I’m having a bit of an artistic crisis here.

Look at the following:

These are all by an artist named James Castle (1899-1977), and I discovered him through a review of a retrospective of his work at the Art Institute of Chicago. Very elemental, masterful stuff.

Except.

James Castle was born deaf; never learned to read, write, or sign; never left his parents’ farm in IDAHO; did all his work with WHATEVER HE COULD FIND, including, for his drawings, SOOT AND SPIT.

THIS MAN DID HIS DRAWINGS WITH SOOT AND SPIT.

Color? “Unknown source,” but probably SQUEEZED FROM MUSHED-UP COLORED PAPER.

HE MADE BOOKS. On found paper. Newsprint left over from someone’s typing lessons. Cardboard boxes. Leftover twine.

HE MADE SCULPTURES out of whatever the hell he could find to hand.

And I’m thinking, what the ever-loving ? What have I been playing at, with my blobs and “encroaching white” and fake perspective and pursuit of verisimilitude? All the notebooks and art paper and gouache and brushes? Nothing I’ve done, nor am like to do if I pursue these paths, has even one-tenth the power of the works of James Castle.

He was seeing things I don’t see, hearing things I don’t hear, walking paths I have no knowledge of. He did this in Boise, Idaho, alone, starting in the 1920s.

This is going to take a while to get over.

Here’s more:

• Wikipedia
• Greg Kucera Gallery
• Gallery Paule Anglim
• Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists
• “Touched into Being,” from Art in America, June 2001

I got so bored last night that I painted.

I had two paintings on my easel, Field IV and a self-portrait, but I had no vision for Field and no guts for the portrait, so I pulled out a blank board and started on it.

Different, yes? I mean, in some ways, like the fact that the foreground is two major blobs instead of multiple blobs, and they’re made of mixed colors.

I keep thinking there should be a very large object intruding from the left side of the canvas. I’ll keep envisioning that one.

Then I put up a piece of paper and began another self portrait, which you will forgive me if I don’t share here. It’s very sketchy, and my intent is to keep adding layers of paint to it and define my figure more and more as I go along.

Not at all productive, I don’t think, but hey, it’s paint on board and not in the tube.

Look at this little guy? Isn’t he cute?

I am not given, as a rule, to enthusing over such things in an overt, little-girl-squealy kind of manner, but last Thursday night we were in Decatur and visited one of our favorite stores there, Mingei World Arts, and there was a whole display of these bizarre, wonderful little creatures, about 50, all different and all of them reading.

I couldn’t contain myself.

I oohed and aahed so much over each and every one that I attracted the attention of the owners of the store who guessed correctly that I must have something to do with reading in my real life. I told them who I was, and they told me about the figures.

The school in La Union, Oaxaca, Mexico, has a library, but the children cannot take books home from there. And so Libros Para Pueblos (in Spanish, and the English button doesn’t seem to work) was formed to establish circulating libraries for the children. They can open a library and sustain it for a year for $1,000.

So the good ladies of Mengei cut a deal with the village of La Union, to donate 20% of the sales of these figuras, carved there in La Union, to Libros. I think I’m remembering correctly that they very quickly raised multiple thousands for the children.

Anyway, all of the animals are reading books. There were dogs and zebras and elephants and lions and mermaids and nearly everything you could think of. My favorite was a large cat, about fifteen inches long, with a rat dangling from its mouth, and the rat was reading a book. Of course, a figura that size is very expensive, about $200. None of them were cheap.

But I find Oaxaca wood carvings (follow the link and make sure you look at the galleries) irresistible. There’s something endlessly intriguing about them. The store had a lot more from other villages, larger, even more fantastical (and more expensive), but I had to have one of the La Union readers.

It took me a long time, but I finally settled on this little guy. His carver was Calixto Santiago, who appears to be somebody in the carving community. Color being what it is on computers, you’ll have to imagine his brilliant cerise coat, his vivid yellow eyes and book (which is purest lapis lazuli underneath), and his emerald green ears. He is no more than five inches tall.

There is some question as to his species. Others have suggested that he’s a jaguar because of his spots; I’m thinking he’s a rat because of his incisors, but he could be some other rodent. Anyway, I find him absolutely charming. I will be collecting more.

Not a lot on this one tonight. After a few swipes with the white paint, I set it aside to work on other stuff. You might not be able to tell any difference between this version and six days ago.