Collector Horror Story

Protagonists: Single mother artist who has been making her living as an artist for the last 25 years while raising a child and a multimillionaire couple from the West Coast who have made millions as land lawyers.

At a well-known art fair, after haggling on the $2400 price, and because they claim to be collectors, the rich couple get a 10% discount from the artist and then the couple buys an original oil painting from the artist. They want the work shipped to Los Angeles, and the artist refers them to the professional shipper at the fair.

Then the multimillionaire couple complains about the shipping fee by the professional packers, and the artist offers to pack the work after the fair is over and ship it to them at a lesser cost. They agree (and save $100 in the process) and agree to have the artist charge the shipping fee to their credit card.

The artist packs the painting - which is an oil on board - by bubble wrapping it and boxing it and then she sends it via UPS to the couple in LA at a cost of $150.

The painting arrives at LA and then the artist receives a call from the wife, stating that there are some "scratches on the back of the painting" and "can she ship it back to the artist" so that the artist can fix them - remember that this is a painting on board, and the artist had painted the back of the painting a flat black to seal in the board... the back of the painting.

Even though this has zero effect on the visual integrity work, after the artist has the wife describe the damage, which the wife clearly describes as "scratches on the back," the wife also discusses making a claim against UPS for damage in shipment.

The artist asks if the box is damaged in the shipment and the wife says no, so the artist tells the wife that if the bix wasn't damaged, then the scratches could not have happened during the shipment process, and that it's probably some slight scratches from shipping the work back and forth to the fair and maybe even from hanging it, and that it doesn't affect the work, but that she will fix it anyway, by painting over the scratches on the back. She asks if there are any damages to the front and is told no.

So the couple ships the work back to the artist, using the artist's DHL account at a cost of $100 to the artist.

When the painting arrives, the artist is horrified to discover that a whole corner of the painting has been broken, and it is not in the box, a sure sign that the piece was broken before it was re-packed and sent back to the artist.

She calls the couple and the wife tells the artist that it was probably broken in transit and that the artist should make a claim against DHL. When the artist points out that the broken corner piece is not inside the box, the wife then changes the story and insists that the painting had originally arrived to them in the same condition when the artist shipped it from the fair.

The artist then reminds the wife that the wife had described initially the original damage as "scratches" on the back of the piece, and even reminds the wife that they had discussed the front of the painting and the wife had stated that there was no damage on the front.

Caught in the lie, the wife retracts her statements and says that she's "not an artist" and thus couldn't describe the damage. She also says that her interior decorator is now a witness that the painting had arrived broken.

The artist tells the wife that she has three witnesses that the painting had not been broken when bubble wrapped and boxed, and since the shipping box showed no exterior damage, and since significant force was needed to break the board (such as dropping it from a height or stepping on it), logic indicated that the damaged had occurred after the painting arrived at LA.

Wife ceases communicating and then later calls the artist and tells her that she's put a stop payment on the credit card charge.

What I think happened: The painting arrived, possibly with some minor scratches on the back of the board. The wife being the asshole that she proved to be, wanted them fixed. At one point when the artist (on the first conversation on the issue) asked what the big deal was if the scratches were on the back, and was told that when they had hung the painting on the wall, they could see the scratches -- the painting has a base that floats the board away from the wall -- indicating that they had hung an OK painting on the wall at least once. Then at some point the painting was dropped by the couple and the corner broke, or more likely, the laid it flat on the floor and then accidentally stepped on the floating corner and broke it -- it takes a lot of pressure to break this board.

Then, instead of being good people, they decided to screw a single mother artist out of $2100, plus $150 shipping to LA plus $100 shipping back to the artist.

Multifuckingmillionaires who this weekend will probably go to their place of worship and pretend to be good, decent people.

On behalf of all artists in the world: fuck you!

The Pittman WPA Scam

Some asshole is using the WPA Online Artfile to try to scam artists. If you get an email from ssgpittman115@yahoo.com, claiming to be from a soldier in Iraq, delete it and send the originator a mental curse in the name of some ancient god.

Here we go again: Dexter & the Cubans

I do realize that this issue of mine is such a jingoist thing, and I am also keenly aware that I've written about it before in a different scenario, but the more we become aware how culturally blind Hollywood is, the more they underscore their own cultural stupidity with minute mistakes that keep adding up to colossal mountains.

Last year I bitched when Jimmy Smits, a superb actor on his own, was chosen to play the lead part in the CBS drama "Cane."

My historical issue was that Jimmy Smits is a great actor, but not what your typical Cuban sugar magnate would have looked liked in the racist Cuban society of the late 1950s and the Cuban-American refugee wave of the early 1960s.

CBS picked Smits, a brilliant actor, I guess based on their perception of what a Cuban looks like (Smits is not of Cuban ancestry... his father, Cornelis Smits, was a Surinamese immigrant from Dutch Guiana, and his mother, Emilina, is Puerto Rican).

This is what the person that Smits' "Canes" character was loosely based upon really looks like...

That is him and his also Cuban wife to the left... but because, like a lot of Cubans, he looks too "Anglo" and not enough of what Hollywood (and CBS) want all of us to think that Latinos should all look like, they hired a terrific Emmy-winning Surinamese actor who fits the sterotypical image of what Hollywood thinks Cubans should look like, to play the lead part.

Latinos are a culturally, racially and ethnically diverse group of people, and we're not all made of one mold, as Hollywood wants you to think.

So that was then, and here's what has me all spun up in a tempest in my demitasse.

Currently my absolute favorite TV show is Showtime's "Dexter."

If you haven't seen this show, then go and rent seasons one and two out on DVD and then get hooked.

In the series, Michael C. Hall is absolutely brilliant as a serial killer who works as a blood expert for the Miami Metro Police while hiding the fact that he is also a serial killer. Dexter goes after bad guys, but he is still a truly disturbing psychopath pretending to be normal while killing bad guys left and right in a very orchestrated manner.

Dexter is television crime drama at its best.

Because this is set in Miami, several of the regular characters in the series are portrayed as Cuban characters, such as Dexter's boss, Lt. Maria LaGuerta, played superbly by Puerto Rican actress Lauren Velez and detective Angel Batista, also played superbly by Puerto Rican actor David Zayas.

Now enter season three, which introduced a new character, that of Asst. District Attorney Miguel Prado, another Cuban character played by, yep that's right: Jimmy Smits!

Smits is a terrific actor, and since by now he seems to be making quite a decent living playing Cubans on TV, the least that Showtime can do is hire some Cubans to write their Spanish dialogues for the series so that at least he can sound Cuban.

I know that this is pedantic, but everytime that the "Cuban" characters speak to each other in Spanish banter, it is grating to Cuban ears to hear "non Cuban" being spoken.

Imagine that you are watching a foreign movie, let's say a French movie... and all the dialogue is in French, and two British actors are in the film playing American parts, and every few minutes they speak to each other in English, and instead of American English coming out of their mouths, what comes out is cockney English.

That's what (in my pedantic world of Virgoes) I have to suffer everytime that LaGuerta, Batista and/or Miguel Prado talk in Spanish.

The straw that broke the camel's back a few episodes ago was when Miguel Prado (Smits) jokingly called Dexter a "filipolla" (or "gilipolla").

That's when I realized that whomever Showtime has hired to write the Spanish for the series, not only has no idea about what Cuban Spanish sounds like, but also zero idea of what Latin American Spanish sounds like.

Having lived in Spain for a few years in my 20s, I know what that word means, which is essentially a curse word used by Spaniards; let me repeat that: Spaniards, to mean asshole or jerk, etc.

I am almost 99% sure that no Cuban in Miami or Cuba or anywhere else in the Great Cuban Diaspora, has ever called anyone a gilipolla, unless perhaps they live in Spain and have picked up the term there... from Spaniards.

But in Miami? Naaaaaaaaaaaah...

A Cuban would have said "Maricon" or perhaps "Cabron." But fili/gilipolla? Nunca!

Now imagine those two Brit actors playing Yanks in my earlier French movie example, calling each other "arseholes" or "wankers."

Welcome to my pedantic hell.

And now for Showtime: My list of actor candidates who are actually of Cuban ancestry and thus a shoe-in for the part and who actually fucking speak Spanish with a Cuban accent:

Andy Garcia (duh!!!! perfect for the part!... but probably too classy and too expensive to do TV).

Nestor Carbonell. He was great in "Canes" and also in "Lost City," although I think that he wears eye make up?

Mel Ferrer... ah!... I think he's dead.

Desi Arnaz... fine, fine... he's definately dead; but how about Desi Jr.?????

Jorge Perrugorria

Cesar Romero ... fine! I know that The Joker is definately dead.

Julio Mechoso

Ruben Rabasa

Victor Rivers

George Alvarez...

Showtime: call me.

Guns and Hypocrisy in the World of Modern Art Blogging – An Old Testament Point of View... with a Little Bit of Humor.

A guest piece by James W. Bailey:

There's been a rumor floating around the art blog circuit the past couple of weeks concerning a reported incident involving an UCLA art student who supposedly brought a gun to an art class being taught by artist/teacher Chris Burden (the dumb-ass artist who in the 70s had himself shot in the arm with a rifle) and who proceeded to scare the shit out of his classmates by threatening to commit suicide right in front of their very imaginative MFA-high-tuition-paying eyes. The rumor also suggests that this frightening suicide attempt was nothing more than a dramatic performance art piece offered up in tribute to Burden.

When I first read the breaking news reports (properly vetted, of course, through rigorous journalistic art blogging standards and practices) echoing across the Internet among certain highly credentialed art bloggers, I nearly fell out of my vintage cane back rocking chair on the veranda of my ancestral Southern Gothic mansion in Mississippi with a seizure brought on by endless waves of laughter generated by the possibility that such a poignant story could in fact be true. I actually laughed so hard over this comic what-goes-around-comes-around scenario that I probably spilled half of a bottle of my father’s finest Jim Beam bourdon through the ancient cracks of the veranda into the inspiring Mississippi soil resting silently underneath my genteel family’s Ante-Bellum Greek Revival abode – hopefully, that whiskey will inspire some truth to sprout up out of the ground about this rumored gun issue.

But the more I laughed over these gun reports, the more I realized that something really wasn’t very funny about some of what I was reading on some of these art blogs. I retired inside to the library, gathered my composure, poured another stiff drink, lighted one of my illegal Cuban cigars given to me years ago by a former County Sheriff (a righteous Southern dude who's currently serving time in a Texas federal prison because of his excessively close association with the infamous Dixie Mafia) and began to harmonize on this matter of Guns and Hypocrisy in the World of Modern Art Blogging.

And here it is...

Full Disclosure: I’m from Mississippi; I’m a hard-core anti-political Southern anarchist artist who holds most hierarchical powers that be in total contempt; and I’m also a member of the National Rifle Association, as was another radical Southern-born anarchistic artist/writer by the name Mr. William S. Burroughs (who I am honored to say I counted as a correspondent friend before his death in 1997) on all counts.

Southern liberals with guns - it's a Deep South religious thing that I will not waste valuable server space on DC Art News site explaining or justifying. Let me just simply comment that I’m indeed an extreme liberal Southern artist who knows a thing or two about how to use firearms.

GUN REPORT: I'm especially transfixed by the ease of use and accuracy of the M9 Beretta 9mm. If guns had existed in the Old West Biblical era Holy Land, our savior Jesus Christ would have carried a M9 Beretta 9mm. The M9 semi-automatic pistol weighs two pounds and has a maximum effective range of 50 meters. It has a staggered 15 round magazine with a reversible magazine release button that can be positioned for either right- or left-handed shooters. The M9 is a semiautomatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated, double action pistol, chambered for the NATO 9mm cartridge. The service pistol is a close personal defense weapon and is deadly accurate.

I take it that the dumb-ass art student at UCLA, just like his counterpart art teacher back in the day, weren't deploying real weapons. I believe Burden used a .22 caliber rifle -good for shooting squirrels and pulling off art stunts, I suppose, but not for killing people. I’m anxious to learn what weapon the dumb-ass art student was packing. No doubt whatever his combined student loan and art scholarship could afford – minus all deductions for condoms, beer, nightly internet porn hook-ups, black market electronic goods and male hair care products.

Anyway...

I also know a thing or two about speaking direct to the subject without gagging on the coughed-up phlegm of politically correct speech patterns designed to convey my false sensitivity on issues of such national importance as some dumb-ass art student walking into a classroom and trying to one-up his more famous art teacher who himself pulled a pre-MTV Jackass stunt way back in the day when smoking cheap pot with long-haired anti-Vietnam War radicals and burning American flags made in Mexico while reciting English translations printed in the Philippines of anti-capitalist poetry by Mao was considered chic (Of course, many of these committed raging sincerely angry artists remained true to their dream to change the world, grew up, got married, settled down in Northern Virginia, went to work for the defense industry mind-melding their software programs into a more efficient satellite guided missile killing system and now enjoy nothing more than having missionary position sex once a quarter so they can ease into a post-coital reading of their online 401k statements to see how the market is treating them).

A certain collection of the more dedicated art sensitive radicals, however, settled into similarly comfortable life styles of "teaching" art at the university level... as if art can be taught.

But that's a fraud subject for another day.

Chris Burden and Guns -

I don't know Chris Burden, I've never met Chris Burden and I don't give a damn about anybody named Chris Burden. I' not inspired by bullet holes in Chris Burden' body anymore than I'm inspired by the entirety of Chris Burden's body of work. I don't consider him to be a great artist. I do believe that he must be a smart and clever person to have parlayed his 70s era gun stunt into the career, success, fame and money he now enjoys - that I do find inspiring. I also recognize that he has undertaken significant efforts during recent years to divorce himself from Shoot because he wants to be perceived as an architect/artist.

Chris Burden is a married 57 year old member of the art elite who lives in the lap of luxury in California – I've actually seen his home as a friend of mine in California once lived mere blocks from Burden. In short, Burden has a lot invested in his public perception and has demonstrated in the past his fruitful ability to manipulate the press for his own gain. This rumored dumb-ass art student gun stunt will probably prove out to be yet another example.

But, for the sake of argument...

The Dumb-ass Art Student –

What can I say? If everything is true as is reported on the art blogs (and God knows that if it's reported on a left coast art blog it must be true), then he's a dumb-ass. But in my libertarian/anarchistic world even dumb-ass art students, just like dumb-ass art teachers, ought to be protected by a little thing called Freedom of Artistic Expression. This kid didn’t shoot anyone and it wasn't a Columbine situation. For Christ sakes, everybody I knew in Mississippi as a student carried a knife and/or gun to class and we never experienced a major life threatening knifing or shooting. Some serious wounds? Sure. But I don’t recall anyone ever dying.

The angry froth among certain art bloggers over what UCLA should do to this student is laughable. UCLA knew exactly what they were getting when they hired Burden. Indeed, they gleefully promote the Burden-style attitude on their web site.

The Department of Art is committed to a professional art training within the context of a liberal arts university. Visual artists are responsible for some of the most provocative and enduring expressions of culture. At UCLA, emerging artists are provided with the tools they need to express themselves in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work.

The department attracts gifted and motivated students who thrive in an environment that encourages autonomy. They are drawn not only to the outstanding creative faculty, the University's resources, and its location in one of the world's leading art centers, but also to a program that encourages them to develop as artists. The result is a distinguished list of graduates who have made significant contributions in their field.

I assume the school provided the dumb-ass art student "with the tools they need to express themselves" – a gun – "in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work."

What's curiously missing from Burden's bio (he’s a professor of "new genres") on UCLA’s web site is any reference to Shoot. One wonders why...

Supposedly, according to the rumor, Burden has quit teaching at UCLA because the university has refused to expel the offending dumb-ass art student.

Imagine UCLA hiring a paroled Charles Manson to teach a creative writing class, having a student of his class decide one day that he’s going to one-up Charley by ritually killing the Dean and his family in the hopes of being imprisoned so he can become an American Icon (serial killers in America automatically qualify for Pop Icon status), going to trial and being acquitted for lack of evidence, re-enrolling in Charley’s class, and having Manson scream, bitch and moan that UCLA has to either expel this kid or he's quitting.

Moral of the story: Be very careful about elevating Asshole Pop Icons to Sainthood and be even more careful about whom you hire to work for you.

Chris Burden and the dumb-ass art student and whether he pulled a loaded gun and fired it or didn't and whether Burden and the art students were scared or not is irrelevant to me. It's almost like worrying about some multi-millionaire asshole in California who might have had Frank O. Gehry build a titanium-sheathed house on a steep dirt mound and having it slip down the side of the mountain into the ocean after God decides to take a drunken piss on the left coast. In a world where a Tsunamis can kill hundreds of thousands of poor people, the problems of a gargantuan narcissistic ego-jackass not being able to find his precious Ferrari under 50 feet mud don't amount to jack-shit.

Or put it this way: If you're an aspiring artist who believes you've got to get an art degree to be taken seriously in the art world, don't be a sucker for an MFA at UCLA because it damn sure doesn't guarantee a Whitney Biennial invite. Find better things to do with your art time than sitting in a class being manipulated by an AARP member-eligible art dinosaur and subjecting yourself to the risk of being shot by an ADD dumb-ass art student sycophant.

Theo van Gogh and Guns – My Only Serious New Testament Concern

Here’s what happened to Theo van Gogh in the real world that I care about:

Van Gogh had received death threats after his film "Submission" was shown on Dutch TV. See the film here.

It portrayed violence against women in Islamic societies.

The film was made with liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who fled an arranged marriage.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection since the film was aired. She has also received death threats and has renounced the Islamic faith.

For making this film, Theo van Gogh was rewarded by being chased down like a dog and repeatedly shot by a radical extremist Islamic right wing piece of shit that was part of an organized conspiracy. The murderer then placed a note on van Gogh’s bloodied corpse and slammed a knife into his chest.

And the reaction from the art world elite on this crime – silence.

The reaction from the art blogger community – near silence.

Theo van Gogh was slaughtered on the streets in Amsterdam by a bunch of radical conspiring religious assholes that hated him and his art and who believe they have the perfect right to kill anybody they target to advance their sick agenda.

I am deeply troubled that the art world has yet to rise up and demonstrate its collective outrage over what happened to Theo van Gogh. But the deafening sound of silence over this matter is not a mystery to me – the art world establishment has boxed itself into a corner with its politically correct doctrines and now finds it almost impossible to defend controversial artists such as Theo van Gogh and what should be his basic right under the concept of Freedom of Artistic Expression to express himself, even if some of his views were indeed intended to be insulting to certain people.

The reasoning among the politically correct art elite goes something like this: "Well, it’s a real shame about van Gogh, but he really brought it all on himself with his outrageous words and art and should have been more sensitive about offending the deeply and sincerely held religious views of some of the minority members of his community. If his art had just been more culturally sensitive, this horrible crime probably never would have taken place."

I find it appalling that so much energy has been spent writing so many words that have been posted over a host of art blogs that express such outrage over what the dumb-ass art student did or may have done concerning this still rumored event at UCLA. Where were these moral voices, or anonymous internet-handle-delivered words, when Theo van Gogh was violently killed in the real world? I have taken the time to review some of these sites and find it very interesting that there was at the time, and has been since, a dearth of expressed outrage.

I think I know why: The Fear Factor – In this country it is perfectly acceptable to the art world elite to be an artist who pisses on the Bible, smears cow shit all over a statue of the Virgin Mary or rams a photograph of the Pope up the ass as a performance piece. These people get extolled. You can even make an anti-Bush "documentary" and become a goddamn millionaire, win major international film prizes and have people back home hype you for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Sure, the usual right wing Republican assholes jump up and down and demand your grant money be rescinded, but that’s usually about as far as it goes. The talking heads get to chatter and the offending artist or filmmaker gets invited be on "Larry King."

But the cultural elite here and abroad know this fact for sure – if you dare insult Islam by pissing on the Koran or smearing cow shit over a statue of Mohammed or ramming a photograph of any radical Islamic leader up your ass as a performance art piece, you will have just guaranteed that your butt will be placed on the world-wide Jihad Art Assassination Squad fatwa hit list and that your name and address will be broadcast nightly on Al Jazeera.

Even the younger generation of art bloggers has heard of Salmon Rushdie, I hope.

I am very grateful to DC Art News for publishing my letter the day after Mr. van Gogh was brutally murdered condemning the extremist conspiracy of religious fanatics responsible for his death.

My letter can be read here.

I am also very grateful that there are other voices out there in the art world wilderness speaking with clarity on this issue.

Here is one of the very few: Peacetalk.com.

I am profoundly grateful to Mr. Pieter Dorsman for his bravery in staying on top of this story.

Artists and art bloggers need to stand up for higher principles than the false immediacy of politically correct doctrines that seem to be so highly valued in the insulated world of those who pose no risk, and dare not to pose a risk, to the established order.

And if certain parties in the art blogging community are unwilling to risk their lives standing up in defense of a consistent definition of Freedom of Artistic Expression that protects every creative person no matter how offensive their words or art, then at least do us all a favor by engaging in a modicum of basic fact checking before hyper-ventilating about meaningless art rumors involving dumb-ass art teachers and art students who like to play with toy guns out in California.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

FACT CHECK:

I called and/or emailed the following parties to verify if the above referenced rumored story was true. The truth of this rumored story can not be confirmed by any of the following parties that I have communicated with as of Wednesday, January 19, 2005. Chris Burden has not responded to my email.

1.) Editorial Staff of the Los Angeles Times

2.) Editorial Staff of the LA Weekly

3.) Editorial Staff of the The Daily Bruin

4.) The Office of the District Attorney of Orange County

5.) UCLA Department of Art

6.) UCLA Chancellor’s Office

7.) UCLA Department of Security

8.) Personally emailed Chris Burden

By James W. Bailey

James W. Bailey's Art-O-Matic List

You didn't expect James W. Bailey to just send me a list of his top ten artists from Art-O-Matic, did you? Here is Bailey's list, at nearly 2,000 elegant and passionate words:

James W. Bailey’s Top List of Angels and Devils Working the Mystery of God in Art-O-Matic 2004

Art-O-Matic 2004 – A Mississippi-style Juke Joint of Art

The Religion of the Juke Joint

"The juke joints in Mississippi are the only place in the state where God and the Devil get equal time." James Edward Bailey, my great-grandfather.

"I’ve been to Art-O-Matic 2004 and I’ve been Slain in the Spirit. There are angels and devils working mischief in that building and thank God for it." James W. Bailey.

What does it mean to be Slain in the Spirit?

Being slain is a phenomenon that is sweeping through many Pentecostal-Charismatic churches in the South today. When "slain" people are knocked on the floor unconscious, some shake, some laugh, or lay paralyzed unable to move. Many Charismatic leaders are teaching that believers need to experience the "slaying" often. However, there are some reported extreme manifestations of this behavior where some "slain" individuals have stripped and exhibited lewd behavior. A few churches have even organized patrols to monitor their congregations because of the high amount of sexual immorality that has been manifested.

So the question is this: is being "slain" a God thing?

Catfish Alley – A Young Mississippi Boy’s Perspective on Cutting Edge Art

I was born and raised in a small, quiet genteel Mississippi town called Columbus. My hometown is famous for two things:

1. Being the birth place of Tennessee Williams.

2. Having a treasure trove collection of Ante-Bellum Greek Revival Plantation Mansions that were never destroyed during the Civil War because the Yankees decided at the last second to attack and destroy a nearby town called West Point.

As a young boy, however, the thing that interested me more than anything else in my hometown was the Black Culture and Music that was to be found in a blacks-only business and Juke Joint district called Catfish Alley; Catfish Alley was off-limits to whites. Whites partied in their bars and blacks partied in their Juke Joints and the two cultures never dared cross that racial line.

My father, however, was a fireman and I used to visit the mysterious and wild Juke Joints of Catfish Alley with him when he would make annual fire inspections.

The African-American community found its niche and prospered in Catfish Alley. Former post-Civil War era servants developed their own businesses and civic life from the part of town known as "Catfish Alley," which is actually a block on 4th Street South between College Street and Main Street.

According to the late Dr. E.J. Stringer, a Columbus, Mississippi, civil rights leader, politician, minister and dentist, Catfish Alley was the hub of activity for rural blacks who came into town to sell fresh vegetables and the catfish they caught along the way.

"Long before the 1940s, there were provisions to either sell the catfish uncooked, or cook it on the spot and sell it by the plate. When it was cooked, the aroma of the catfish filled the air, thus the name ‘Catfish Alley’. As long as I can remember, Catfish Alley served as a place where laborers gathered for transportation provided by employers, and it was a place where people congregated to talk and to exchange news and ideas. It was the site of black-owned businesses and professional offices, and a place for people who made a difference in the black community." Dr. E. J. Stringer.

Dr. Stringer, who once had his dental office in "The Alley," said that his greatest desire was to see people get along; to achieve oneness of community. He died in 1995.

When I was 8 years old I walked into a Juke Joint in Catfish Alley with my father on a fire inspection and was first Slain in the Spirit when I saw the most amazing collection of Mississippi African-American outsider and folk art that was hanging from every square inch of available wall space.

I had never seen anything like it. Standing in the presence of this incredible collection of art produced by people I had never heard off, featuring imagery I had never seen, left me breathless. I had never been exposed to the voices and imagination of black people in my home state in such a personal, powerful and emotive way. I knew that God was working through the people who created this art to send a message to the world. I stood there transfixed trying to understand what God was saying through these works of art.

The Blues of Art

Down in Mississippi, we have a saying, "You ain’t heard it if you ain’t listened to it." In the world of Blues music what this means is this: If you think you’re listening to the real Blues when you pay $500 for a scalped ticket to an intimate plush venue to hear an English "blues" guitarist sing the "blues" while you and your date sip on Heinekens, then you ain’t really ever heard the real Blues.

To hear the real deal, you’re gonna need to slip back in time, wind your way down South to Mississippi and find a Juke Joint. The real Blues is played by people you’ve never heard of: Musicians and singers like, "Preacher Peacock" Morgan, David "Three-Strings" Jones, Bill "Sunday School" Taylor, Johnny "T-Rex" Martin, etc. These people never had a recording contract, never cut a record, but played their hearts and souls out at Juke Joints that have long disappeared. But people did hear them, though. I am one who bears witness to voices of Angels.

Art-O-Matic 2004 – I Went Down Into The Diamond Mine To Find A Diamond And Discovered The Rough Instead

Art-O-Matic is a Mississippi-style Juke Joint of a Diamond Mine of Art. Sure, there’s a lot of rough stuff there; and there are some diamonds. But the rough stuff gives birth to the diamonds, not the other way around.

Lenny has mentioned that he has noticed a lot of the Top Ten Lists are gravitating toward a common theme. I have noticed that as well. That troubles me. It’s too easy to go into a diamond mine and shift the chafe for the wheat and pick out the diamonds that fall easily to the bottom of the basket.

No disrespect to the creators of the diamonds, many of whom I know and respect, but their diamonds have already been, for the most part, presented in the sanctuary of the white cube space. I climbed down into the diamond mine looking for the raw energy, the troubling elements, the fractured particles and the substance of the rough stuff that gives birth to the diamonds.

Walking into Art-O-Matic 2004 sent me reeling in the years back to being 8 years old and walking into that Juke Joint in Catfish Alley in Columbus, Mississippi. I found art and artists that I know God has spoken through.

I wasn’t looking for the diamonds to develop my list. I was looking for the Devil Himself to jump right out of a whiskey bottle and pop up in my face and dare me to drink that bottle. The works of the artists who have made my list did just that.

To have a personal conversation with God you have got to first dance with the Devil. These artists have put their vision ahead of every other consideration and have walked with the Devil and talked with the Lord.

I could have easily chosen another group to list. I went with the powerfully spiritual feeling that overwhelmed me with those works I saw during my two visits.

Most of these artists I don't know and have never heard of. A few I do know. One young woman, whose name I will not name out of respect for her privacy, has already tasted the sting of censorship with two beautiful nude photographs in a recent regional exhibition. Her two photographs in question are on exhibit at Art-O-Matic. Art-O-Matic is to be commended for supporting the exhibition of challenging works of art.

The Devil will not silence these artists.

If you’re looking for diamonds, they are some to be found at Art-O-Matic. If you’re looking, and willing, to explore deep into subterranean world of local art, you will see some amazing stuff.

For those artists, art critics, social critics, critic critics and others who spend more time destroying than creating, know that part of my Scots-Irish Mississippi personality wants to engage you in an endless debate over the merits of Art-O-Matic.

Indeed, I do have certain issues myself. But they related to organizational issues. I believe Art-O-Matic needs to become a artist member not for profit 501(c)3 organization because I believe the enormous energy of the artists who are so passionate about this event needs to be brought together in a more effective way to sustain, market and promote the event.

But for those relentless critics of Art-O-Matic who will never be satisfied, another part of my personality wants to just say what we say in the beautiful Magnolia State when we are just plain worn-out arguing with knuckle-heads over their stupidity. We cut them off with a big Rebel Yell and scream, "Fuck all Ya’ll!"

I offer my following list in the revolutionary spirit of radical anarchist activist, Abbie Hoffman, of "Steal This Book" fame.

I dedicate my list to the vision and integrity of Philip Barlow. May Mr. Barlow’s vision for OPTIONS 05 be presented sometime, somewhere, somehow. If I have selected just one artist who might represent just a particle of Mr. Barlow’s vision for OPTIONS 05, then I have done something important.

Steal This Art Today List! - The following artists present work worth the minimum risk of a serious art collector being charged with felony grand theft in their efforts to steal work from right out underneath the nose of the artist because these works show great potential of future increases in value. If you’re an asshole art collector, get the work of these artists now and pray the artist commits suicide in a very tragic and high-profile public fashion, thus driving up the value of your collection. These works are insanely under-priced for value. For those art collectors who care about deeper issues with the art they buy, know this: These artists are talking with God. Their conversations with Him are interesting.

My list is in alphabetic order, like the way my momma taught me. I choose the following:

Chuck Baxter
Shannon Chester
J. Coleman
Teresa Ghiglino
N. John Grunwell
R. Will Helms
Dale Hunt
M. Erin Hunter
G. Rashia Linendoll
M. Lisa McCarty
M. Iver Olson
Stefanie Pierpoint
Megan Raines
J. Kim Reyes
A. Bailey Rosen
D. Lisa Schumaier
Luis Scotti
Anna Shakeeva

To all the participating artists of Art-O-Matic 2004, I say stay true unto yourself and unto your vision.

Rock The Art!

James W. Bailey

Experimental Mississippi Photographer

Of all the moronic, dimwit, tunnel-visioned, agenda-driven, academic, peer-pressured reasons to clamor and claim (for 40 years now) that "painting is dead," this is probably the only good reason to kill painting.

Warning: The link above is rather gross, as it depicts artist Keith Boadwee in the process of "painting" via the use of his asshole. This is definately "mixed media."

And this artist may be a close second.