Clothes of Stiched Photos

Kudos again to Accidental Mysteries for finding some beautiful art, so meaningful, so lovely, so weird. I'm posting this to all three of my blogs (here, Laundry Songs, and Twirlyword Poems In Motion) because this artist really touches all parts of my mind/being. It's clothes! It's poetry!! It's crazy (and think of what Agnes Richter would have thought if she had seen these....)

Jane Waggoner Deschner

work with found photographs

Looking for Photos of Agnes's Jacket

Disappointed that there are not photographs of Agnes Richter's jacket in Gail Hornstein's book, I searched the web and found this lovely blog entry:

The Lulu Bird: art inspiration: agnes richter.

Here are photos of the jacket that Lizzie took when she visited the Prinzhorn collection in Germany. Thank you Lizzie. (I really like her blog, too, about art therapy, not all that different from poetry therapy, or whatever else we call the intersection of art, madness, healing, and personal journey.)

Outsider Art

As I'm reading Agnes's Jacket, I'm learning all about art work created by people in institutions for the insane. This story will take several posts. The photos are astonishing. I hope to see some of these exhibits in person some day.

According to Wikipedia (I'm too tired to do my own research tonight) "A defining moment was the publication of Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) in 1922, by Dr Hans Prinzhorn." Here are some images I copied from the Prinzhorn Collection's website.

According to the website, "The core collection comprises approximately 5000 pieces of art created by approx. 450 patients of psychiatric institutions. These pieces comprise mostly drawings, water colors, writings, like letters, notes, drafts of books and exercise books, which were often self-manufactured, as well as oil paintings, material manual work, collages and 70 wooden sculptures." What a wealth.

Sunshine Almost Always Makes Me High

John Denver, you wrote a beautiful song. Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry. Thanks for thinking of all of us challenged by darkness, and writing about sunshine for us.

This is the view from my study window this morning. On a day like today, I don't even see the telephone wires.

I'm reading a fantastic book, Agnes's Jacket, by Gail Hornstein, and getting ideas for putting this blog together.

Hornstein writes people who have been mental health patients, "...when patients try to talk about what they've experienced, people turn away and don't want to be witnesses." Maybe I'll try to do something about that, with this blog.