Reading for Inspiration

I was thrilled when David gave me one of my favorite books for my birthday: Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art. It’s out of print but John used to get it for me from the U. of T. library and now I finally have a copy of my own.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know I’m interested in outsider art, and Parallel Visions discusses how artists outside the mainstream have influenced “professionals” like Jim Dine, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst and Niki de Saint Phalle.
What captivates me about outsider artists is their sense of destiny and compulsion when it comes to their work. They don’t let age, social status, so-called sanity, poverty or lack of skill get in the way of expressing their art. This is fortunate because many of them are old, poor, uneducated, eccentric, and even in some cases—certifiably insane!
When you’re overburdened by the feeling that you should be creating amazing stuff—or not doing anything at all—think of them. Outsider artists don’t worry about their self-confidence or their niche in the marketplace, they just express themselves through their art and trust that it will take them where it wants them to go.