The site is ten years old. There is no big whizbang shindig to celebrate, as I am working on a book. There ARE a hundred or more people to thank. Lauren Leja, Natalie Curley and Shannon Regan in particular have contributed objects and ideas over the years. ALL the followers are appreciated, many of them artists and art dealers, antique dealers and pickers. Folks who "get it" and let me know they do. Some of the brightest people I know and admire have found the site.
Most encouraging is the mail I have received from relatives, friends and such who have written me over the years and add to my stories. Being thanked for writing about forgotten folks they knew, they married or grew up with. It is humbling. For example, the post I did on obscure bluegrass and country performer Rem Wall. Nearly FIFTY comments from folks who remember or knew him. What an honor it is to receive such feedback.
My wife Janna lets me do it. Not everyone has a wife who allows their husband to dwell in curious places and sully his reputation with risque images once in a while. I get to.
There are a few special friends. The late Jay Tobler, one of the smartest people I have ever known. Robert Reeves, who shared my interests and made me laugh like no one else. Jimmie Allen, A golden Southern Picker who influenced one of my most successful books. Steve Slotin, a hero. Craig Yoe, the world's greatest comic art scholar and collector. Lance Ledbetter and Dust to Digital. Brian Wallis and the International Center of Photography. Tanya Heinrich and the American Folk Art Museum. The fascinating Dire McCain at Paraphilia published some of my favorite pieces. I could go on and on. Lisa Hix at Collectors Weekly has been wonderful and written about a few of my
projects.
I can't thank enough the folks who took the time to write about the site and my projects. Many of them are found on the side banner. The banner is not often seen on a smartphone, so I am copying them here. Since I don't make any dough on any of this really. I am lucky to break even...so the words mean so much.
The people and publications who took the time to write about me have made what I do legitimate. It is and was liberating and encouraging. This list is again far from complete, but I truly never thought I would "receive press" and boy, have I had lovely things said about me. Here are links to those to whom I am in debt.
"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017
"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times
"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant
"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016
"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014
"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016
"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014
"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"
Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012
"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014
"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted
"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine
"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine
"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was
"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times
"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books
"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works
"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?
"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile
"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog
"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009
"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art
"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009
"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010
"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."
"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries
"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan
"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE
"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage
"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama
"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11
Thank you all so very much. Everyone needs a hobby. I am so grateful for mine.
TEN years my man! What a privilege it has been to witness your journey and thanks for sharing such great obscure things as only YOU can find and identify.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed every bit of it! Congratulations : )
ReplyDelete