To make the structure of the presentation I had to make these notes even though they weren't stuck to completely, but it may be useful to have a recap of the project

1 My main overarching theme of this project is Outsider Art. Outside­r Art is a little bit of an odd/ tricky term as different people may define it differently, but, in general, it is art created by people with no connection to art institutions. Outsider Artists are very often a minority in some way, and may be people with physical or mental disabilities.

2 Outsider Art is unlike other groupings of art, or movements, because it is a term reliant on who created it, rather than what it is. So, there is technically no aesthetic or style or even artistic focus defining or driving the *genre*. However! As Outsider Artists are those outside of the art institutions, i.e., no art education, they often share characteristics in that they may look naïve so to speak. In fact, sometimes it is called Naïve Art. This is why I started looking at it in the first place.

3 I did some thinking around the subject, but didn’t actually read much academic stuff. I looked at Art House Meath which is a centre that fosters (outsider) art and creativity for those who may struggle otherwise (with disabilities), and considered the ethics, and their ethics, of treating these artists.

4 I also looked at the Museum of Bad Art, which celebrated ‘unprofessional’ art in a different way. They describe themselves as being sincere and say that all artists are aware of the nature of the museum when submitting work there, but it’s a fine line.

5 As I started to read up about outsider art academically there was a lot of concern beginning about how the label and grouping of outsider art can be derogatory and damaging. To start with, in an obvious way, the name outsider already pushes the individuals out, it suggests they are something other, and so maybe lesser, than other art.

6 The problem that is really coming up with the studying and receiving of outsider art is that the artist’s backstory is often much more prized than the art itself. People may over romanticise something that would not be considered worthy otherwise because it was made by someone they want to essentially make into inspiration porn. On the other hand, and perhaps more frequently, they will ignore an artist’s intentions (or lack of) and place their own stories on top of it, assuming something based on their histories.

7 …….So that brings back some nice memories of our old friend Roland Barthes and his Death of the Author writings…..

8 Outsider art has also been said to be copied and appropriated by other artists too, that general artists look towards them with jealousy because they create with complete freedom, with no intention set towards galleries or trends. I think this is a nice way to think about creating, though I’m not entirely sure if their work is so much appropriated as a whole (not individually) because there isn’t like I said that one aesthetic to define them all.

9 Case wise, I’ve been looking more at Howard Finster because he is one of the most well documented artists, and it’s interested how attitudes changed to him as his career became mainstream and his huge output of 25000+ paintings.

10 So, questions! I’m thinking along the lines of, the labelling, exploitation, treatment and attitudes of outsider artists.

11 The practical side has stumped me a lot because for a start, I can never be an outsider artist. I cannot make art like an outsider artist aesthetically because they are joined by who they are rather than what they make. I don’t want to make illustrations about physical pieces of art like last year because it feels hopelessly derivative.

12 I began to think about the intuitiveness and freedom so many outsider artists employ and use it in my own practice but nothing was really driving it, and just a day into the project it was doomed.

13 But I had a discussion and we examined that what drives outsider artists often is not only passion, but obsessiveness- whether they are collecting or recording or painting 25000 paintings like Finster.

14 I can see my practical response of the project becoming a project of recording, of obsessively drawing the same thing every day. The end piece could be a sum up of all I have created, a time based project per se and more about my practice, though I could see it working as a publication in the end too. I haven’t thought about subjects, but what I doodle most are tigers , for no specific reason, but that’s already there.