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USA
South
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New Orleans, LA
Herbert Singleton, Jr.
1945-2007
Relief carving (wood), biblical scenes
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Information:
""I was born May 31, 1945, off the Algiers Point right here in New Orleans," declares Herbert Singleton, Jr., one of the most innovative, self-taught wood carvers working today. "I was raised in a two-room shack with my mother and seven sisters and brothers. My grandma and aunt lived in the row house next door. I still live in Algiers.""
"Singleton began carving more than twenty-five years ago. He made clay snakes and baked them in the oven for the original Voodoo Museum on Main Street. Then he switched to carving wooden totem poles and crucifixes with chicken "hands" pierced with spikes. "The person runnin' the shop would tell me what to do. We'd go out onto tour boats with the stuff. I used to do it in clay, so I figured if I could do it in clay, I could do it in wood. So I started working in wood," says Singleton."
"It would be practically impossible not to be shaped by the destructive nature of African-American ghetto life, and it seduced Singleton. Singleton's fraternization with gangs, pimps, and prostitutes and his use of illegal drugs led to numerous encounters with the law and incarceration in prison. He has served three terms, totaling thirteen years and seven months."
"Now he tries to mind his own business, striving to steer clear of "confusions" and support himself with his art. Relaxed, sinewy, and fit with a cigarette dangling from his lips, he claims to hold no rancor about the jail time he has served."
"In 1989, Singleton began carving the large bas-relief panels from found objects that comprise his most brilliant work. The source for these frieze-like carvings are doors and panels that he salvages from old, discarded oak and cedar "robes" (chifferobes). He sketches directly onto the wood, then sets to work carving. He primes the finished pieces, then paints them in primary colors with enamel paint. Since a bas-relief panel can take two weeks from start to finish, Singleton has been experimenting with carving one or two pieces at a time, priming and painting them together, instead of working on ony one piece at a time. He finds it less frustrating."
"Singleton's vernacular vision stems from the familiar experience and struggle of life in an urban ghetto as he lives it, and from Biblical events, which come, fortunately, as a calming counterpoint. The images and characters that fill Singleton's carvings are inspired by that seething street life and read like an autobiography. It is no coincidence that the themes of death, police brutality, prison life, and elements of the drug subculture resonate graphically in his art. Because of the subject matter, his work can cause discomfort."
"Singleton can disturb with the raw horror of a Ku Klux Klan lynching and the depiction of the sordid and dehumanizing activities of a nightclub's patrons or he can give a tragicomic twist to the protocol of picking cotton on a prison chain gang where a prisoner "ain't gonna be first, won't be the last" with the amount of cotton for harvest daily. Singleton can also exult with his version of the second line dancers at a a jazzy New Orleans funeral march and with his rambunctious Mardi Gras scenes. His Biblical pieces are awesome."
""My ideas just come up," he explains. "Like I see 'em in the wood sometimes, at the start of the piece. Mostly I work it out in my own imagination. I don't believe in no spirits," says Singleton. "All those potions, palm reading, witch doctor rituals only give you confidence by proxy. The only way you can solve your problems is by yourself.""
"But it hasn't been easy. Though his endurance is remarkable, can he continue to support himself as an artist? Singleton gives a flip-flop of a smile, but he answers with certainty. "Yes. It's all right. I'm skinnin' makin' it, you know. It keeps me goin'.""
Excerpted text and all images are from Outsider Art of the South by Kathy Moses
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Bibliography:
Outsider Art of the South by Kathy Moses (Schiffer Publishing, 1999)
Raw Vision Magazine
"Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists" by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, New York, 1990.
"Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide" Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, 1996.
"20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993.
"Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, 2000.
"Let it Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection" by Lynne E. Spriggs, Joanne Cubbs, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Susan Mitchell Crawley, Michael E. Shapiro and Peter Harholdt, organized by the High Museum of Art, 2001.
"Souls Grown Deep: African American vernacular Art of the South", Vol 1, Arnett, et al, 1995.
"Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon" by Ellin Gordon, Barbara L. Luck and Tom Patterson, exhibit catalog for The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, 1997.
"Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South: the Ronald and June Shelp Collection", Cronwill, Danto, Gaither, Gundaker and McWillie, 2001.
"Wos Up Man?" Selections from the Joseph D. and Janet M. Sheen Collection of Self-taught Art" Palmer Museum of Art, 2005.
Slotin Folk Art Auction Catalog, Masterpiece Sale, November 4, 2006 |
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