Beverly Baker at the Dallas Art Fair

  

Untitled, Beverly Baker, ballpoint pen on paper, 2013

Untitled, Beverly Baker, ballpoint pen on paper, 2010

Untitled, Beverly Baker, ballpoint pen on paper, 2014

Beverly Baker has drawings currently on view at the Dallas Art Fair April 9 - 12, 2015, in the New York/Paris gallery Christian Berst Art Brut booth (D4). Baker has been a prominent member of Latitude Arts in Lexington, Kentucky since its founding in 2001. Baker has shown previously at Andrew Edlin Gallery (New York), the Museum of Everything (London), La Maison Rouge (Paris), and Christian Berst Art Brut (Paris), among other venues. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Everything (London), the abcd Collection, Montreuil (France), and the Hannah Rieger Collection, Vienne (Austria).

"Beverly Baker’s drawings are created through the obsessive layering of text found in a small selection of books and magazines that she uses as reference material. The final abstract compositions generally contain only trace hints (indices indications) of their genesis in language as Baker draws continuously on the same sheet, obliterating her original words or letters with additional words, lines and color. Most of her drawings are created with ballpoint pens, colored pencils and permanent marker." - Phillip March Jones

Project Onward

Established 2004, Chicago Illinois

Project Onward was the third studio we visited in Chicago, located in the South Side neighborhood of Bridgeport; their stunning 13,000 square foot space includes an expansive studio and three galleries. Project Onward was founded in 2004 by Rob Lentz, Mark Jackson, and Colleen Sims, originally as a Gallery 37 program with only six artists. They quickly became recognized for the talented artists working in their studio and began serving artists throughout the city. In 2013, Lentz and Jackson relocated Project Onward to the Bridgeport Art Center after outgrowing a small studio and gallery space in The Chicago Cultural Center. After nine years as a Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs affiliated program, Project Onward became an independent non-profit that receives no state funding.

Project Onward’s philosophy and approach is distinct from other programs we’ve written about thus far. The key variance, in pragmatic terms, is that admission into the program is dependent on a portfolio review. This means that all of their artists had a creative practice of some kind prior to their involvement with the studio. Project Onward implements this model very successfully and is one of only three programs (that we’re aware of) operating this way. Most programs have basic criteria for the admission of artists; generally, they require some interest in art-making. Project Onward looks not only for interest, but commitment to an established creative practice. As service providers, most progressive art studios are obliged to provide support to as many people as possible who may benefit from their model - the goal is to facilitate individuals with creative tendencies and interests in developing creative practices.

David Holt's work space in the Project Onward studio 

Project Onward’s engagement with its artists, however, is more comparable to that of a gallerist than a service provider, focusing on professional development, exhibition opportunities, and marketing support. For the past year the studio has been completely independent from the task of human services (including Medicaid Waiver funding); thus far they’ve been quite successful in art sales, achieving visibility, and fundraising. They also received a seed grant which covered all costs for the first year. When seeking private donations, they emphasize the promise of supporting artists to create high quality artwork. For the future, their goal is to pursue business partnerships, new revenue streams, and foster opportunities for their artists that extend beyond the studio - residencies, teaching artists, etc. 

In our conversation with Artistic Director Rob Lentz, he asserted that Project Onward’s role isn’t compatible with day habilitation. The incredible work created by artists at Project Onward makes a very strong case for the power of this model. Walking through their galleries, it’s undeniable that a high standard of excellence is present (during our visit work was on view by Michael Bryant, Adam Hines, and Sereno “Glitterman” Wilson), which results in the ideal environment and culture that progressive art studios should strive for. The most important insight to be gained by other studios from Project Onward is the importance of ambition and rigorous criticism, if not in admission process then certainly in facilitation methods.

An installation of drawings on cardboard by Adam Hines. Hines has an inventory of over 6,000 works.

In defense of service provision in the progressive art studio (the ambition to inspire new artists with disabilities to develop creative practices), it should be noted that there are many great artists who would have no studio practice in the absence of initial support and guidance in the studio. Judith Scott, arguably the most successful artist to emerge from a progressive art studio, didn't have one prior to her involvement with Creative Growth (or an interest in fiber art), until she participated in a fiber art workshop at their studio.

Artists from the studio have shown previously at Judy Saslow Gallery and Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, among other venues. Recent achievements at Project Onward include the installation of an Andrew Hall piece at the 47th Street Red Line Station in February. Hall was commissioned by the Chicago Transit Authority to create a public work for the station after his proposal was chosen over hundreds of other artists in a competitive selection process.

Sereno "Glitterman" Wilson's work space in the Project Onward studio

Project Onward hosts new exhibitions every six weeks - the current exhibitions on view are Small Wonders through April 11 and Master Builders, a “collection of meticulous blueprints, detailed models, and uncanny drawings of architectural landmarks”, through May 9.

drawing on cardboard by Michael Bryant

The Arts of Life

Established 2000, Chicago Illinois

The second Chicago program we visited was The Arts of Life - a young, principled, and community-oriented program. They’re an independent studio, without a larger support organization, that was founded by artist Veronica Cucilich in 2000. It began as solely a visual arts studio with 12 individuals, but now has two locations in Chicago offering various kinds of support for their artists. Both locations focus primarily on Visual Art, but also offer Music; the North Shore Studio (in Glenview) has mainly part-time attendance and includes Performing Art, a “project-by-project collaboration between The Arts of Life artists and Chicago-based performance makers.”

One of our tour guides, Frances Roberts.

One of our tour guides, Frances Roberts.

During our visit to the Chicago Studio we were given an in-depth tour of the space by two of the program’s artists, Mike Marino and Frances Roberts. The building includes a small gallery space at the entrance, and large converted warehouse studio that includes workspace for painting and drawing, a printmaking press, storage space, and a kitchen break area. The space felt quite open; the artists moved freely throughout and engaged with each others’ work, conveying a real sense of ownership of the studio. Despite the bustling atmosphere, each workspace felt personal - artists surrounded by their ongoing projects didn’t seem to have trouble maintaining focus and developing a distinct creative practice in their respective sections of table space.

We spoke with then Studio Manager Caitlin Law and Development Coordinator Sara Bemer, two of only four paid staff (Studio Manager, Studio Coordinator, Arts Coordinator, and Volunteer Coordinator) working with 30 artists each day at this relatively large program location. There are also 3 full-time and 1 part-time office staff (Executive Director, Development Manager, Development Coordinator, and Executive Coordinator) that split their time between the Chicago Studio and North Shore Studio in Glenview. The program uses a substantial, constantly fluctuating team of interns and volunteers who provide support in all aspects of the program. This structure is the consequence of the program’s strong activist philosophy, or vise versa; in either case, their example provides important insight about the nature of utilizing volunteers in a progressive art studio.


Our conversation with Law and Bemer focused largely on philosophy; they expressed a passionate commitment to their artists receiving respect as professional fine artists and resist working with anyone who describes the artwork using sympathetic or inauthentic language, even if it means turning down opportunities or support.

Arts of Life artist Guy Conners

The Arts of Life’s dedication to their philosophical ideas is integral to the program, because its structure demands constantly teaching new members of their community (volunteers, interns, artists, etc). There are generally 5-10 volunteers at a time, including vocational rehabilitation workers. Volunteers sometimes help with artist facilitation (aided by written instructions regarding materials and intended progression for each piece). Office staff are also required to work one day a week on the studio floor in order to stay informed and maintain communication. For them, perpetually building and maintaining this culture in the studio is a means to raise awareness and educate the outside community. In further support of these ideas, the daily operations of the studio are managed by an egalitarian “system of collective decision-making” in which all aspects, from structure, events, exhibitions, and studio maintenance, to choices regarding language are discussed and voted on in large group meetings in which all of the artists, volunteers, interns, and staff are given a voice.

Arts Of Life colaborations at Terrain, Noël Morical and Jean Wilson above,  Mike Paro and Tim Stone below

In addition to hosting exhibitions in the Arts of Life gallery space, they strive to participate in the local scene frequently. Artist often participate in gallery visits, especially since the studio is located right near the West Loop Gallery District. Notably, work from artists at The Arts of Life has been included in shows at respected Chicago galleries such as Threewalls and Terrain Exhibitions, as well as various retail venues. Vincent Uribe, the Chicago Studio’s Arts Coordinator, has organized The Arts of Life Collaboration Program in which Chicago-based artists pair up with Arts of Life studio artists for a minimum of six months. Most recently, Tim Stone and Jean Wilson collaborated with Mike Paro  and Noël Morical for the exhibition Four Corners, creating two site-specific installations for an alternative space, Terrain Exhibitions, from February 8 - March 3, 2015. Terrain was founded in 2011 by artist Sabina Ott and writer John Paulett.

One of The Arts of Life’s important ambitions for the future is to increase their fundraising revenue in order to be less dependent on government funding, which is particularly sparse in Chicago. It’s clear that fundraising with a genuine commitment to more progressive ideas is a greater challenge than organizations serving this population have faced in the past. Other programs we visited using regressive ideas to interest sympathetic donors raise incredible amounts of money at the expense of alienating the individuals they serve from the community. From a pragmatic point of view, this only has short-term value. It provides immediate funding for great programming and services, but in the long-term it only maintains the divide between this population and the community, while creating a patronizing culture within the organization. This will eventually undermine the programming and ultimately render no actual benefit. Encouraging donors to give in support of the potential and greatness of others proves to be a harder sell than appealing to the desire to enable a group portrayed as helpless. Programs we visited after the Arts of Life have demonstrated that it’s not impossible, so we hope to see this studio continue to promote progressive ideas with growing success.

The Arts of Life Band

The Arts of Life Band

This Friday, March 13th, the Arts of Life Band and DHF Express (affiliated with Project Onward) will be playing head to head for the Fifth Annual Battle of the Bands. That same evening, The Arts of Life will be hosting the 4th Annual Square Foot Show at the North Shore Studio.

 

Center For the Arts

Established 1992, Palatine IL, provided by Little City

A work from Luke Tauber's ongoing composer series (exterior)

A work from Luke Tauber's ongoing composer series (exterior)

The Center For the Arts (or CFA), which is part of the Little CIty Foundation is located in the Chicago suburb of Palatine. CFA was the first of three excellent, yet distinct programs we visited in Chicago, which has been a greater patron and champion of traditional Outsider Art than any other American city.

Prolific, well-known self-taught artists such as Henry Darger and Joseph Yoakum produced their large bodies of work while living in Chicago, and the appreciation for self-taught artists gained momentum during the 1960’s with the presence of the Chicago Imagists. Roger Brown and the other Imagists were heavily influenced by their work and advocated their validity; SAIC professors Ray Yoshida and Whitney Halstead were responsible for generating a lot of interest, encouraging students (including Brown) and colleagues to visit these artists and collect their work. The Roger Brown Study Collection features the personal collection of the late artist in his former Lincoln Park home, which includes work he purchased from many wonderful self-taught artists - Aldo Piacenza, Jesse Howard, Darger, and 36 Yoakum drawings.

Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, a non-profit organization with programming dedicated to the fields of Outsider and Contemporary self-taught art, also has an extensive permanent collection. Intuit is an invaluable resource for scholars and artists interested in this field. Their space includes two galleries, the Robert A. Roth Study Center, and the Henry Darger Room, a permanent archive of various materials (tracings, clippings from newspapers, magazines, comic books, personal documents, architectural elements, and furnishings) from Darger’s original home.

Interior of the same work by Luke Tauber.

Interior of the same work by Luke Tauber.

CFA has its own rich history that provides important insight; it was founded as by three School of the Art Institute of Chicago students in 1992 with a progressive philosophy and Fine Arts focus (originally including a Pirate radio station and cable public-access tv show) that has been maintained since due to a fortunate series of quality leaders and staff in the program. CFA now supports a total of about 70 artists with usually 15 attending per day - at least 12 artists are producing high quality work on a professional level. There is no application or screening process, but instead attendance is based solely on desire.

The program is currently lead by the dedicated Frank Tumino, who is really responsible for directing studio operations (with the help of 2 to 3 fine art facilitators) in addition to all of the documentation and promotion of a large inventory of work. This includes at least one artist that was previously in the program, but is now deceased. He spent a great deal of time showing us bodies of work and relating each artist’s process in great detail.

"We Are the World" by Harold Jeffries

Frank also spoke openly about his personal appreciation for and knowledge of Outsider Art, which he had long before his involvement with this studio. Whether or not the work produced in Progressive Art Studios should be categorized as Outsider Art is a point of controversy addressed in our FAQs (link), which has only become more contentious since that FAQ was written. Tumino’s perspective, however, is that this work is as much in agreement with the ideals of Outsider Art as anything else, and points out that Adolf Wölfli, one of the first artists to be assigned this label, created work with the intention of selling it. The line between Outsider and mainstream art has also become increasingly blurred as a result of many contemporary artists borrowing heavily from this aesthetic. An important insight to be gained from this is that whether it is or isn’t, at the very least, this work shares certain qualities associated with Outsider Art, such as the significance of biography to the work. Frank’s writing about the artists provides a great example of how biographical elements can be included in a respectful and appropriate manner. About the work of Harold Jeffries Tumino writes:

Nearly every piece has as its basis a gridwork of lines, forming squares, rectangles, circles and other forms which resemble an isolated section of a vast blueprint outlining some lost Minoan palace.  If asked, Jeffries will tell you that these are indeed blueprints.  They are part of his lifelong obsession to create blueprinted plans for Heaven. This project has no beginning, middle or end. The portion of the plans that Jeffries draws at any one time simply reflects his thoughts at that moment, and do not advance the project along any conceivable time line, a fitting solution for planning what is infinite and eternal.    

Biography isn’t presented as as a struggle that was overcome, but as deeper truths about a man, his life, and his ideas that are uncovered through the examination of his artwork. Biography becomes important in Outsider work not necessarily because these artists led particularly compelling or difficult lives, but because being free from outside influence allows their work to be a more genuine expression of their humanity, ideas, and lives. During our visit, Tumino demonstrated this as he showed us an archive of works by the late Charles Beinhoff; he affectionately discussed Charles’ tendencies and ideas as though he knew him personally, although he has come to know him only through the process of cataloguing his work.

Frank Tumino with the work of Charles Beinhoff

Frank Tumino with the work of Charles Beinhoff

CFA’s deeper appreciation for Outsider Art permits a broader understanding of what Outsider work can be, informing the nature of the studio facilitation, which ultimately leads to more effectively empowered artists. For example, Luke Tauber is supported to create digital collages and videos, which other studios may fear isn’t Outsider enough or is introducing an idea that’s too new. In Luke’s case, though, it’s necessary to facilitate a more complete and genuine creative practice. The 2013 documentary Share My Kingdom, which was included in the Athens International Film and Video Festival, provides a more comprehensive profile (in both biography and artistic process) of CFA artists Tauber, Harold Jeffries (discussed above) and Wayne Mazurek.

"Share My Kingdom" is a documentary in production. It delves into the lives and art of three artists with developmental disabilities who emerged from the art studio of Little City Foundation. The documentary provides a view into the compelling life histories and the artistic creations of Harold Jeffries, Wayne Mazurek and Luke Tauber. While the three men in the documentary seemingly have the odds stacked against them, they are able to turn their ideas into reality. With no formal art education or training, each of them transforms their vision into artistic works of expression. Learn more about the Center for the Arts and see their artwork at www.littlecityarts.org

Above all else, there is an atmosphere in the CFA studio of reverence for the creative process and the artists who engage in it there. Artists from CFA have shown previously at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, the Museum of Everything’s Exhibition #4 in London, and the Rockford Art Museum, in addition to other venues.