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The
Pink Room: Thoughts About Intentional Living
Chapter
11/ Confessions that Make Me Sound Bad
Part
3 (Previous post contain the previous chapters.)
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I, regrettably, like to swear and I,
reluctantly confess, that I think a lot of things are dumb. I know better,
about the first, nothing is gained, and I don't do it often. I also know everyone has a right to
think the things I think are dumb are not dumb.
When I went back to school I had to
take some electives in art history. One was a class on outsider art, tattoo and
car culture. I’m glad I took the class because there are a ton of cultural references
that I now understand but most of the content, I thought, was dumb. I’m not
supposed to say that. Because I’m supposed to love all things “art,” and look
at them with understanding and appreciation. I’m supposed to go through the
discipline based approach to art education and look at the aesthetics and the
history and evaluate it all by the elements and principles of art. Blah blah
blah.
A lot of the outsider art just
looked like piles. Something on the order of what hoarders had kept. I said it,
I admit it, I don’t like it. Some of it is interesting but most of it, when I
look at it, gives me a strange feeling, it is creepy, it triggers my compulsions
to clean and organize, it makes me uncomfortable. Not a soul on the planet
could ever keep most of that stuff clean--yucky. It is like taxidermy that is
dusty, it is just not right.
We are lucky in Northeast Wisconsin
to have the largest ongoing collection of outsider art right under our noses at
the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan. The people who discover these
“collections,” of outsider art, catalog them and keep the collections in their
order, whatever that is—the order is carefully documented in the original piles
of whatnot, or places within proximity of the next, and the piles the objects
are found in. It’d be like documenting a messy teenager’s room.
One of the outsider pieces I
remember was a small out-building and everything in it covered in glued-down
sequins or plastic jewels. No rhyme or reason, chunks (literally) of blue
sequins next to gold plastic beads next to red plastic jewels. The artist
seemed to have a compulsion to cover surfaces in their entirety. Another artist’s
piece was a garage full of objects covered in or created from tinfoil. Did you
know they make gold tinfoil? Three thrones made of tinfoil, large enough to
seat a grown man and crowns to match. As well as ALL surfaces of the garage
itself—covered in tinfoil. No one knew what he did in his garage all his life,
but when he died and the estate went to the city—they discovered the throne
room. Well, I’m sure there was one corner grocery that noticed they sold an
awful lot of tinfoil. They may have had an inkling something was up.
Another outsider created string
sculptures. They were large and incorporated a crap-ton of string. Much like
looking at a three dimensional spider web on speed, but as big as your living
room. Or another with all surfaces of a car covered in McDonald’s Happy Meal
toys that were glued permanently. Things like that. That is what outsider art
is.
It was hard to tell if things were
falling apart or broken, or if the artist intended it to look like that. It was
not clear that any of the people talked about ever considered themselves
artists. They all have things secured, tied or glued, as common thread running
through the art. Tied, glued, grouted or using concrete--the only common theme
within me is that I don’t appreciate it. But I will admit it is fascinating
when I can get past my compulsions to clean and organize.
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What was painfully clear was that
most of these people were ill and isolated and couldn’t stop their compulsions. They would tirelessly do the same things over and over again. Although most of us are
more socialized and don’t readily let people in on our quirks, they are still
there.
If I humbly look that reality in
the mirror, then the real issue is not how weird parts of this world and some
people are. The real issue is that there is a part of me that can identify with
brokenness and the only person who can redeem that is Jesus.
