Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Son Ford Thomas Bluesman, Sculptor, Gravedigger and his son James c. 1992

Son Ford Thomas Bluesman, Sculptor, Gravedigger and his son James Leland, Mississippi c. 1992
Original photograph Jim Linderman

Folk Art Tillie Toy circa 1930 Ashbury Park New Jersey Symbol Carnival Figure Original Paint

Handmade Folk Art Tillie, the famed character who represented the Ashbury Park, NJ arcade for a century. Named after George Tilyou, the owner of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island…but it was the New Jersey Tillie who was saved by Bruce Springsteen fans.

"Tillie" Folk Art carving made from cigar box wood. Circa 1930. Eyes move. Collection Jim Linderman

Lincoln Statue by H. Landsverk Folk Art Sculpture

Lincoln Statue by H. Landsverk. Does anyone know what happened to Big Abe?

Flirting with Death Hollywood's Stunt Stars in Person Photographic Lobby Cards

Some slick format photographs for promoting an appearance of the Hollywood Stunt Stars, each 10" x 13". I haven't found any references to the production, so date is a guess.

Flirting with Death Hollywood's Stunt Stars in Person Photographic Lobby Cards circa 1950? Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb THANKS to Curley's Antiques.

The FIRST Elvis Impersonator was a DAME! Elvira Presley 1957

The First Elvis Impersonator Elvira Presley!

Complete with guitar-shaped pasties, Elvira Presley hits the stage in 1957 in the not-so legendary strip dump "The Near and Far Club" operated by Al and Mal Warner in Los Angeles. They were looking for a sensational act to celebrate a club makeover, and when they heard of a model who looked like the "Mississippi Peckerwood" Elvis, they convinced her to put on Levi jeans and then immediately take them off on stage! Complete with Elvis gyrations which even Ed Sullivan would have enjoyed.

Elvira was thus not only the first Elvis Impersonator, she was the first with 38-28-37 measurements! Like the real Elvis, she came from Mississippi.

The act began with the house orchestra playing "Don't Be Cruel" while Elvira made her entrance with a guitar. As the band continued performing without paying royalties to the illegal immigrant Colonel Tom Parker, Elvira pops out of her Levis to "Blue Suede Shoes" and then out-hip-shakes the hip shaker with "Hound Dog" while tearing off her bra revealing sequins shaped like a Nashville guitar-shaped Swimming Pool!

Elvira became the first to set the standard Elvis Impersonator patter. When interviewed by the press, her answers are filled with "I hope he would be flattered" responses, but she avoids the "it's not an imitation, it's a tribute" banal platitude adopted by every single Elvis imitator since. It was an imitation for sure.

Uncredited Photographs appeared in Modern Man Magazine 1957

BOOKS AND INSTANT PDF DOWNLOAD EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE AVAILABLE HERE

Homer Tate Self-Taught Artist who Created the Thing!

Artist Homer Tate made the thing. Even though "The Thing" was supposed to be a mystery and a secret, it is likely the most famous thing Homer Tate ever made. Homer made sideshow gaffes he sold to carnival and sideshow businesses. Shrunken heads and such created to lure rubes inside. Sales of his animal hide "human mysteries" were good. I am sure you have seen some on those "wacky true history" shows. He'd make a thing for 25 bucks.

The Thing is on Wikipedia!

I am afraid Homer's lesser known paper mache tableau "old west" tourist attraction things don't get seen as often. They filled his place. I don't know where they are.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress and photographer Russell Lee. Yes, the same Russell Lee who created some serious photos. Taken 1940. Complete photo set HERE at the Library of Congress website.

I'm Not at the Outsider Art Fair Paris 2019 Edition post Anonymous Drawings of Startled 1950s Women

A surprising group of drawings by an anonymous west coast shut-in at this point known only as Ms. Daisy. Each is 9" x 12" and there are hundreds. Each drawing has the date created on the reverse and most have a weather report! (Cloudy today, sunny and hot, smog, etc…) She lived into her 90s, and while institutionalized drew one every few days from 1952 until tapering off in the 1960s.

I have never had such a large group of work consecutively dated. The artist's work improves a bit over the years, but each retains this rather stark, naive singular look. One note in the reverse indicates "there is a convention on television so we can't watch our programs" leading me to guess these are an assortment of entertainers, soup opera stars and models of the 1950s. Another note reveals workers are "removing the trees across the road." Only a few are identified by name but many could be identified.

I cannot say if the artist had training, or if the results were produced through practice. There are no duplicates. Hundreds of 1950s women, each which reflect the times and the persistence of the artist. The overall effect of a dozen lined up is wonderful.

I will scan a few more soon.

Six anonymous (Ms. Daisy?) Drawings of women 1957 - 1958. Collection Jim Linderman

You might also enjoy the book Eccentric Folk Art Drawings: Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th century, a 250 page book of similar discoveries available from Blurb.com in softcover or an affordable ebook. The link leads to a ten page preview and ordering information. Thanks!

A few of the other outsider art fair posts are available HERE

Regina Gilbert Outsider Artist or Flower Child? A Forgotten Primitive Painter

In 1956 Artnews referred to Regina Gilbert as "a sophisticated experimental primitive" and that "Her eye has combined Henri-Edmond Cross and van Gogh." Ten years later, the Palm Beach Daily called her "the only living American primitive painter" which seems even more of an exaggeration. As far back as 1951, Newton Galleries were representing Ms. Gilbert as "Brooklyn's most exuberant and imaginative primitive" in a press release. A year earlier, a New York magazine called Cue reviewed a Gilbert show as "...another of those primitive painters who periodically invade the art galleries, this time a "Grandma Moses" of Brooklyn. Her floral paintings, gay, decorative and flat are particularly effective." Another paper once called her a flower child!

Regina Gilbert was born in Austria in 1907. In the 1930's she immigrated to the United States and lived in New York city until the 1950s. Relocating to Palm Beach, Florida she continued to paint. Apparently an ardent self-promoter, the artist affixed numerous reviews and clippings of her work to the reverse of her paintings.

Pair of Flower Paintings by Regine Gilbert Oil on Board circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Greatful Dead Fan Art

A few physical reminders of fan's love for the Grateful Dead. On the Internet Archive, there are some 600 examples of decorated envelopes sent to the office for tickets. Worth a look and a smile!
See them all HERE

Books and affordable Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

The Moses Tabernacle Bernstein Model

O. O. Bernstein's traveling exhibition! Real Photo Postcard circa 1920. Collection Jim Linderman

Big Head from Clyde Beatty Circus 1962 original snapshot

Big Head from Clyde Beatty Circus 1962 original snapshot dated on reverse. Collection Jim Linderman.

Risque Space Panties Gift Certificate c. 1960

Risque Space Panties Gift Certificate c. 1960 Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Handmade Baseball Miniature Book Folk Art Scorekeeper 1926

A young fella keeps track of his favorite team with a handmade record book. Appears to have been the rainy season.
Miniature Made by Hand booklet inscribed. Collection Jim Linderman

Back to School Boys

Sketch of the school hierarchy by George Foster circa 1925 collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb courtesy Natalie Curley

Vintage Folk Art Handmade Fabric Activity Book c. 1960

A Vintage Folk Art Handmade Fabric Activity Book c. 1960. Each cloth page provides learning tools for a young child. Button which button, a working zipper (with "cowboys and indians" era figure in a teepee) and other dexterity tools. Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Foam Rubber Doll Nude Woman / Teaching Tool / Display circa 1930 - 1940

Circa 1930 Foam Rubber Doll with considerable age. Stand appears to be original, the wire has created a "tan line" on the woman's back. I believe this is a latex foam figure. VERY soft to the touch. Whipped latex was introduced in 1929. Relative explicitness suggests this was some type of display device (educational purposes?) rather than a doll. Any guesses?

Antique Female Form of rubber, circa 1935 - 1940 Height 12 inches. 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

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