James Edward Deeds, Jr. (1908-1987) was raised in Christian County and was confined at the Missouri State Hospital No. 3 in Nevada for most of his life. While there, he made hundreds of drawings. His “electric pencil drawings” were first shown in 2014 at Art Inspired in Springfield, where artists with disabilities explore their creativity through art activities.
Ralph Doss Lanning (1916-2009)
was born and raised in Greene County, and also is well known in the
local art community. His outdoor sculpture garden of cement and carved
limestone figures was previously located in a roadside setting along
Highway 70 in Republic.
Sammy Landers (born 1957)
lives in a group home in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, where he has resided
since the early 1980s. He is autistic and a self-taught artist who uses
his art as a means of visual expression to communicate daily life
events. He draws human figures, plants, and buildings using markers,
pens, and crayons on paper.
Robert E. Smith (1927-2010)
lived in Springfield for 40 years and is well known to the regional art
community for his childlike mappings painted on canvas, often
accompanied with a letter or and/or a cassette tape. His work is
portrayed in a large mural downtown at the corner of Campbell and Walnut
streets.
Ed Stilley (born 1930)
is a preacher from Hogscald Hollow in northwest Arkansas. In his
mid-50s, he says he was told by God to make guitars from scrap wood and
give them away for free to children. By 2005, he had crafted more than
200 instruments with Biblical verses carved and painted on them.
Springfield photographer Tim Hawley recently published a book on Stilley
titled Gifted, which helped put the artist on the “outsider” map.
Lucille Stoll (born 1922)
is one of three included artists still living. Born at home in
Christian County, she has lived off of Highway Z all of her adult life,
painting landscapes in oils. After a stroke at age 73, she returned
exclusively to her childhood expression of making drawings with pencil
on paper. She is self-taught and has not previously shown her work in an
academic art venue.
Tim West (1938-2012) from
Winslow, Arkansas, is the only artist in the exhibition who was
formally trained, but due to family problems and his desire to live “off
the grid” in the woods, his art became more informed by visions of his
mental states rather than his exposure to an arts education.
Joseph Elmer Yoakum (1889-1972) grew up in Ash Grove and made hundreds of animated landscape drawings after an emotional breakdown while living near Chicago in the 1960s. Yoakum has yet to be given his due locally, even though he was featured in a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City one month prior to his death.