Pages from Handmade Rubber Stamp book of Dale West Ames, Iowa

Pages from Dale West's Handmade Book of Rubber Stamp Art.  Late 19th / Early 20th Century Ames, Iowa.
Collection Jim Linderman

Love During Wartime (Korean War Edition)

#4 in the Love During Wartime series is a hand drawn envelope cachet from a woman to her husband in the air force.  1954  2" x 2" ink on paper Collection Jim Linderman

A Folk Art Whirligig SO FAST it Needs a Spoiler Stabilizer!

This baby is ready for the wind tunnel!  Plus, it has "black and white cookie" wheels to keep it on the road.  All designed like a miniature production model of clay.  Still, this is a big 'un.  Couple feet long!  Also the only "modern" whirligig I've ever had.  I date it to around the introduction of Dodge Chargers, though the profile is a bit chunky by comparison.  Fearful passenger too!
20th Century Whirligig.  Wood, Metal, Plastic Collection Jim Linderman

The Noah's Ark of New Hampshire RPPC

I guess we could also call this "Ness moves his Mess."  Real photo postcard shows E. W. Ness moving 34 kinds of farm animals through town on a sled.  Why?  MY guess is that the locals had created a nativity scene downtown, and Ness agreed to provide the critters.  Human Nativity Scenes used to be fairly common.

Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
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Real African-American Performing Minstrel Troupe The Georgia Strollers original photograph collection Jim Linderman

Yes, there were REAL black "minstrel" shows, and here is snapshot proof.  These performers didn't need to blacken their faces.  How were they received?  I am sure they put on a regal show.  "Twelve Talented Negro Singers and Dancers"   

For a time, Texas piano player and vocalist Curtis Jones toured with the group.  Jones recorded some one hundred sides for the Bluebird, Okeh and Vocalion labels.  Curtis had a long career and was eventually associated with Jazz Gillum and Alex Moore.  His most popular number was "Lonesome Bedroom Blues" which hit...but I prefer his Highway 51 Blues and Reefer Hound Blues.
 
As for the other members of the act, we seem to be out of luck.  I am sure there are a few local reviews in regional papers... but I find none. Until others get in touch, I guess we file this certainly magnificent group under "information needed."
Original snapshot circa 1925 - 1935 Collection Jim Linderman

Primitive Diving Helmet Handmade early 20th Century Folk Art

Primitive Diving Helmet Handmade early 20th Century Folk Art.  Michigan origin.  
Collection Jim Linderman

Nellie Bellmore Female Trapeze Artist 1895 Circus Cabinet Card Pair by Frank Wendt

Nellie Bellmore Female Trapeze Artist 1895 Circus Cabinet Card Pair by Frank Wendt.  Wendt was understudy to famed "circus freak" photographer Charles Eisenmann.  He took over the studio when Eisenmann moved on.

Two Nellie Bellmore Frank Wendt Cabinet Cards Collection Jim Linderman

Putt Putt Traffic Cop Vintage snapshot 1955 Miniature Golf

Putt Putt Traffic Cop  Vintage snapshot dated on reverse 1955 Miniature Golf.
Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Here Comes TOKEY WEDGE !!! The Diminutive Hard-boiled Dick from Novel Books (Chicago) Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

Here comes Tokey, buzzing out of the pages of pulp history from the back cover of TORRID TWINS, just one of the capers solved with his tiny fists and subtly implied detective dong  pounding. Tokey's secret weapon other than his quick wit was his manhood.  You want sex and hardboiled action in your reading?  Put down that limp "best reading" from the New York Times Book Review and grab yourself a big deep toke...of TOKEY!

A man's man and a women's dream, Tokey raced around the twirling paperback racks when the top presidential philanderer of all time, Jack Kennedy was in the White House.  Did Jack care if his "arranged" girlfriend Judith Exner was usually in bed with mobster Sam Giancana and reported back to the wise guy after every presidential performance?  HELL NO! Because Jack was a MAN'S man, just like Tokey Wedge.  Screw that, and screw THAT, organized crime.  No wonder (and no coincidence) Tokey gets involved with some  anti-Castro gun runners in BROAD BAIT...just like big Sam!   

So Tokey had a buzzcutt instead of Kennedy's Nantucket tousle...when you are racing to action in your midget muscle-car, there is no time to brush anything out of your eyes.  Here comes Tokey, nostrils flared...nay SMOKING.  Never mind that Tokey was actually no taller than 5' 4"...he was big where it mattered.  One book adds an inch to his frame...but does not specify if he had bought some lifts.

Jack Lynn wrote the Tokey Wedge novels.  Who was Jack Lynn?  WHO CARES!  This isn't about some fussy, anonymous, elite font prissy with an underwood, it's about Tokey Wedge.  The paperback community speculates who Jack was and you are more then welcome to browse around to speculate while REAL men just read the novels (from Novel Press) a sleazy Chicago outfit with questionable organized crime ties but outstandingly bad fiction! 

There were at least twenty one books by Jack and all of them had a serious problem with inaccurate perspective and unrealistic rendering on the covers.  So the real question is not who wrote this stuff, but who the hell did the art?  Check out the Torrid Twins Tokey is running down.  Not only are they twins, their burning breasts have exactly the same flame pattern!  Tokey had a thing for twins...witness Mary and Beth in another split zygote thriller "Double Seduction" which is no problem for Tokey.  He loves them and leaves them...looking exactly the same.  And yet AGAIN...there are twins in the later Desire in Duplicate...in which a $5000 a night hooker charges that much because she is...a twin! So the price is really $2500 each.  Does Tokey get a discount?  You have to ASK?

Other Jack Lynn books are listed below, but not all feature the diminutive dick Tokey.  In fact, one of them introduces a far taller character, a Danny Thomas look-a-like who actually towers over the dames who moan his name!

Tokey Wedge fears nothing as he solves the case of Nympho Lodge.  In another, Tokey struggles with a trio of "women loving women"  In Wild Women.  AS you can see, another cover with burning dames for Tokey to struggle through. 

Clearly Tokey's biggest challenge was Ten Shockingest (sic) Seductions, in which he has do do just that...seduce them all to determine which were guilty of murder and which were guilty of lesbianism.  There is only one man for the job...look down.

It's TOKEY.

Vintage Folk Art Tramp Art Miniature Dresser made of Matchsticks and Glitter

Vintage Folk Art Tramp Art Miniature Dresser made of Matchsticks and Glitter.  Circa 1960?
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 Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Redware Folk Art Pottery Figure of a Lamb 19th century Pennsylvania ?

A redware glazed lamb, likely 19th century.  The piece has characteristics of Pennsylvania and Shenandoah Valley Virginia figural redware toys like those of Samuel Bell.  A large group of similar figures (and glaze) are found HERE.   Age and maker unknown.
Redware Lamb collection Jim Linderman 

The Guys Back Home. WW2 era drawings by Lucy Moose c. 1940

Four drawings with watercolor by Lucy Moose (1921 - 2010)  Miss Moose was born August 28, 1921,in Charlotte, N.C. and passed away on October 7, 2010 in Atlanta, GA at the age of 89. She attended Queens College in Charlotte, N.C. and also served actively in the United States Navy at The Pentagon during World War II, followed by 3 years in the Naval Reserves. Miss Moose had a long-standing career in fashion merchandising with several large retailers, in addition to retirement from the United States Army & Air Force Exchange Service. After living for many years in New York City and abroad in Hong Kong and Germany, Miss Moose retired to Atlanta, Georgia where she became a very active volunteer and received her 20 Year Volunteer Award from The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. Miss Moose was a member of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church. 
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Colorama Crazy Ball Vintage Handpainted Carnival Sign Folk Art

Colorama Crazy Ball Vintage Hand-painted Carnival Sign Folk Art.  He started out bold with a giant C but ended up with a tiny A.  Collection Jim Linderman

Annual I'm not at the Outsider Art Fair 2017 post. Are Cartoonists Outsider Artists? Elizabeth Stohn and Fred Johnson

These drawings were done from 1918 to 1919 by Elizabeth Stohn.  Ms Stone was a child at the time, and was something of a "cross-category" artist.  Part Schoolgirl art, part naive, part trained (as she had just completed her "art school training" by correspondence school. )  Certainly not what is generally considered "outsider" art, though that term is pretty widely applied as far as I can tell.  These are folky and charming, but not really folk art either.  Outsider Art? Nah.
 
While thousands of women studied art and (like Ms. Stohn) aspired to be an artist, even naming early woman artists is hard.  They were screwed over ever since they were here in every field.  Why should art (or comics, for that matter) be the domain of men?  Plus, here is a secret…they were often better than the men and never received the credit.  They were lost and laboring as "anonymous" in quilting, needle-point, and other acceptable near domestic arts.   

Labels appropriate to Ms. Stohn could maybe include "rebel" too.  I have written about her life and how she was one of the first women to use "thought and caption" balloons.  That post sorta went mini-viral in the comic book world, being picked up by comic historians and such.  The Comics journal linked to it as well. One day I hope to scan her entire "graphic novel"  From Poverty to Luxary (sic)

I remember respected art scholar and dealer Randall Morris saying something like "Cartoonists have their own school, they aren't outsider artists" and I don't differ with him.  Still there are many standards being applied on the walls of the outsider art fair, and each show will continue the mixed blessing of being labeled as an outsider. 

"I know it when I see it" was used to describe pornography by Justin Potter when ruling in a landmark obscenity case heard by the Supreme Court in 1964. I am pretty sure he threw his hands up when he said it.  "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..." he said.  We should avoid that esteemed opinion when evaluating outsider art.  

A wonderful group of  "comic books" were one of discoveries at the last Outsider Art Fair.  I'll guess he took some courses too, but it is a guess.  Dan Nadel would be the person to ask. I sure would love to see them, but as I say, I wasn't there. 

(There was another Johnson (real name Ferd or Ferdinand Johnson) working at the same time in Chicago, and he became quite well-known among other cartoonists.  Same fellow? I can't tell…I didn't go go cartoonist school! (joke)  It was certainly not the same fellow,  but neither of them were being "obsessive" about drawing.  They were just doing what comic book artists do.  That would be filling page after page with drawings.  Ask Gary Panter, a great artist who is not an outsider.  He published a massive book containing his sketchbooks.  Read the great essay on Frank, the outsider HERE by Dan Nadel.  There were other great cartoon artists (Basil Wolverton, Windsor McCay for example) and there were plenty of bizarre comic strip artists who were visionaries.  Mr. Nadel knows his stuff…See the magnificent volumes he put together on some HERE. Any library specializing in any art must have these two books.  Like the books displayed at the last outsider art fair, he reveals dozens of quirky and magnificently talented artists, be they self-taught or not.

Ponder on what an outsider artist is, and if the work you are appraising fits some arbitrary non-definition like Justice Steven's frustrated legal opinion of smut, ponder more. Everyone has their own concept. But can we agree, at least, that if one went to art school, he isn't an outsider?  Outsider Art...I know it when I see it.

Other articles in the I'm Not at the Outsider Art Fair series are HERE.  See also two books on Folk art Outsider art by the writer Jim Linderman HERE and HERE.