Why I Love ‘Outsider Art’

By CL Bledsoe — Not Another TV Dad

I’m drawn to a certain kind of obsessive behavior and the often strange art it produces. These folks are sometimes called “Outsider Artists”, or something less kind; I’m talking about people who dedicate years, sometimes decades, or their entire lives to creating some strange work of art that, often, no one really knows about until after the artists have died. Art that they kept doing, sans recognition or any traditional ideas of success. I think my obsession with this obsession started in school when I read Emily Dickenson. The way she was presented to us was as this reclusive poet who was unknown during her life. She sent a couple poems to an editor once, who didn’t like them because they didn’t fit with the current style, and that was that. But she kept writing, amassing hundreds of poems. I don’t think this portrait of her is entirely accurate — she did publish some during her life, for example — but this idea of her dedication to her work still enthralled me. I was a young wannabe writer who didn’t imagine I could ever find an audience. Who would want to read something written by a farm kid from Arkansas? But Emily Dickenson showed me that creating art isn’t necessarily about audience. It was a powerfully subversive idea.

Some of these people have become somewhat famous because of their work — Henry Darger comes to mind. Darger, if…