The Art of Compulsion

If you’re quirky enough,

Howard Finster: Henry Ford fulfilling a prophesy

creative enough, and driven enough, you can become famous – even if you launch yourself at age 60  -- or 80.  

The proof is in the Outsider art exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where artist after artist became compelled, late in life, to do the only thing for which they are now remembered.

Take Howard Finster,  a revivalist preacher in Georgia who got a message from God, or so he believed. At age 60, while painting a bike, he believed that a white smudge on his finger had transformed itself into the face of God and directed him to make “sacred art.” He couldn’t stop cramming his paintings with small constructions and biblical texts, numbering, dating and time stamping each one until they totaled 48,000, said our tour guide, Art Museum docent Meighan Maley.

“He had a fascination for Henry Ford because there’s a prophecy that predicted a man would create a horseless chariot." Meighan explained.  "Finster believed that Henry Ford fulfilled that prophecy.”

Finster became famous in his lifetime, creating prize-winning album covers for groups like REM and Talking Heads, and appearing on the Johnny Carson show.

Sam Doyle drew islands's  first African American doctor 

Sam Doyle, who was born in a Gullah community on Helena Island, S.C., worked as a porter and laundry worker, only taking up art seriously in his early 60s.

 Working often in corrugated metal, he depicts people on the island, especially African American “firsts” – the first embalmer, the first doctor. His art was shown in 1982, three years before his death, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Felipe Archuleta

Felipe Archuleta

Felipe Benito Archuleta, who had worked as a field hand, stone mason, cook and carpenter, at age 54, unable to find work, prayed for help; God told him to carve sculptures. “His animals, to me, there’s a sweetness to them but there’s also a ferociousness about them. Something that reminded him that life was not always easy,” Meighan said.

But it’s Bill Traylor, who really gets the late start. The child of slaves, himself born a slave in 1853, Traylor worked his life as a farmhand. And at age 82, with no wife or kids around anymore, he moves 35 miles away to Montgomery, Ala. where he starts working in a shoe factory. But his hands are so arthritic, he can’t work and becomes homeless, sleeping in the storage area of a funeral parlor. Finally, “he sets up a  box outside a pool hall under an awning and just begins to create art from whatever he can find… scraps of paper on the ground,” said Meighan. A recent art school graduate,  impressed with his work, provides him with materials.

Runaway Goat Cart (Bill Traylor)

Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking (Bill Traylor)

Turning to Traylor's piece, “Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking, Meighan explains why he's recognized as one of the top Outsider artists, someone with no connection to what was going on in the art world, who nonetheless starts playing with perspective and shape, like the Cubists:  “He’s telling stories that are superimposed, juxtaposed. This is the interior and the exterior of a building," she said. A man in the doorway connects the two. Traylor "really becomes a master of using color, shape and space -- not only the shape of the figures but the negative space that surrounds them (the background) to convey movement and emotion to tell his story. He becomes very well known long after his death.”

Meighan Maley

Our tour had gone well beyond the hour allotted; Meighan's group was thrilled. Meighan, who worked as a hospital pharmacist for 20 years, was too.
"I retired in need of something that, in addition to taking care of my family, would fill my soul," she wrote me later in an email. As a volunteer docent, she said, "I quickly realized I found that 'it', which had been indefinably elusive for so long. For many reasons, this gives me joy."
Of the Outsider art exhibit, she said, "I didn't expect for the artists and their works to touch me so deeply."
The show, "Great and Mighty Things." made up of works from the  Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection, is open  at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through June 9, 2013.

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Leading the Way: Judy and Paul Farber

Keep opening doors. That’s what I vowed to do when I left my job more than a year ago. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get in a rut. And this week, once again, the small effort it took to detour from the usual path of my day made all the difference.

That's how I met Paul and Judy Farber, a remarkable couple who never skipped a beat after leaving their careers. The Farbers found their new paths in much the way I found them, on a guided Art Museum walk along Boathouse Row.

Park House guides Judy and Paul Farber, forever learning

We all started out as strangers the other day, a large group of about 20 people, quickly split into two. Paul, a soft-spoken man with a pleasant, round face, led my contingent down the slope behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, past the geometric garden designed by Sol LeWitt and the statues of six Revolutionary War heroes, only one of whom was born on American soil. (Already I was learning something). Paul knows his stuff. The neoclassical Water Works, he explained, was built in 1811, “to provide water to the citizenry – the first city to do this.” The pumps were initially powered by steam engines. “That didn’t work out because steam engines required wood and it was too expensive to run. They solved the problem by putting a dam across the Schuylkill River in 1821, at the time the biggest and longest dam in the United States, 1200 feet. It was also a haven for tourists, the second most popular spot after Niagara Falls,” Paul said.

Dodging bikers, we studied the city’s iconic Victorian boathouses, built after 1860 to replace the “ramshackle affairs” that housed the early sculls.

Soon a member of my group, history buff and rower Clifford Pearlman, pulled out his key to let us into the University Barge Club, where he showed off their 19^th century wooden “lady boat,” the Marguerite. With a two-person bench in the back, it was used to row women to social facilities owned by the clubs upriver.

Dating from the 1800s

By the time we reached the statue of the first Viking to land in America, (who turns out to be Thorfinn Karlsefni not Leif Erickson, as many think), we’d become a congenial group. Boundaries had been crossed, doors opened. Finally, we met up with the other half of our tour, who had wondered what had delayed us. Only then did I learn that Paul’s wife, Judy, was their leader.

So how did Paul Farber, DDS, PhD, who taught pathology to medical and dental students at Temple University, and Judy Farber, once supervisor of speech and hearing for the Philadelphia School District, come to be Park House guides?

“We went on a Water Works tour. We had never done that and we’d come to Philadelphia in 1969. We both loved it,” said the chatty, ebulient Judy, who is the same age as her husband, 75.

“We were talking to the guide and we said, ‘How do you get to do this?’ They were starting a new class. We applied, were interviewed and started the training program. It took a year and a half of going to classes one day a week from 10 to 3. We were checked out for various tours and became guides.”

The training doesn’t end there. “There are continuing education classes and trips to historic sites,” Judy said. “We are reevaluated every two years. Paul was just evaluated, and I was reevaluated a few months ago.”

They’re not paid except in the satisfaction and stimulation that they get. “I love it,” said Judy. We both say this is for us. I don’t consider this good works. I love the stories, the people stories. We learn so much.”

Their transition, Paul explained, began with their decision to move from the suburbs into the city.

“That was a big step,” Paul said. And then counseled:

“Don’t let it go too long because it’s a physically demanding thing to move. It’s also a liberating thing. You have to take stock of yourself.”

And downsizing to two bedrooms was a gift to their children. “Otherwise you’ll leave the job to your heirs. We left our kids a good legacy.”