WHEN: Sunday, 2 to 4 p.m.
WHERE: The gallery is at 718-C Iredell St. in Durham
ADMISSION: Free and public. Rue Cler Restaurant will provide refreshments
By Cliff Bellamy
cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744
DURHAM -- Three standing figures and one four-legged beast greet visitors who walk up the porch to the entrance of Outsider Art Gallery on Iredell Street. They are all made of found scrap metal -- mufflers, oil cans and machine parts are welded together to make the figures.
"They're fun. They're whimsical," gallery founder and proprietor Pamela Gutlon said of the figures by Pittsboro metal artist Kimberli Matin. Matin taught herself to weld and just decided to start making works in metal, Gutlon said.
Like other artists whose work is in the gallery, Matin does not have formal art training. Gutlon's gallery opened in early November and is the only Durham gallery dedicated to the work of Southern "outsider artists," a term that refers to artists whose work takes place outside of traditional art institutions.
Visitors will be able to look at the work of numerous outsider artists at a gallery open house Sunday.
Stepping into this small space (Gutlon said the gallery is about 140 square feet) offers an education in this art form. One of Gutlon's goals is to find and display work by younger artists like Matin, but visitors also can see paintings and other works by the late Mose Tolliver and the late Jimmy Lee Sudduth -- who received some notoriety for their art in their lifetimes -- as well as works by Black Joe Jackson and Missionary Mary Proctor.
Her inspiration for the gallery comes from her mother, Audrey Chase, who collects outsider art, and from Chapel Hill gallery owner Ginger Young, who also specializes in outsider and folk art and whom Gutlon considers a mentor. The first artist whose work inspired her was Georgia artist Black Joe Jackson. "I was totally moved by the piece," Gutlon said has she showed a reporter several Jackson paintings in the gallery. He was the first outsider artist whose work "really caught me, and so I started collecting."
Jackson, born near Atlanta in 1920, uses bright colors in his paintings of scenes and events from his life. He also signs his works in a distinctive letter pattern, and titles them in a similar pattern. Among Jackson's works in this gallery are "Learn to Dance," depicting a man learning dance steps, and a scene of a family doing farm chores.
While Jackson and other outsider artists do not have formal training, they "still have a story to tell," Gutlon said. They tell those stories "from their visions and memories," and sometimes from dreams. She is particularly drawn to Southern "memory artists," who depict events in their lives, or a visual of the event.
"The art from the South is more interesting to me," Gutlon said. "It's more spiritual and emotional."
Two memory artists whose work is on view are Bernice Sims and Missionary Mary Proctor. One of Proctor's paintings is a depiction of a 1975 baptism. Another painting depicts her grandmother making a quilt, which is represented by different pieces of cloth. Proctor painted and constructed this work on a piece of wood, and it is the artist's tribute not just to her grandmother's quilting skills, but also to the care and love she took in raising Proctor.
In addition to paintings, visitors can see robots (made from found objects) by Mark May, airplane whirligigs by Earl Jones, and jewelry from Kristen Townsend's Mood Swing Studio.
As Gutlon has collected, she also has tried to find out more about the artists and their history. She carries on that goal in the gallery. Every artist whose work is displayed has accompanying biographical information, and books about outsider art are available for browsing. "I would love it if people would come in and look at these books and learn about these artists. I would like this to be a learning place as well," Gutlon said.
