Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Folk Art Carving Sculpture Walking Crybaby Collection Jim Linderman

An unusual folk art carving in that there is movement...little Jr. is walking..but he also appears to be crying. No Date Collection Jim Linderman

Madam Mohonga Carparsa Performs for the Baptists 1902

Madam Mohonga Carparsa from Liberia entertains Baptists in 1902. Antique Showcard
Collection Jim Linderman

BOYS! Build Your Own Airplane

Circa 1920 or so, a handmade airplane of pre-printed cardboard and wood.

Miniature Turn of the Century Carved Folk Art Woman's Head Sculpture

Simple, primitive elegance here. Two inches tall hand carved woman with stylized hair.
Circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Muffler Man of Metal and Rust

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Muffler Man of Metal and Rust Circa 1950
Collection Jim Linderman

An Early Folk Art Whirligig Sculpture Environment in Michigan 1916

A previously undocumented Folk Art Environment with Whirligigs (and a stone "Uncle Tom" in the front yard...) Michigan Dated on the reverse 1915. Collection Jim Linderman

A Most Curious Real Photo Postcard Girl with a Fur Coat

A Most Curious Real Photo Postcard. Young Girl with a (new?) Coat stands on a tree stump amid rubble, the city in the background. She nearly blends into the tree behind her...almost like a camouflaged animal who has adapted a defense mechanism. A Hobo camp? Kruxo RPPC, which would indicate somewhere from 1905 to 1925.

Untitled Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman
Books and Ebooks by the author available HERE

19th Century Polychrome Carved Folk Art Man of Wood

19th Century Polychrome Carved Folk Art Man Collection Jim Linderman
Books and $5.99 ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Who is the BEST MAN Under the Sun? JOHN! Leather Postcard circa 1905 Nebraska

A Sunny Best Man

Leather (Deerskin) Postcard circa 1905 mailed to Nebraska. Collection Jim Linderman

Dull Tool Goes Native! Folk Art Sculpture of the Semi-Erotic kind.

No, we didn't commission some local island artisan to carve our portraits...this is American and it is fantatasticalish!

Untitled Folk Art Carving circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman

Dream in Swigglesville Photo by Butch

Real Photo Postcard "By Butch" embellished by hand circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

Antique American Horse and Jockey Weathervane

Antique American Horse and Jockey Weathervane ready for installation.

Anonymous Snapshot, no date, collection Jim Linderman

Ray Strikes Out on Valentine's Day

Novelty Card for Valentines which isn't funny...Ray tries to thaw out a frozen heart.
Late 19th, Early 20th Century

Collection Jim Linderman

Miss Pearl Johnson's Valentine

The one for Teacher.

Homemade Valentine circa 1940? Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Toy Noisemaker Whirligig Spin by Hand

Antique Toy Noisemaker Whirligig Spinning Toy Spin by Hand collection Jim Linderman
BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR AVAILABLE HERE

Antique Handmade Folk Art Jack in the Box Primitive Make-do Toy

Considering how easy this primitive toy would be to make, it is surprising more haven't been made (or shown?)

A folk art handmade Jack in the Box toy, turn of the century (ghost?) Spring, box, sock doll.
Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Pipe Cleaner Doll

Rudimentary Miniature Folk Art Doll made of Pipe Cleaners circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Sculpture Water Wheel Whirligig Articulated Figure

Folk Art Sculpture Water Wheel Whirligig Articulated Figure No Date circa 1930
Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND $5.99 Ebooks by Jim Linderman available for preview or purchase HERE

Hand Drawn Postcards Home A Soldier writes and Draws from the Front Franz Ruoff 1918

Hand Drawn Postcards Home A Soldier writes and Draws from the Front by Franz Ruoff 1918 Collection Jim Linderman
Books and Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Jim Linderman interview on No Such Thing As Was with Joe Bonomo

Rock and Roll in Sepia: A Conversation with Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman is an archivist of the obscure. I profiled him here in 2011 and continue to deeply enjoy the curios he finds and actively posts at his three blogs, Old Time Religion ("Vernacular religious detritus"), Vintage Sleaze ("The true and untold story of smut in America"), and Dull Tool Dim Bulb ("Surface, wear, form and authenticity in art, antiques and photography"). He's just released a terrific new book via Blurb, a collection of found photographs titled The Birth of Rock and Roll in which he's arranged a storyboard of sorts that dramatizes the spirit, if not the chronology of rock and roll...

READ ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE

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.
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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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