online grottos
Howard Finster's Paradise Garden
Fred Smith's Fabulous Wisconsin Concrete Park
From 1948 until 1964 retired lumberjack Fred Smith spent most of his time building sculpture
throughout his property south of Phillips, in the heart of Wisconsin's north woods. He
created over 250 sculptures of concrete, embellished with glass and other materials, and
called his environment the Wisconsin Concrete Park.
Grandma Prisby's Bottle Village
Grandma Prisbey used no formal plans as she built 22 structures made of bottles in Simi Valley,
California. From 1958 to 1978 she worked alone on her village, using the local landfill as her quarry.
The Walls of Pasaquan
That Eddie Owens Martin, creator of this fabulous environment near Buena Vista, Ga., was a crackpot
is hard to deny. A fortune-telling ex-street-hustler, he created a personal religion that enshrined
himself as a saint and his family farm as a holy place. Yet the strength of his vision is so great as to
make his spirituality not only palpable in bricks and paint, but even credible.
Grottos of the American West
Throughout the American Midwest are examples of a
distinctive folk building tradition. Known locally as grottos, these structures are built of concrete studded
with glass, stone, ceramics, and sometimes whole objects.
S.P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden
Samuel Perry Dinsmoor, a retired schoolteacher, Civil War veteran, farmer, and Populist politician,
began building the Garden of Eden and Cabin Home in 1907 at the age of 64. For 22 years he fashoined 113
tons of cement and many tons of limestone into his unique "log" cabin with its surrounding sculptures.
He opened his home to guests, conducting tours on the first floor and though the yard from 1907 until a
few years before his death in 1932.
Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project
The Heidelberg Project is
an outdoor art environment
in the heart of Detroit
- a bridge
-a seed
and a beacon
for the people of
Heidelberg Street, the city
of Detroit, and beyond.
It is a demonstration of the
power of creativity to
transform all those whose
lives it touches.
Joe Furey's Urban Grotto
She was flabbergasted, she said, when she first entered the
railroad apartment at 447 Sixteenth Street. Its last occupant, retired ironworker Joseph E. Furey, had
completely covered every surface (but the floors) with brightly painted cardboard appliques, shells, and
other found objects. Beginning the apartment's transformation after the death of his wife Lillian in 1981,
Furey had moved out seven years later, in July 1988, after he was twice attacked and robbed by crack
addicts.
For a few pictures and some informative text on Salvation Mountain, a garishly painted vernacular sacred site in the Southern California desert, created by 64 year old Leonard Knight
Stonehenge Clones & Metaphorms
What is less well known is that Stonehenge has given rise to many replicas and "metaphorms"
(variations in which its form is used as a metaphor) in the United States of America....Here is a handy list of Stonehenge clones and other neo-neolithic metaphorms in North America, with
illustrated web sites noted (and web-authors credited in parentheses).
Stone Pages "On these pages we introduce some of the most interesting megalithic and other archaeological sites in Europe."
Shrines & Nature
Shinto is a religion based on the natural world
around us. In many early shrines, the main hall
was not a building but a mountain or forest. This
can still be seen at Miwa Shrine in Nara Prefecture.
There are still many places where a shimenawa
rope is strung around a tree or large rock. These are
also thought to be holy areas and the places where
gods dwell.
the grotto of Ghar Dalam
Apart from confirming certain geological knowledge, the grotto of Ghar Dalam provided the very oldest
evidence of man's presence on the island.
A digital grotto in its beginnings. Here are a few photographs from the Dickyville Grotto in Wisconsin.
Blowtorch Gallery of outsider art. ...digital media mixed convergence information design repository here now...
Jim Roche on the Artists and Unsigned, Unsung
"Over the years, it was the artists themselves as much as the work that fascinated me: the story
of how the artists started or what got them going, the "make- do" part of it. Take what you have, bring it
up to a supposed 'higher' style and celebrate something about your life.
YARD DOG FOLK ART GALLERY features the work of folk, outsider, and visionary artists of the American South: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North & South Carolina, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas. These self-taught artists live in big cities, small towns, and on farms.
The Outsider Pages: Folk and Outsider Art
searcher's outsider art quest...
Visionary Art
"It was in the early years of
the century that a few
enlightened psychiatrists
and doctors first made the
discovery that art was not
solely in the domain of the
cultured artist. Works which
for generations had been
ignored and destroyed at last
began to receive recognition
as a vital and legitimate
form of art..."