was locked down for decades after
with the restrictions of rationing. His love affair with
motors started when his father Leslie gave him an Ian
Allan book on British cars. Later, his interest grew with
the iconic American designs in the 1950s. These
Cathy Ward is a London
screamed indulgent luxury, of the wanton aspirations
based artist who exhibits
internationally. She of Hollywood glamour and of a sheer gorgeousness at
co-curatedChainletter: odds with a monochrome suburban Britain. The series
Swarm of Conciousness. Her of 30 car drawings was created from 1958 to 1964
writing has appeared
whilst working in accounts for the Borough Treasurer
inCritical Cities vol.1;
Artistic Bedfellows at Watford Town Hall. They show a desire for a life less
andArtesian Magazine. ordinary, an escape from a stifling job locked behind
Liberty Realm, a monograph files and copy machines, and freedom from living at
of her drawings, is
home with his parents. Life for many after the war was
published by Strange
Attractor Press. all about hiding beneath the parapet, to exist in safety
www.libertyrealm.com and security, and not to shine or be bedazzled by
objects of his desire. They had such titles as: The
Nashville Custom Joe ; My Packard Country Clipper ; A
Jew Baby Lincoln ; Dodge Royal 2 Door Station
Wagon ; Rolls Cadillac Series 75: Fleetwood Imperial
Sedan ; 1957 Lincoln Premier Landau 4 Door Hard
Top ; andTo Greta Garbo With Love Zion Dean . Later
moving to more elaborate renditions, the cars are
decked with curlicues, baubles, bells and horns
resembling Eastern influences, a reminder perhaps
of a day trip to the Brighton Pavilion, or a moment
eating a Turkish Delight.
As time progressed; a new stimulus was
introduced via the technology of television. An
influencing factor may have been The Liberace Show,
broadcast Sunday afternoons by Lew Grades
Associated Television (ATV) and avidly watched with
his favourite aunt. The performer projected a

RV/7754
 All images above are 11 x
flamboyance and glamour unseen before, and for many of Liberaces candelabrum, start to play a significant 7.9 ins., 28 x 20 cm.

gay men at that time in Britain, Liberace became an
icon and standard bearer. With this new introduction,
his perception of the works as cars changed and all
conventional vestiges began to disappear.
The vehicles became platforms for
architectural structures, like operatic sets or carnival
floats. Massive ionic columns appeared to function as
elevators whisking one skyward to sit in heady heights
on jutting platforms with diving boards, tables shaded
with umbrellas, and cocktail bars for a pre-dinner
martini overlooking pools. The wheels become smaller,
disappearing beneath the chassis, some resembling
sailing vessels, but all had antiquated hand cranks.
Many have pots of flowers, one with growing trees and
plants, looks a travelling garden bringing nature to the
city dweller, something architects aspire to today. He
and symbolic role, which he later takes to massive star above left
ship proportions in the four awe inspiring final pieces. Wind Brake, 1959,
The four created from 1961 to 1964 are anything but watercolour on paper.
cars. These are starships, dream mobiles, magnificent
above right
jewel-like crafts. They are meticulously drawn with ink Custom Cabriolet, 1960, pen
and mapping pen, an instrument notorious to hiss and and ink on paper.
spatter in delicate moments, but here always employed
with unswerving control. Unconsciously Ian Wards middle left
Indian Charabanc, 1960, ink
desire to draw these vehicles also signalled that they on paper.
were the very means to transport him out of his
suburban life and beam him down to the new planet middle right
of 60s London. It really was as if he had to make them Party Convertible, 1962, pen
and ink on paper.
larger in order for his transporter plans to work.
Fantasy had taken hold of Wards life, but below left
real engagement with living had to become reality. At Mon Oncle Tourer, 1959,
the age of 21 after visiting a used car dealer, he pen and ink on paper.

was creating with all of his images, what he termed purchased his very own jet black Cadillac 1955 below left
Landscape Exoticus. Fleetwood: Series 60 Special Sedan, recently used by Sports Coupe, 1959, pen
Chandeliers, possibly a nod to the signature Peter Finch in the film In the Cool of the Day . The and ink on paper.

RV/7755
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