Contrary to claims by other great cities, New York City is still the capital of the art world. A handful of bluechip galleries create art stars and determine values, big auction houses brand them, and critics write about them. Although the contemporary art world likes to think of itself as open-minded and inclusive, it is tribal and conservative. As we all learned in high school, when there are insiders, there are outsiders.
From 1987 to 1995, I worked at Cavin-Morris Gallery, which is owned by Shari Cavin and Randall Morris, pioneers in the field of self-taught and folk art. It was a joyful space, reverberating with music, lively conversation, and the spicy bouquet of Jamaican takeout. Regulars included Jonathan Demme, Tony Fitzpatrick, Ellen Page Wilson, Bert Hemphill, David Byrne, Geoffrey Holder, Eric Bogosian, and the late playwright Lanford Wilson, who had just finished Burn This when we met. Lanford was an avid art collector and took a special interest in me because I had just moved to New York City from the South. We would talk about our respective Lowcountry and Ozark cultures (he was born and raised in Lebanon, Missouri) and how an artist can grow a rich lexicon of language and imagery over a lifetime by continually tilling the loam of a specific region. We also discussed religion. He was raised Baptist and I a Methodist. Then there was cheese. Lanford rhapsodized on the splendors of fine aged cheddar from the heartland with adjectives like “sulfuric” and “barnyardy.”
Such strong personalities kept things fresh and unpredictable in the front room. However, my education took place in the back with the storage racks. I couldn’t imagine a better classroom for a young painter, because it immersed me in the visions of artists who made work utterly devoid of cynicism. Self-taught artists don’t need the art world or its approval; they don’t even need art supplies. A ballpoint pen was a scalpel in the hand of Chelo Amezcua, and a mealy paste of soot and saliva on shirt board was all James Castle required to chart intimate and complex systems. Each created personal universes that would have arisen regardless of whether the art world was looking. Theirs is not art about art, but a way of fitting into this world by inventing another. I kept my pie hole shut and my eyes open.
An art school education is like an air bag. A trained artist can employ fluid drawing technique and deft color handling to create competent sophisticated paintings, but sometimes too much skill insulates the artist from the viewer. That insulation is missing in self-taught art. I developed a deep love for, and bought works by, Jon Serl, James Castle, George Liautaud, William Edmondson, Joseph Yoakum, Kevin Sampson, Gregory Van Maanen, and Bessie Harvey, paying off paintings in installments with a small percentage of each paycheck.
More than a job, that experience stamped my passport for entrance into the vast country of the New York art world by teaching me to avoid trends and stay grounded amid the cutthroat competitiveness of the market. Most of all, it taught me that if there is no inside, there is no outside, only good and bad painting. I’m a mainstream artist, but my heart beats with the mavericks.