Yeap , i wanted to jump in bad on this one , but it seems Red is real serious about all this. There are three video that explain it (by Red) this one is the last,. , About a year ago my mind about exploded watching this one video, that popped up called "the outsiders" basically a promo or trailer for a reality based TV show featuring Sam-Kip-Eric these popular festival to folk artists around Georgia. This video because it evoked the long tortured word of folk/outsider raises the bar on what a southern folk artist might be?,an outcast? poor? eccentric?,the whole Blues suffrage deal, thats a a start, but what we get is this singsong, quirky bad crafters, halmark like,"bad art" (maybe) zone more in tune with music festival art like fan art?. but , .. ok so what! , whats the big deal ? who cares its made for a Lifetime channel plug its suppose to be "Feel good art entertainment"., well for me i tried to explain it in a set of videos called "outside the craft" which dug deep to figure out why this was so profoundly alarming, and the trouble this video (the outsider) promo trailer ,might have or get into., One was if they think people are going to sympathize and feel for the artist's daily lives they will, but! there is something far more dubiously funny at hand that i had a gut feeling about. It the "honey booboo " syndrome in which they are going to be made fun of, for being pathetic, pityful, silly, carefree (evoking all these folk art sterotypes) as such. . for some reason i harken back of that song "Shiny happy people"thats am Athens folk art song!. I don't know what the hell you call it by, or why i would have such issues with it there has to be a term i am missing about why i want to vomit so much about this kind of art! how to stop myself from obsessing over this level of sillyness children's kitch might have but made by hairy old hippy guys who just found out they want to be an artist,,. help me out folks.!, Well this video Red made basically is the summery of what he feels about it. i warned him years ago don't do it, don't address this , "its like your in happy town and your mister Grinch here, it will take you down boy!" One of the prophetic notes to that Outsiders vid promo revealed was this bearded joker fellow called "Tex", this Georgia folk artist who you got to observe his art works in his both that he was standing in at some fair. I noticed two things in it right off . two of Red inspired works and some of Chubbs, obviously he was a fan of their work. So i pointed it out to Red, "now this chap right there has it in him". Me and Red see things differently, If i put myself in his shoes , and if i was in an exhibit , group and i found a dude or dudete basically making stylistic copys of my work ,hanging in the very show i was in, i would buy this guy a beer and invite him over and train them right, because i own their soul or, they look up to me and who would be stupid enough to put a copy of a painting i did in a group show, if not as a parody, or if serious then they have some maturing to do basically. but none the less its their bad, they will own it down the line. (Red worrys people wont figure that part out) like i told Red never do an in the "in the manor of" .. or stylistic copy unless you want to live it down!, you better love it cause it tells of the pathway to the center of what one does as an artist maybe its something to out grow?.
Me and Red like Frances Bacon, i don't mind living down my inspired look a likes of him, actually i am proud of that cause i love Bacon,.
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| my 1992 homage to the passing of F.Bacon, there is a whole mess of these paintings made 90-93, ahhhk! |
I have written about crafterism why its not art with a capitol A in it, its flee market stuff Etzy stuff created to meet a market., That when for some fucked up reason a "crafter" does manage to make Art out of it, there is always something more to the story. i told Red many times over that you cannt be hanging out in cat house lecturing people on what real love is, while getting fucked, but then again if you like sex ...you get paid or not it dont mater.
same thing goes with art, Crafterism is trinket stuff,
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| by Sam G, now i cannt hate a guy at all for makeing this kinda painting, bravo! |
So I guess a bigger question is why are we so invested in some grown up, hairy, fat guy who would be makeing cartoon kitty cats(or whatever) paintings to sell to funky old ladys with to much pazaz on there hands at a craft fair so important??? maybe we are the assholes here for careing?lol . I always saw this as art drama, things that have a soap opera history to it, but this is the wacked out world of crafter to folk art to bad art to this net crap to the storys and sagas that go along with it, the "downer cow" is a prime example. Just think some 25 years from now if any of this work survives and is hanging on the wall of a trailer in Alabama or in an antique store maul some old picker lady will be telling the twisted and angry stories of the souths most pissed off artists, and why they fought to unfuck themselves from sentimentalism and hippyism and crafterism that beset their paranoid soul of being carpetbagged.
a Battle that sounds more like a denial than that of matter of taste.
So as the folk dual between me and Red sorta trails off its had its moments of comedy but its a joke that is told over and over plus just how nasty stupid and debasing of our art do we really want to be about it, ebay is dead and the script might have to move on to something else at least for me.
check out the video, it might be Reds last.
