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Mountain Scene, Artist Unknown framed
The Beauty of Thrift Store Art Europe has given us Rembrandt, Bernini, Dürer. America has spawned Warhol, Hopper, the Peales, and truckloads more. But wedged between the Renaissance, Dada and de Stijl is the art of the people, thrift store art. While some of the paintings demonstrate a knowledge of form and perspective, many of the hobbyists who create these works haven't ever attended art school; their aesthetic training stopped after elementary school potholder-making. And their work reflects movements within a larger genre - Paint By Numbers, Velvet-era Elvises and Jesuses, a few splinter Picasso-esque types, and Walter Keane-style Big Eye renderings. However naive it may seem, thrift store art is timeless.
Lucy in the Field with Flowers, artist unknown.
It's accessible to everyone, whether or not you can define chiaroscuro or identify recessed meanings, and it's done with such pure, honest intentions. Just like "real" art, it's a reflection of our culture. There are two definitive books on thrift store art, Museum of Bad Art: Art Too Bad to Be Ignored, by Tom Stankowicz and Marie Jackson, and Thrift Store Paintings, edited by Jim Shaw - though they differ, it seems, in intention. Museum of Bad Art: Art Too Bad to Be Ignored (Andrews & McMeel, 1996), published by the Museum of Bad Art (which has a gallery in Dedham, MA, and a Web gallery at www.glyphs.com/moba), contains over 40 reproductions of amateur paintings. This book includes the museum's best "bad" artworks, including their first piece, Lucy in the Field with Flowers, which was found in the trash. To the folks at MOBA, Lucy is the embodiment of bad art: the artist obviously knew a little bit about painting, but nothing about perspective, Lucy is painted in severe, unnatural pigments (while Lucy's skin and dress are tan and blue, the sky is raincoat yellow). Some of their other standouts include Bonnie Daly's Pablo Presley, a beguiling cubist marriage of Elvis Presley and Pablo Picasso; and D. Alix's When She Grows Up, in which a small ballerina en pointe is placed dead in the center of a periwinkle burst-like background. While MOBA's curators and directors seem genuinely interested in this genre, they characterize the art as "bad art" and dissect it with an academic scalpel. But others, like Los Angeles artist Jim Shaw, eschew passing judgment on artists' skill and training. Shaw, 45, has been collecting thrift store paintings since the 1970s. In 1990 he published a book, Thrift Store Paintings (Heavy Industry Publications), containing many pieces from his impressive collection, which he guesses now numbers at 300. In his book he provides no introduction or interpretation - just short, descriptive titles. Where Shaw's thrift store paintings lack artistic skill, they make up for in subject matter. The artist who painted Purple Toilet Paper and Flower, a still life of a full roll of toilet paper and a flower, wasn't concerned with the background, however, he was willing to disregard safe still-life subjects - wine, cheese, fruit - and create a piece that speaks to all classes, ethnicities and genders. The only information the index adds about Purple Toilet Paper is that it is 8"x10", and that it was painted in acrylic. In Man With No Crotch Sits Down With Girl, the man, well, has no crotch, and the girl has a grossly disproportional chest: feminist statement or embarrassing oversight? Shaw, whose voice is as dry and mild-mannered as his descriptions, says there was no real purpose or plan to the book's simplicity. Shaw was mounting an exhibition at the Brand Library in Glendale, CA. He was going to New York for another show and he couldn't be around to assemble the California exhibit. He placed a Post-It Note with a brief description on the back of each painting along with a list so those who were setting up could make nametags. The titles just stuck, says Shaw. As far as anonymity, Shaw didn't want to be the book's focal point. "I wanted it to be like an old-style art book: no text, one color image to each page." In 1991, a year after the book was published, Shaw curated a thrift store paintings show at Metro Pictures, a gallery in Soho (which has since moved to Chelsea). The work received a lot of press; since Shaw is an artist, the art world perceived it as "a conceptual thing." "Someone asked me if I would sell my collection for a million dollars," says Shaw. "Back then I said 'no way.'" Once someone did actually offer him $100,000 for it. He refused. Now he wishes he didn't. His more than 300 paintings are "spilling" out of his basement. And he's not living the glamorous life out there in Highland Park, CA, either. Aside from being an artist, he says, "I teach occasionally." In addition to attention from art dealers, Shaw was contacted by artists who had seen newspaper articles about the book and recognized their own work. "An artist whose painting was included in the book called me and said: 'I don't know whether to sue you or ask for a copy of the book,'" says Shaw. (The artist settled for a copy of the book.) And, as Shaw predicted, after the book and the exhibits, the price of thrift store paintings went up, past his $35 price ceiling. Before paintings, he collected paperbacks and old clothes. "You can collect old clothes, but they don't exist in good condition anymore," says Shaw. "But thrift store paintings are still being made every day." Another artist who sees beauty in what some consider "bad art" is local artist Judith Schaechter. Schaechter, who works in stained glass, once unwittingly created a piece with a common thrift store art image: a devil sitting on a toilet. It's called Lucifer Poops, and she came up with the concept after seeing a picture of a devil on a toilet in the bathroom of a friend's house. "I thought, Hmm, I'm gonna make something like that." In the center of Schaechter's Lucifer is a panel with the devil sitting Thinker-like on a shiny white toilet. Surrounded by the constipated-looking demon are 14 smaller panels depicting cartoony images of food - possibly what the devil ate. Before she did Lucifer, she created a piece depicting an angel wetting the bed. "They kind of became companion pieces," laughs the artist. The Boston band The Good Life used Lucifer Poops on the cover of their album Music For Losers (Mass Cult), which created controversy in their conservative Irish town. "Maybe people are embarrassed by bodily functions," guesses Schaechter. After it was done, her friend, Dumpster Diver and highway traveler Todd Kimmell, saw a similar painting while on the road in Nevada. It was in a little former railroad and gambling town that the highway had stamped out of existence. He and the wife stopped in a cafe to get some breakfast. The place was covered with American artifacts, says Kimmell, including a painting of a devil on a toilet. He took a snapshot and showed it to Schaechter. Regardless of its embarrassing nature, Lucifer Poops was snatched up right away by an Elkins Park couple.
Devil on Toilet Smoking Cigarette and Holding Tail, by Mat.
Since I got Thrift Store Paintings for my birthday a few years ago, I've been slowly building my own collection: Pine Barrens Deer, Clown with Two Flowers in Hat and Mountain Scene. My first acquisition, which I named Devil on Toilet Smoking Cigarette and Holding Tail, was found this spring in South Philly's FDR Park, next to an overflowing trashcan. (It bears a striking similarity to Schaechter's Lucifer.) The gentleman to whom it belonged, from the Poconos and drinking a Busch if I remember correctly, was in the park accidentally. His co-worker was there for a pre-work game of horseshoes. While we were all abuzz about the intricacies of horseshoes and beer cozies, he snuck around the back of his friend's pickup and placed the painting next to the trashcan, hoping we wouldn't notice or something. He looked left, then right, then left again. I looked to my left, at him and his unruly beard, then down at the velvet masterpiece lying on the soil: a sarcastic-looking brown devil sitting on a bright white toilet. In the devil's mouth is a cigarette, and in his right hand he holds his tail. I wanted that painting. But why? Was it my working-class childhood art exposure - a mass-produced jester portrait with matching metal mandolin and violin my parents hung on every Air Force base housing wall - that desensitized me? I sure don't know what was going through the artist's mind who painted Devil. But who really knew what was going through Piet Mondrian's mind when he painted Composition? I said to my friend Jack, who brought me to the park, "Jack, grab that." "That? You sure?" "Yes. Yes. Yes," I said. He put it in his van and that was the end of the conversation.
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