I’m having my annual reminder of how much I cannot write on this here site, which is slightly frustrating for me personally, but wholly preferable to you all being subjected to the lifestyle/mommy/missional living blog that runs inside my crazy head. Trust me on this. Being a part of a team, a community, a diverse neighborhood, working with refugees and people who have been consistently marginalized by the world, being in the precarious position of asking people to support us–these are all unique constraints on my writing life. And I am grateful for them, truly. But it sort of makes an odd conundrum–the louder my life, the quieter my writing. What is formative now will hopefully be settling inside for many, many years, and I trust something good will come of it.
So. . . life is pretty loud right now.
Which brings me to this space. I am so grateful for the readers, the ones who stick around, who challenge me and encourage me. I don’t want to leave this a blank space (because life is anything but blank). So I have been thinking about what I like to read about, and–to follow my favorite writing advice–I will start the blog series I want to read. Which is: Outsider Art.
Outsider Art traditionally refers to art made by people with absolutely no contact with the art world–the insane, children, extremely marginalized communities. It has been referred to as brut art (raw art) or folk art or naive art. I am going to be my rebellious self and use this term while gleefully ignoring the boundaries associated with it. I would like to highlight and talk about and drink in and absorb all different types of art that I feel like are being passed by in the strange insular worlds I inhabit here on the internet.
You know the books that everyone is reading, the music everyone is listening to, the photographs being shared on Buzzfeed. If you are anything like me, try as you might your Twitter feed is rife with the same types of people recommending the same types of things. I am not here to knock this system, but I am here to say that unless we immerse ourselves in new and different perspectives, we will become hopelessly myopic.
So here is where I need your help: I need you to share with me, with all of us. Who are some artists–writers, thinkers, painters–that bring in a fresh, raw, outsider perspective to your world? Is there a book or a painting that has been formative to you that has been overlooked by the majority culture? Is there an important perspective, a heartbreaking work of genius, a cheeky thinker, a window into a world so very different from our own? If so, I would love to hear about it.
I am looking for short, succinct essays on art (writing, visual, audio) that have brought on outsider perspective into your life. Something that has broken through the barriers of culture, which has expanded your world, opened your doors just a little wider in order to love God more. If you are interested, please e-mail me at dlmmcsweeneys [@] gmail [.] com. We will start this series in earnest in March.
I am in the midst of curating my own collection of art that is nourishing my soul, but for whatever reason is not getting the attention it deserves. From time to time I will post my own thoughts on art that is moving me (which should be very outsider-y in it’s own right, since I took one horrible community college class on Early Art and basically bombed it. So, I’m a real expert here). In a few days I will be posting about a painting that made me stand still in the middle of an art museum and bawl my eyes out (so artsy!) and caused me to reflect on how there are so few images of Christ that I connect with in our world. Again, to be clear that I am using the term “Outsider Art” very loosely (and incorrectly), this painting is by a Dutch man in the 19th century, at the bequest of a wealthy king. So, not exactly a mental patient. But still, the content struck me as so new and so outside of my traditional education, that I found myself crying and scribbling in a journal, wanting to share this piece of beauty with the world.
So, that is what we will do.
I look forward to hearing from you, my well-read, smart, artistic friends. I look forward to hearing about art from the upside-down kingdom.
D.L. Mayfield 