Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Early Folk Art Sculpture Carving of a Woman with Necklace

Early Folk Art Sculpture Carving of a Woman with Necklace. Life size carved from a stump block of wood. 19th Century. Collection Jim Linderman

Featured Image on Artbook D.A.P is The Birth of Rock and Roll

The Birth of Rock and Roll book by Jim Linderman is featured on the Artbook.com website.
HERE

Scarecrow from 1939 World's Fair Penelope Shoo Protects New York Wheat Garden

Miss Penelope Shoo. "The Scarecrow of Tomorrow" stands over the only wheat field in New York City. The wheat field lasted 68 years. Miss Shoo (as is SHOO, birds…SHOO! ) stood over the field of wheat that Continental Baking and their product Wonder Bread planted for the 1939 World's Fair. In front of the field was a building designed by Skidmore & Owings.

Penelope Shoo was created by mannequin maker Jean Spadea, and at least one of her costumes was a fashion design by Hattie Carnegie. When she was removed (or stolen?) in 1930, folks wondered where Shoo went. She was STOLEN by pranksters from Columbia University to be used at the Columbia / Princeton football game. The anonymous thieves returned her, sans arms, to Continental Bakery. A color film from 1939 which documented Penelope is HERE.

Original snapshot 1939 "Penelope Shoo" collection Jim Linderman
Books by the author available HERE
The Birth of Rock and Roll by the author available HERE

Good News from a Fortune Teller

From a fortune teller who always knows your fortune.

The Birth of Rock and Roll by Jim Linderman Joe Bonomo and Dust to Digital

Big splash on my new book with MUSIC and clips. Enjoy the SHOW. ORDERING INFORMATION HERE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON AND BARNES AND NOBLE

American Folk Art Sculpture Woman 19th Century (Cigar Store Indian?) 41" Collection Jim Linderman

American Folk Art Sculpture Woman (Cigar Store Indian ?) 41" Collection Jim Linderman
BOOKS AND $8.99 EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR HERE

An Elegant Rustic Twig Root Table

Elegant Rustic Twig Root Table. Traces of mustard paint. Collection Jim Linderman

African-American Antique Folk Art Sculpture Folk Art Effigy Collection Jim Linderman

An African-American effigy made of cement with bead eyes and gold paint. Circa 1920 (?) found in the Whitehaven neighborhood of Memphis, TN in the mid 1980s. Purchased at an African-American family yard sale. They likely "inherited" the piece, as they said it was "always sitting on the back steps." Inscribed around base "JIM LADY" An early African-American Folk Art Figural Sculpture pieces from the United States.

African-American Folk Art Figure collection Jim Linderman
See books and Ebooks by the author HERE

Evangelist Cowboy McNab Wilson

Former stud poker "dummy" or "rakeoff man" Reverend McNab Wilson in 1932. He abandoned the gambling houses of Nevada to spread the good word to Blackfeet tribe members whether they wanted it or not. McNab is more annoying than "cowboy poets" who have their annual "slam on the range" discussed every year on NPR. This post also goes on the OLD TIME RELIGION blog.

Original Press Photograph 1932 Collection Jim Linderman

Times Square Smut the BOOK featured in The Guardian

The Guardian ran a piece on our new book TIMES SQUARE SMUT which featured numerous illustrations of the "soft-core hard boiled" books you were not supposed to read in the 1950s. Eric Stanton and Eugene Bilbrew covers are shown in the article. See also The Gallery of covers they selected. Times Square Smut the Book is available from Blurb in paperback and ebook download HERE.

(Above "OTHER" Irving Klaw models from the book)

Folk Art Depression Era Hot Pad Pot Holder with a Face

Folk Art Depression Era Hot Pad Pot Holder with a Face collection Jim Linderman
DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AND INSTANT PDF DOWNLOADS ARE HERE

Baseball Dart Board Game Vintage Basement Baseball

Basement Baseball! Junior risks a dart in the eye while waiting for the boys of summer.
Original snapshot, no date Collection Jim Linderman

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture 19th Century Carved by Hand Fat Man Tammany Bank collection Jim Linderman

A hand carved antique folk art sculpture which replicates the J. & E. Stevens cast iron bank which was patented in 1878. The cast iron toy was designed by John Hall and was sold as The Tammany Bank. The folk art carving is larger than the commercial toy, and functions as a bank too! Metal coin slot, moving arm, original paint decoration. This folk art sculpture is twice the size of the bank toy, and is an accurate and accomplished construction.

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture 19th Century Carved by Hand Fat Man Bank
Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Erotic Folk Art Carving Woman Hitchhiker It Happened One Night?

Vintage Erotic Folk Art Carving Woman Hitchhiker. I date it to 1935...The Frank Capra film It Happened One Night came out in 1934 and startled the country...women had legs, or at least Claudette Colbert did...

Folk Art carving circa 1935 Collection Jim Linderman

The Accidentals of Michigan on the Road

The talented Michigan group The Accidentals on the road. You can help spread the joy by participating in their INDIEGOGO campaign HERE.

A Real Talking Folk Art Scarecrow Wired for Sound in 1931

A Real Talking Scarecrow Wired for Sound in 1931! Original Press Photograph and caption Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Ventriloquist Vent Dummy (and one in the box) Original Snapshot collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Ventriloquist Vent Dummy (and one in the box) Original Snapshot collection Jim Linderman The BOOK I'm with Dummy is available in Paperback and Ebook HERE

Volcano HOT Amateur Sunday Painter Pin Up Painting

Amateur Pin Up Painting "Girl on a Volcano"

Found Pliers

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture Carving Nude with Frog Erotic Folk Art

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture Carving Nude with Frog Erotic Folk Art with Gold surface. Collection Jim Linderman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"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

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"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

Fair Use

Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
1. The image illustrates an educational article; its inclusion in the article adds significantly to understanding the text because it is a historical sample of the art covered in the critical commentary, and shows use of an innovative style. Therefore the image substantially improves the educational value of the article.
2. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic, which directly concerns a visual artist, and is indicative of the style for which hethe artists are renowned.
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Any other uses of this image may be copyright infringement.

Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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