Lonnie Holley Birmingham Alabama Outsider Art Environment Unpublished Photos c.1992

Photographs of Lonnie Holley and his workshop at what has come to be known as the Birmingham Alabama Airport environment.  They date to 1992 or so.  I believe at the time this was both "studio" and home for the artist.

You'll find dozens of his sculptures (made from scrapped foundry sandstone) and hundreds of painted and shaped works of wire, fabric and detritus. It might look ragged, but every thing was purposeful and in place. Something out of a dream. While chatting and touring with the artist, I realized everything was connected through small caves from which children began to emerge.  Beautiful, handsome young children who had been living (or hiding) in their places for safety.  Shy at first, they romped like any kids as they became comfortable with my visit.  

Holley had purchased the land intending to establish it as a refuge for artistic expression.  He was certainly not one short of artistic ideas. Apparently the airport didn't agree and claimed the land. I hope the artist and his family received what was deserved, but it sounded like a land grab at the time. Mr. Holley was and is a genius. This is something I have learned to know and increasingly appreciate over the last 25 years.

A feature article was published by The Guardian which tells his personal story in depth.

ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS by Jim Linderman Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

Boy Evangelist Press Photograph with touched up Bible Charles E. Jaynes Jr. 1938

Boy Evangelist Charles E. Jaynes Jr. and his hand embellished Bible. Original Press Photograph and paint 1938.  Photo by E. Stephen.  Collection Jim Linderman

Walter Hale and the Beatniks

A bizarre beatnik booklet from Beelzebub Books!  1959. Height of the non-existent beatnik revolution.  An unexpurgated expose of the beat generation! (Which was largely a big-media invention in the 1950s...there were only about five real, actual, living beatniks.) Life Magazine had nothing on this shocking expose! It just one of the moronic magazines produced by one man. 

The book is "edited" with a pastiche of purloined press from "editor" Heater Wall.  Heater Wall cribbed clippings and such from prominent "beatnik" writers and paired them with risque photos.  

"Heater Wall" was really Walter Hale.  A carnival barker of a publisher.  A legendary huckster and promoter.  Hale produced a string of vintage vehicles which ran on dames, most of them burlesque dancers. He distributed his magazines in an unusual manner…by giving them away at carnivals and strip shows he promoted.  In fact, the fine folks at Something Weird Video have even located..and generously provided, free of charge only to you, our special clients, step right up here today, an actual film of Hale pitching his porn!  Hale Published Tom Cat, Girls, Scandoll, Hollywood Confidential and Play Girl (for which he was sued by no less than Hugh Hefner)  Enjoy the clip at the end of this article.

The best part of Walter Hale product (other than the publicity photos of strippers from the golden age of stripping) is his alliteration.  Never has a publisher run together so many words which start with the same letter. That is Hale taking his "step right up" slogans to the smut market.  

Shown here is but a few of the other magazines in the Walter Hale catalog.  Collect them all!

 
Books by the author are available HERE as instant  Ebooks and paperback or hardcovers at Blurb.  
   

How is your New Years Resolution going? Percy and his Tiny House

A wirephoto press photograph showing Percy Coplon as he prepares for drastic measures to control his weight.  Caption reads "Plans to fast atop 30 foot pole.  Percy Coplon, all 357 pounds of him, stands beside the tiny house in which he plans to fast for 100 days.  
Original 1949 Wirephoto Photograph.  Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Artists and their Models. Painters paint Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

Representations of painters on paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s. The most recognized artist in America was Norman Rockwell at the time.  These ain't him.

Antique Folk Art Cane Carver and Whimsy Maker c. 1880

Antique Folk Art Cane Carver and Whimsy Maker Original Photograph c. 1880 Collection Jim Linderman (Gift from a friend.) 

Cowboy Artist Las Vegas Kim aka J. Edgar Kimsey Postcards from the American West

Cowboy Artist Las Vegas Kim aka J. Edgar Kimsey Postcards from the American West.

Las Vegas Kim was a real cowboy artist active in the 1930s. J. Edgar Kimsey was also the postmaster of the small town of Texon, Texas.  He was more specifically a cowboy postcard artist of sorts…and that is one with a ribald, romping nature too.  The West was his place and time.  As reflected in his work, he was a bull rider too.  The cards themselves are beautiful little relics of Texas past with an unusual primitive printing technique. The cards appear to have been tinted by hand, but aren't.  It is also nice to know Mr. Kimsey had a risqué side.  Several of the postcards here were shared by the Fire House Museum of Crowell, Texas online years ago.  There are a few mentions of Mr. Kimsey online.  One is in the book Texon: Legacy of an Oil Town. and I remember a longer, more complete post online years ago.  However, ANY search with "kim" in it is going to give you a passel of Kim from Las Vegas you probably aren't searching for.
 
Group of Las Vegas Kim postcards, c. 1935 - 1939.  Collection Jim Linderman and from the collection of the Fire House Museum of Crowell website.  I would love to find them all...any out there?  These are now 80 years old or more.  Any help?

Schoolgirl Construction Paper c.1920 Untitled (Creamer) by Adele Hudgens Indiana

"In the late nineteenth century, a genre of colored educational papers were marketed to teachers in school supply catalogues (Andrews 1878, Babb 1897-98). the J.L. Hammett Co. catalogue (1895) of kindergarten supplies describes a variety of colored papers, and distinguishes between those colored papers that are coated and those that are "engine colored," or colored in the vat (Hammett 1895). the advantages of these "engine" or beater-colored papers are numerous. the Hammett Co. asserts that the "colors are mixed with the pulp of the paper, in the process of manufacture, and cannot be rubbed off by moisture or otherwise..." (Hammett 1895). These papers, according to the catalogue, are equally colored on both sides and are particularly suitable for folding. Importantly, the green colorants -- unlike some which were available -- do not pose a health risk because the dyes or "stains" are arsenic-free."  Construction Paper: A Brief History by Joan Irving The Book and Paper Group Annual Volume 16 1997  American Institute for Conservation.

Adele was one of three sisters who created such projects in Indiana from 1920 to 1924 which were found together.  Collection Jim Linderman

Christmas Special. The WORST Folk art Environment EVER. New Jerusalem of Dr. Riker

Joints like this are what gave the state of California their unofficial motto "Land of Fruit and Nuts." Photographs of the Holy City of Father Riker circa 1941. The false utopia was established in 1919 by Father Riker, palm reader and white supremacist Christian.  The worst kind of Christian.  Residents had peculiar sexual rights as well, it seems.  That is, NO rights, as the sexes were segregated. God told him to build the commune into a roadside attraction and to use his cult followers for the tourist labor.  Soon there was a cult-operated gas station, a dance hall and peep show machines.  In 1929 Riker began spreading his gospel by radio station KFQU.  They had their own post office, I presume to send and receive hate mail.

Super racist, the cult allowed no one in who didn't look like them.   A large billboard on your arrival read "HOLY CITY IS A WHITE MAN'S TOWN!  NEGROES AND ORIENTALS KEEP OUT OF HOLY CITY."

Here is a brief quote from Father Riker from his book The Emancipator.    

"The White Man can take care of any and all kinds of business in our own, White Man's California State Home, and no longer will the White Man tolerate your undermining and polluting tactics. Farmers, Business Men and The Workers say: Orientals get out and stay out of our business. Our new Government will see that you get a job. Your polluting, undermining system of business must eternally stop in Our California. And besides this, keep your polluting hands off our White Race Women; they also belong only to the White Race Man. This is the true law of our original White Man's Constitution, these statements explain the real and true spirit of California."

See?  Nut Job and Fruity Pebble.  Father Riker ran for Governor of California four times but thankfully received only 1% of the vote each time.  That would be about the same percentage some of the current "religious right" politicians would get.  NOT…there is a good number of politicians today who seem to think separation of church and state is an obsolete concept.

IN 2016 what remained was purchased by wealthy Scientology couple Bob and Trish Duggan.  They bought the parcel of land where Holy Land stood (and rusted away).  192 Acres!  While the couple is worth BILLIONS (at one time Duggan was the 638th richest man in the world) they paid only 6 million dollars for the big plot near Los Gatos, California.

Jim Linderman books and affordable ebooks are available HERE.

Vintage Traveling Photographer on CB Radio RIsque Pinup Business Card

Vintage Traveling Photographer on CB Radio RIsque Pinup Business Card! It appears Mr. Stoneburner fancied himself the "go-to" for emergency pinup needs, at least on his QSL card. I aim no arrows, but here is what Wikipedia has to say about these cards.

"CB radio enthusiasts often exchanged colorful QSL cards, especially during the height of CB's popularity in the 1970s. CB radio operators who met while on the air would typically swap personalized QSL cards which featured their names ("handles") and CB callsigns. Originally, CB required a purchased license and the use of a callsign; however, when the CB craze was at its peak many people ignored this requirement and invented their own "handles".  

I am not suggesting the Sonny was doing anything more than pursuing a healthy hobby, of course.

QSL card circa 1975 Collection Jim Linderman 

A Genuine Dog and Pony show

Genuine Dog and Pony show! On reverse: Willie J. Bernard, Manager.  Bernard's Freak Animal Fair Canaan, NH. No date, circa 1930?  Collection Jim Linderman

Mimeographed Amateur Pornography from 1950s Mexico 7 Zephyrs Press

7 Zephyrs Press was a primitive smut publisher working just over the border in Juarez and Tijuana, Mexico.  By 1955, the modest business had published well over 200 individually numbered titles.  Each had primitive drawings to illustrate the deviant goings on.  Real collectors items.  The company also ran a lending library!  Not a collector?  Buy one, read it and return for another.  Each title seems to have been "cranked out" in editions of 100 or so.  Historians are aware that technological inventions are first used to spread erotic content...in this case, the mimeograph machine.     

Assorted editions of 7 Zephyrs Press erotic novels.  Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

African-American folk art environment Memphis, TN c. 1990

Memphis flash! African-American folk art environment Memphis, TN c. 1992  Photographs by Jim Linderman