Outsider Art

Bill Traylor came up in conversation recently. I consider him to be one of the finest artists humanity has produced. I already hate that sentence so so much but here we are. His story is perfect. If Ryan Coogler invented an early 20th century folk artist he wouldn't come up with a better story. Traylor was born a slave and lived most of his life as a free sharecropper in Alabama. He didn’t start working until the end of his life and only spent 3 years producing art. He had essentially one patron who encouraged him and gave him art supplies. Don’t worry about him, he was some white dude. But good on him I guess, it’s likely we have as much work as we do because of him. But anyway, BILL. Fuck the story. Just look at the work. Whatever materials on whatever materials. Like crayon on newspaper. Pencil on cardboard box. The art was there and needed to get out. Medium doesn’t matter. Folk art fucking wet dream. And the shits amazing. Dude has like 1500 works and invented an entire genre and aesthetic in those pieces. That's like two a day until he died. Its so simplistic and yet so recognizable. Also so easy to fake but fuck those pieces of shit. 1500 works and yet there are a bunch available at every major art show and online, yeah I’m sure they’re totallllllly legit.. Gross, but that doesn’t matter here. 

What I want to focus on isn’t Traylors genius. That’s been discussed. Not the fact that some white guy probably had a heavy hand in his production. That’s been discussed. Not the fakes, not the influence. I wanna focus on why the fuck some of us like outsider art so much. Why the story matters. Look at his body of work and it's stunning. Now tell me a black slave with gangrene made it, holy shit. What is that? Why is that better or more interesting or more meaningful or truer. I want to investigate in myself why outsider art feels like it touches something extra. In my very first thoughts about this that got me reflecting on whether this attraction to folk art is problematic, I focused primarily on the potential othering of outsider artists. I am not an artist. I have studied most major medias in studio and academic settings in order to gain an understanding of how. I get how sculpting and painting and print making and drawing and whatnot work. I get what they are, how they operate, how they can be used, the history, how some folks have toyed and manipulated them. I get standard Art School Art pretty well. I love it, it's our crowning achievement as humans besides wildlife preserves and national parks. But folk art, outsider art. That's the real shit, the dirty shit, the stuff that makes me think humans need to do this. Not just trust fund brats with nothing to actually work for. And that's fine, I wish I was that. But that autistic kid that started painting unreasonably tall stacks of pancakes because he fucking loves pancakes more than life. That's the real shit. 

But why?

Why is that good or better or realer. My initial thought is that it's tapping into something I don’t understand but is still the human experience. That’s what folk art is when I shut my brain off. I am a privileged white kid with a silly amount of education. Nothing has been especially easy but it’s been pretty fucking far from hard. And I can’t access art. It totally eludes me. I can’t even begin to make it. I have nothing that is trying to get out of me so hard that I just make it happen. And I’ve given myself enough training that I have perhaps crippled myself. I’ve made myself a proper renaissance man with art in that I am an expert of nothing but have working knowledge of almost everything. But zero confidence in any of it. So what do I do with that? Absolutely nothing. I admire everyone who has ever tried. Radically criticized those who have wasted their talent, but never deny that they tried. Because that’s the first step right, try. Bill didn’t try until he was 85. I will never deny the effort, the patience, the attempt. But it can fail, it usually does. And that’s fine. 

But when someone studies, learns, tries, has guidance, keeps trying, has the freedom to fail and keep going, amazing things happen. Standard art happens. It's fantastic. It's why I'm not 100% anti human. The best of it is the best we’ve ever done as a species. We have such a rich history to build off of. There were medias that were mastered 2000 years ago that were lost for a millenia that then were rediscovered and built on and over. Spectacular. I could talk about glass and its history until you threw an empty beer glass at me to get me to shut up. But this Bill Traylor shit. Outsider art. What’s it building off of? What’s it referencing? The answer that seems the most accurate is so damn hokey. Life? Isn’t that the point? Existence is what serves as the aesthetic basis? He didn’t draw to make money. He didn’t draw to get laid. He didn’t draw to get into Art Basel. He didn’t draw to fill the void of late stage capitalism. He drew because he wanted to draw. The cute story is something inside him wanted to get out in the most beautiful way. I want that to be real but we can never know. 

But the thing I really want to investigate in myself is why is he is more interesting than most. His aesthetic is undeniable, and should not be denied. But why are these outsider artists so attractive. His brain is not mine. I have a white, educated, middleish class, medium autistic brain. That is my experience. What does a barely functioning Down syndrome woman’s brain make? What does a traumatic brain injury mind make? What does as 85yo slave’s brain make? I want these answers badly. I have pursued and investigated them at length. But why? Why is this more interesting to me? Is that ok? Their experiences are not my own in almost any way, and this art that must escape them seems to be a way in which i can access that. But should I? Am I allowed into that? Have I fetishized any experience that isn’t my own? I have the means and ability to make almost any art I wish and I don’t even begin to try. I think that motivation is what I am after. Why start? To what end? What it achieves for the maker when all the previously stated motivations are removed is the crux. Why did you need to make that? But that feels tied to the outsiderness. The injury, the developmental problems, the history. These factor into all parts of our lives of course, but the fact that these cannot be removed from the person creating the art and thus the motivation feels like such a troublesome fetishizing of that source. This individual is accessing art from a place that I do not have access to. I am not sure but I think that might be some of the interest for me. The art that they seemed compelled to make somehow allows me access to that place. And perhaps this is the purpose of art and the great work that it is capable of doing. But I am worried that my own specific interest in outsider art is an interest in accessing a place that I reasonably should not be allowed access to. I cannot and never will understand an enslaved life. I cannot and never will understand the life of someone who is not a mostly functioning white straight male. That is not unique but also not unusual and widely talked about. People more like me have made most of the canonical art so I think our perspective is solidly understood. I do want to know what else is out there. Is that ok? Is the motivation on Traylor's part to get these images down on paper enough for me to be allowed access into experiencing it? It seems to me that the very best versions of outsider art remove the market and audience from the creation of the art. Traylor would have made the work no matter what. Maybe white guy gave him a few resources and motivation but he was doing the work anyway. So why am I allowed to participate? What does it mean that I want to? This wasn’t for me. It unlocks myriad feelings in me and I would guess that if I could go back 80 years and tell Bill how wonderful his works are he would appreciate that but that doesn't seem to be the purpose of making it. In the best case I feel like I am allowed access to a world that I cannot imagine and should not have access to. And in the worst case I feel like I am allowed access to a world that I cannot imagine and should not have access to.