Outsider Environments Europe

this picture by Decoh, licensed under Creative Commons

When in the late nineties of the former century I began searching the internet for information about art environments in France, I soon came along an abundantly decorated house, with a picture of a big cat, created by someone named Chop.

On the internet this creative construct mainly got attention from touristic websites, french sources dealing with art brut having no information about this spot (up till now most of these still haven't, btw).

In april 2013 however, Sophie Lepetit wrote about this site in her weblog, referring to an article in a french newspaper, which had some background information. So`with this information I now can present the story.

this picture and the next three courtesy of Yvonne Rieschke

Life and works

Chop was born in 1947 in Paris. His mother being a young unmarried girl, who couldn't care for him, he for some months was left behind with a sloppy family, then was cared for by an aunt, who lived in the Yonne area. This background has made him decide to hide his family name to the public and always use a pseudonym.

As a young boy Chop already was attracted to make paintings, preferably on large surfaces, since already then he thought one should be able to "bathe" in a painting.....

At 18 he went to Paris, earning his living with various small jobs. He also must have stayed some time in Amsterdam, but returned to Paris, to be active as a street painter in the Quartier Latin.

It is not clear whether or not he attended any art classes, in Paris and/or Amsterdam The newspaper article has no information about this, but I suppose he is a self-taught artist.

Anyway, in 1969 Chop left Paris to wander France, but soon, in 1970, he settled in the small cabin in Venas he bought with some friends, but finally had for himself.

In and around this house, where he would stay for the rest of his life, he could fully express himself in his own artistic way. Chop likes the music of Chopin (indeed, the pseudonym is taken from this composer), and his way of doing, as well as the way he has transformed the cabin into an art work, has many baroque characteristics.

Interior and exterior of the cabin have been decorated abundantly in vivid colors, inside everywhere there are candlesticks, Louis XV costumes, bizarre clocks, objects with painted eyes, items that represent the seasons.....

It is understandable that Chop in particular has got publicity through touristic websites, because he soon got fame because of the special tours in and around his house he would offer tourists who visit the region. And then, Chop is also is rather skillful in raising publicity

Dressed in a Louis XV costume, wearing a wig, Chop entertains small groups of visitors with a very personal and dynamic performance, explaining that nature and the seaons are his source of inspiration: Nowadays artists are not interested in flowers or leaves, they only take purely intellectual things. Me, I sublime life and death through nature, as he is quoted in the newspaper article.

Chop is beyond this time, an outsider in his own right, who has made a wonderful, very interesting art environment, maybe not to everyone's taste, but since when is that a critrion?

Documentation
* Article in Echo du Berry, november 2008 (in french) (in dutch)
* Article by Yvonne Rieschke on her website Art-en-France (in dutch)
* Weblog of Sophie Lepetit, april 13, 2013
* Video (3'14", Daily Motion, TV France 3 Auvergne, aug 2007) (sorry for the un-skipable introductory commercial)

Chop

Maison "couleur des temps"

Petit-Clémagnet

03190 Venas

guided visits (30 min) in summer daily, except tuesday 15-19

Chop

Jo Farb Hernández' new book about art environments in Spain is ready ! It will be available for the public in december 2013.

Published by Raw Vision, Singular Spaces. From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments has 595 pages and 1306 color photo's to document, describe and analyze over forty art environments in Spain, most of these having been created by self-taught artists.

Director of the US association that aims to save and preserve singular sites, SPACES, and of the Thompson Art Gallery in San José, California, USA, Jo Farb Hernández with her new book has provided the field with both scholarly analyses and a wealth of documentary material, which -apart from text and pictures in the book- is available on a CD with site plans and over 4000 pictures.

Exhibition

In conjunction with the publication of the book, during october 2013 the Thompson Art Gallery has an exhibition that features with photographs, documentation and selected artifacts spanish art environments.

Among the artists presented at the San José exhibition, are Joseph Pujiula (Labyrint environment, Argelaguer) and Francisco Gonzàlez Grajera (Capricho de Catrino)

(Most well known internet booksellers already accept orders)

picture via streetview

One of the houses in a small social housing project south of Boulogne in France, dating from the sixties of the former century, has an exterior that has been abundantly decorated, both with mosaics and all kinds of figurines, self-made and bought on flea-markets Above picture shows the decorated house, adjacent to a standard one *.

Life and works

Mrs Marie-José and mr Jean-Marie Moren in 1987 came to live here.

In the late nineties, mr Moren, who had a job as a mason, because of physical problems had to stop working

Around 1998, just to have something to do, he began decorating the exterior of the house by adding mosaics to the low wall that separates the terrace in front of the house from the street.

this picture and the next ones courtesy of Laurent Jacquy

He also embellished this low wall with kind of arcades, made from concrete.

Menawhile, mrs Moren began filling the terrace with nains, other figurines, decorative shells, trinkets and various small objects.

This creative activity became the Moren couple's full time passion. In the course of some fifteen years the exterior of the house has grown into an ensemble of bric-à-brac, that by its large size and motley composition makes a rather special impression.

Mrs and mr Moren, nowadays around sixty, spend all their time in supplementing the collection, ransacking flee markets and garage sales in the near and distant surroundings, even as far as Belgium.

Jean-Marie Moren has also made a number of smaller creations from wood or concrete, depicting animals, some in the form of two-dimensional silhouettes, others in a three-dimensional version.

It does not happen very often, that a rented house is transformed into a creative environment. In Belgium Jean-Pierre Schetz transformed the exterior of his rented house into a "corner in the sun", which has been demolished by the housing company after he and his wife had died.. It remains to be seen what the future of the creative project of the Moren couple will be.

Documentation

* article in french newspaper La semaine dans le Boulonnais, august 14 2013

* article in Laurent Jacquy's weblog Les Beaux Dimanches, sept 30, 2013

note

Grand merci to Laurent Jacquy who informed me about this site.

Marie-José and Jean-Marie Moren
Paradis de statuettes
3 cité de la Dunette
62151 Neufchâtel-Hardelot
can be seen from the street (along departmental route D 119)

Grotere kaart weergeven

pictures are screenshots from the 2012 video (see documentation)

Biagio Lapolla (b. 1934) probably by tradition had one or two scarecrows in the kitchen garden of his property in the Italian community of Matera (Basilicata)

Having worked for some thirty years at a nearby company that processed grain, in 1981 he became retired.

It so happened that Lapollo then made or reconstructed some scarecrows for his vegetable garden.

This triggered him to continue doing this, but then in a creative way, garnishing the constructs in colorful clothing, which over the last thirty years resulted in a garden with dozens of multicolored scarecrows, all made from discarded material and used clothing.

Lapolla regularly changes the arrangement of the items in the garden, which constantly provides a lively and colorful appearance, often very much to the delight of traffic coming along on the main road.

I would like to acknowledge that this post is based upon the information in the website Costruttori di Babele, edited ny Gabriele Mina, up to now the only internet source that has documented Lapolla's outsider environment.

Documentation/more pictures
* Article in website Costruttori di Babele, with pictures
* Video made in 2012 by Francesca Ferrero/Costruttori di Babele (4.01, Youtube, uploaded oct 2012)

Biagio Lapolla

Giardino di spaventapassen

along road 7

Matera, IT

can be seen fro the road

Sala's house, seen from the street

picture courtesy of MeiX, Panoramio

On the corner of two streets in the small community of Sant Joan les Fonts (Girona area of Catalonia, Spain), a house distinguishes itself from the other houses in the street by its lush vegetation around and the many sculptures that decorate it.

Life and works

.
This is the house where Joan Sala (b. 1942) lives and works. Born in Sant Privat d'en Bas, Sala married in 1967 and settled in nearby Sant Joan les Fonts.

The couple had acquired a plot of land at the outskirts of the community and, being a mason, it was no problem for Sala to build a house on this plot. He constructed it "on the go", saving trees that already were present on the plot, one tree now grewing through the balcony.

ensemble "La Familia"
in the middle of a roundabout (via streetview)

Mid nineties of the former century, so when he was in his fifties, Sala began making sculptures.

Although he had no formal training in sculpting at all, he rather soon managed to master sculpting techniques and he would work with hard, difficult to process rocks like basalt and granite. Some of his sculptures got a spot in the public space of the town, such as the ensemble "La Familia", pictured above, that embellishes a roundabout near his house, and the ensemble "Las Amigas", pictured below.

picture courtesy of MeiX, Panoramio

Up to now (2013), Sala has made almost a hundred sculptures, including large and elaborate ones.

another view of the house (via streetview)

In 1998 Sala began decorating his house, by adding sculptures to the exterior. The main entrance on the carrer Josep Ballvé (above) has a number of these sculptures,

side view, around the corner (via streetview)

Around the corner , in a sidestreet, one can see sculptures added to the exterior wall: some upright standing sculpted persons from cement with blue mosaic (amongst whom Gaudi?) and a large white sculpture of a lying young woman in a classical pose, situated above an entrance door.

On the roof (not pictured here) there are highrising decorated colums that support birdnests, with a lot of birds (storks?) around.

And then, in front of the house, across the street, amidst thicket, there is anorher set of sculptures

sculptures opposite the house, across the street (via streetview)

Transforming a house into an art environment from 1998 untill now, is a rather long-term construction process, similar to the time other outsider artists spend making their creations. Reporters who in 2001 made a tv program about Sala's art environment, named it l'altra Sagrada Familia, the other Sagrada Familia, referring to the Barcelona basilica which is under construction for years and years.

Actually, Sala has made a sculpture depicting Gaudí and the Sagrada Familia.

picture courtesy of MeiX, Panoramio

As far as I can ascertain, the internet has no evaluative review of Sala's artistic production. This could change with the publication in october 2013 of Jo Farb Hernandez' book Singular Spaces, which has a chapter about Joan Sala..

Documentation/more pictures

* Personal website of the sculptor

* Joan Sala's Facebook page, with pictures of details of the house
* A thorough review of the site and its author in Jo Farb Hernandez, Singular Spaces, 2013
* Slideshow on Panoramio, pics by MeiX of sculptures
* Video, an interview with Sala, in catalan (12'33", Youtube, september 2013)

Joan Sala

Casa del escultor

carrer Josep Ballvé, nr 10

Sant Joan les Fonts

Girona ES

can be seen from the street

Joan Sala weergeven op een grotere kaart

view from the road via streetview

His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were blacksmiths, but -as his father had said- this profession at present era would offer him no perspective. So André Debru became a service technician, caring for the machines of the farmers in the area.

However, the craft of the earlier generations definitely has influenced him to process metals into artistic creations. It has been reported that as a boy of eleven he already used iron leftovers to make some creative construct.

unless indicated otherwise pictures are stills

from the Jada video (see documentation)

While working as a mechanic, in addition to this job, he would collect all iron items and leftovers he could lay his hand on and processing these into creative constructs.

In 2002 Debru decided to definitely settle as a (self-taught) metal artist, a ferronier d'art.

Just outside the small community of Les Costes Gozon, in the countryside of the Aveyron area (France), he has his workshop, crammed with a stock of all kinds of iron objects and components, which might be used in his creations..

In front of the workshop and on the grassland at the side, a number of his sculptures are exhibitioned, some of these being rather big, such as a giraffe, a rhino, an elephant, a bear, a bull, the Obelix and Quixote characters .......

Aa the pictures show, Debru puts his creations together by assembling a lot of smaller items and elements, arranging these in such a way, that the resulting composition is a rather realistic representation of the animal or the personality. In this way, for example, the body of the monumental elephant has been made from thousands of small squares of metal..

The workshop is open to visitors, when Debru is there, and he will like to innform them about his activities.

On a blackboard against a wall, it is announced that one is visting the "Debris of Debru"....a rather humourous approach to his work, which also can be seen in other expressions of the artist.

Sculptures in public space

In the course of the years a number of Debru's larger creations have got a place in public space. One remarkable job, commissioned by the town, was the decoration of a roundabout in Roquefort, where they make that famous cheese.

Debru created an ensemble depicting a shepherd with a flock of (chrome) sheep.

via streetview

Documentation, more pictures

* Article on weblog Eldorad'Oc, marcheur en pays d'Oc, october 2013 (in french)

* Article on touristic website Black Rabbit (in english, undated)
* A video by Jada (7'50", Youtube, uploaded feb 2009),

André Debru

Les débris de Debru
Le pradalas (D 527)
12400 Les Costes Gozon
Aveyron, Midi Pyrénées FR
can be visited when the artist is present

André Debru weergeven op een grotere kaart

courtesy of Marcello 13 (Flickr)

Today, november 11th 2013, is the date of the first lustrum of this blog. In november 2012 I presented some statistics about the blog's first four years, so in line with that presentation, here are some stats about what happened last year (Data as produced by google's blog statistics on november 10, 2013).

Number of visitors
Per november 9, 2012 the all time number of visitors was 123.000 (rounded down), on november 10, 2012 the all time number was 209.550, an increase of 86.550 visitors during last year, or an average of 237 visitors a day.

Page views by country, top ten

country 2008/13 rank 2008/12
2012

1. United States 41232 (1) 22088
2. Netherlands 32327 (2) 19625
3. France 24028 (3) 15414
4. United Kingdom 18189 (4) 11374
5. Germany 9383 (6) 5311
6. Italy 8270 (5) 5830
7. Spain 5239 (7) 3445
8. Poland 3778 (-) --
9. Russia 3698 (9) 2353
10.Belgium 2618 (10) 1981

The most interesting conclusion from the table above is the relative stability of the order of the countries of origin of the visitors in the top ten. Most of the countries have the same rank order as compared with a year ago. Finland however left the 8th place in the top ten, to be replaced by Poland.

Most directly searched environments, top ten (eh.....nine)

site 2008/13 rank 2008/12
2012

1. Floc'h, Girouettes 1945 (-) --
2. Tatin, Musée 1856 (-) --
3. Garcet, Tower 1388 (1) 1144
4. Abbé Fouré, Rochers 1216 (10) 374
5. Cheval, Palais Idéal 1136 (5) 613
6. Litnianski, Jardin 1097 (4) 615
7. van Genk, Bus station 1051 (2) 997
8. Mercier, Chateau 821 (-) --
9. Chomo, Preludian art 650 (3) 635

First of all, why nine and not ten? That is because two posts about Abbé Fouré both ranked high, the one about his life and works had 688 views and the one about the action to save the site had 528. Since this all about one site, I added the numbers, and so the Fouré site earned the fourth place (last year nr 10), Since the statistics by Google only have results for the top ten, I could not figure out which site would be the tenth after I did this excercise with Fouré.

There are some newcomers: Floc'h, Tatin and Mercier, and some sites have left the top ten/nine: Sinistö, Vasseur, Bentivegna and Leegwater. But then, there is a rather stable cohort in the top ten: Garcet, Fouré, Cheval, Litnianski, van Genk and Chomo, not surprisingly of course.

Trying to explain these moves would be speculation. Only in the case of Tatin I noted that a referral to my blog in an article about this artist on the Facebook page Outsider Art, directly resulted in a large influx to the note on Tatin in the OEE blog.

all pictures courtesy of Igor Novelli

above the house in 2007

One would think that shell decorated houses and creative constructs are mainly located in coastal areas and in general this is also the case *. But of course there are exceptions **, such as the one in Verona, Italy, presented in following post ***..

Life and work

Angelo Cerpelloni (1923-2006) was born in the small community of Quinzano, a suburb of the town of Verano, Italy, some four kilometers northwest of the city center.

After having been employed in various jobs, he became a mason. Around 1951 he married a young lady from Milan and the couple settled in this city. They had two sons.

In the early seventies Cerpelloni got tuberculosis and was declared unfit for work. To live a more quite life, as suggested by his physician, he moved to Quinzano, where he went to live in kind of a barn he had inherited from his father. For economic reaons his wife and sons stayed in Milan.

When his health improved, but being without prospect of a job, he began reconstructing and enlarging the rather humble dwelling, adding floors, balconies and a roof garden, doing this without any training in this kind of constructive work.

It is not clear at what time Cerpelloni began embellishing the exterior wall with shells, probably it happened when structural works were well advanced. Neither is it very clear how he obtained the large quantity of shells needed to cover all walls.

There is a story that friends offered him these shells as a souvenir of a seaside holiday. This may be so, but to decorate the exterior walls, large quantities of shells are needed, so is it plausible that friends bring loads of common shells?

Anyhow, in the course of some fifteen years of creative actvity, Cerpelloni has transformed his house into a shell decorated art environment, with shells -both rare and common ones- laid in geometric patterns or in representations of trees, fishes, and the like.

The interior has been decorated too with smaller compositions of shells

The house has been restored

After Cerpelloni died in 2006, the inheritors sold the property.

It was considered as hazardous by the neighbors and needed some restoration indeed. The local authorities showed no interest in what they saw as a foolish creation, but the new owners bought the house with the intention to renovate it in a way that would somehow respect its artistic aspects.

Although the local authourities wanted to demolish the house, the Italian Heritage board intervened just in time and a restoration project was implemented.

This project, completed in 2010, has taken three years.

It involved the removal of the upper balcony and the roof terrace. Unfortunately, over half of the exterior decorations have gone lost and the decorations in the interior are no longer extant.

But then, a number of characteristics of Cerpelloni's creation have been preserved and still can be admired from the street, which is more than can be said about creations elsewhere, that are completely gone..

Documentation/more pictures
*Giada Carraro, La casa de las conchas, in: (webmagazine) Revista sans Soleil/Estudios de la Imagen, vol 5, nr 2 (2013), pp. 224-232 (in spanish, abstract in english)
* Article on website Costruttori di Babele (in Italian)
* pictures of Igor Novelli on Flickr

notes
* for example the houses in Dartmouth (UK), Thyboron (Denmark), Pont ar Manc'h (France), Cullenstown (Ireland) and Tazones (Spain)
** for example Watford (UK), Saint Gervais (France)
*** I gladly acknowledge that this post draws heavily upon the extensive field research by Giada Carraro as reported in her article referred to in the documentation; interpretative aspects are my responsibilty

Angelo Cerpelloni
La casa delle conchiglie
Via Prelle 37
Quinzano, suburb of Verona (Veneto, Italy)
can be seen from the street

Cerpelloni weergeven op een grotere kaart

pictures (around 2011) courtesy of Marion Hanna

In the small community of Lézardrieux, on the north coast of Brittany, France, mr and mrs Pellé almost twenty year ago began decorating the garden around their house.

Life and works

Beacuse of the 1994 festivities of Quatorze Juillet, René Pellé. who was a carpenter, constructed a mill, he subseqently put in his garden.

This was the beginning of a lifetime project for René and his wife Huguette. In the course of the years René has made all kinds of wooden constructs, such as cabins, light houses and carriots, but also two- and three-dimensional animals and various other large and small items..

Huguette's share in the project is to paint the constructs, which she often does in blue, a color she likes, and then she will also provide the costumes for the life-sized puppets that animate the wooden constructs..

These puppets have been made in a rather simple way by using straw or a comparable easy to manipulate material to give shape to the body, a mask as a face and used clothes to dress them. Neighbours will help the couple in gathering sufficient material.

In the course of the years the garden has grown into a colorful, charming and alternate assembly of creative constructs.

I couldn't trace information about the data of birth of mrs and mr Pellé, but I suppose they are from the thirties, so they now (2013) may be approaching or be in their eighties.

Documentation, more pictures

* Paskal Larsen, "Art brut, art du bord des routes en Bretagne" in: webmagazine Foutraque, 26-3-2006

* More pictures on the Art Insolite website

René & Huguette Pellé

7 rue Saint Jean

22740 Lézardrieux

can be seen from the street

pictures from the article by Francesco Ranucci
(see documentation)

This post is about an art environment in Italy, created between 1930 and 1940.

It looks as if the internet just has one primary source that describes it, i.e. the article from 1981, referred to in the documentation, written by Francesco Ranucci, descendant of the man who created the site.

Life and works

Born in the Italian community of Viterbo, Vincenzo Lucchesi (1864-1940), got a job at the court in the Palazzo di Giustizia, in nearby Rome.

In 1894 Lucchesi inherited a farm with a large area around it, kind of an estate, just outside Viterbo, a property that had been acquired by his ancestors in 1712.

In 1930, probably after Lucchesi had retired, he began transforming the wooded area near the farmstead into an art environment, painting tree trunks so that they imagined people, making lifesize puppets, adding posters with texts and creating all kinds of scenes.

The general idea behind the creative setting was to show, by depicting people and everyday scenes, the way of life in Viterbo and Rome around 1900 as Lucchesi had experienced it,

So the puppets depicted personalities such as police officers, monks, ballerinas, etc and the scenes included the gelataria (ice-cream shop), the pasticceria (pastry shop), a tobacco shop, a café etc.

Described as a cheerful man, Lucchesi likely enjoyed to welcome visitors who wanted to see the site.and up to old age he has remained active in its maintenance.

After he died on November 1, 1940, the site has fallen into decay.

The farmhouse nowadays is an ecotouristic B&B, named "La Meridiana Strada". On its website the memory of Lucchesi is kept alive.

Documentation
.*Francesco Ranucci, "Vincenzo Lucchesi ed il suo Eremo", in: Bibilotheca e societá Viterbo, 1981, nr 2-3 (sept), pp 51-53
* Babeleviterbo weblog
* Costruttori di Babele website

Vincenzo Lucchesi
Eremo
Via Cimina
Viterbo, IT
no longer extant

Aedifiare vitam est.....constructing that's life... this describes rather well the typical state of mind of all these non-profesional builders who -as so many creators presented in this blog- devote a large part of their life to creating something they consider as essentially beautiful.

Life and works

Born in an agricultural area in northern Holland in a family with ten children, his father early deceased, Chris Goedhart as a young boy experienced a lot of poverty, he tried to soften by dreaming away in an old Dutch magazine with lots of images of classic Italian structures.

He preferred a blocks set as a toy and made himself small building blocks by allowing cement to harden in matchboxes.

this and the next picture courtesy of Fred Tiep,

from his website on making walks

Once adult he could buy an old farmhouse, which he renovated for twelve years.

This project being completed, he turned his desire to build on creating an Italian dream garden, fascinated as he was by classical mediterranean architecture.

To protect a palm in the garden against the winds that can blow firmly on the flat countryside of northern Holland, close to the sea as it is situated, Goedhart constructed a wall.

This was the beginning of a forty-year project, resulting in a wonderful garden with various gates, arches, pillars, cascades, a Roman bath, ponds and a tea dome.

Goedhart's art environment is an ensemble of carefully constructed classical works with a focus on the beauty of forms and without fuss. It is the sheer joy of building as such, what drives him. Aedifiare vitam est

In the Netherlands the site is appreciated by lovers of gardens and the members of the dutch branch of the British Folly Fellowship.

Documentation
*Link to a webpage with a video of a dutch tv program (2011) with scenes of Goedhart ssurrounded by his family, his birth place, his constrcutive activities and the garden as it is nowadays

Chris Goedhart
Iatliaanse droomtuin
Koningspade 37
1718 MP Hoogwoud NL
can be visited on appointment

the museum
pictures are screenprints from the video
referred to in the documentation

Forgotten in the nineteen twenties, the work of a french selftaught sculptor after ninety years has been re-discovered.

Life and works

Born in the small community of Saint Romain la Motte (near Roanne, Rhône-Alpes area in France), Pierre Martelanche (1849-1922) was in his early twenties when the 1870 German-French war took place, an event which may have affected him deeply.

He had various jobs, but ultimately became a winemaker.

During many years of his life there were no indications that he was going to develop creative activities, but then at age fifty, around 1900, he began making sculptures.

The story is that one day, coming home from work, he cleaned his shoes from the clay he had collected while at work and got the idea to make a vase out of this material, an item needed in the household......

True or not, it was the beginning of a new phase in his life which would last untill his death: making sculptures from clay as a self-taught artist.

He created isolated sculptures, as in above pictures, but also a number ensembles of people and plates with bas reliefs.

A number of these plates have been attached to the walls of a small cabin in the garden of the family house, which gradually became entirely filled with plates and sculptures, his Petit Musée.

Martelanche's art work has a highly allegorical content.

He was a strong advocate of education for all children, especially for girls, he demonstrated his preference for the republic and laïcité (i.e. the situation where religion has no place in public life, in France nowadays a basic principle).

He proclaimed the great value of justice, peace and progress....

the inscription reads La Paix Par Tous (Peace Through All)

The walls of the small cabin that houses the museum are covered with inscriptions that express his views.

It is quite possible that the basis of his creative work is not so much the urge to make beautiful sculptures, but rather the need to bear witness to his social views.

The reports about Martelanche, referred to in the documentation, make no mention of his feelings regarding the horrors of the 1914-1918 world war, about which he must have learned at older age.

In 2011 the site has been rediscovered

After Martelanche died in 1922, the Petit Musée fell into oblivion. Gradually, other than the family, no one knew of its existence.

This lasted for some ninety years. Then in 2011 a great-grandson approached Jean-Yves Loude, an ethnologist who with his wife Viviane Lièvre and a donkey, in preparation of a book, travelled through the region.

The couple saw the importance of the work and alerted relevant stakeholders in the region, who all became interested in saving the creations for the future.

Meanwhile the local authorities have arranged that a building in the center of Saint Romain la Motte is available to house a cultural centre, a work shop and rooms to show and maintain Martelanche's creative legacy.

Realization of this centre is dependent on obtaining the necessary financial ressources.

Documentation
* Webpage of the Association of friends
* Weblog Jean-Yves Loude, here and here (in french)
* Video by avp-diffusion for Roanne local tv (Daily Motion, 4'01")

Pierre Martelanche
Saint Romain la Motte, Loire, FR
extant, but not (yet) available for visits by the public

Authored by Jean-Louis Bigou, in november 2013 a new weblog has been published, entitled De l'art improbable aux jardins insolites dans l'Aude et les environs. Portraits de personnes qui interviennent dans leur environment, par l'objets ou de sculptures. (From improbable art to unusual gardens in the Aude and surrounding areas. Portraits of people who intervene in their environment by objects or sculptures).

Aude is a department in the south of France with a centuries-old history, in the Languedoc-Roussillon area, best known by its cities Narbonne and Carcassonne.

picture from Jean-Louis Bigou's weblog

Art improbable

Art improbable is a rather new term. As is best demonstrated by above picture, it has to do with (ensembles of) smaller objects used by people to decorate their place of living.

Not all items in this category will be covered by the description. As Jean-Louis Bigou says: Pour être improbable, la création ou l'installation doit avoir un caractère, tout au plus décoratif mais surtout pas volontairement artistique (To be improbable the creation or installation must have a character, which at best is decorative, but certainly not intentionally artistic).

This can be considered as an interesting approach, which might open a new sub-field in the area of outsider art environments.

a scarecrow, picture from Jean-Louis Bigou's weblog

Art environments

As regards art environments the new weblog since november 2013 already has paid attention to a number of creations in the south of France, such as those by René Escaffre, Robert Mathey and Joseph Donadello, which in France already got internet publicity on a national level.

But then the new weblog also has the story of sites about which in France on a national level the internet only has limited information. A good example is La Maison Fleurie in Lézignan, created by Antoine Puéo. (On my blog a year ago I had a short message about the proposed demolition of the house).

The same goes for the sculpture garden by Georgette and Hubert Bastouil.

The boundary between art improbable and art environments obviously being fluent, it will be exciting to see what insights and information the new blog will bring us.

all pictures courtesy of Ann Davey

Thirteen years ago, in february 2001, George E. Howard's Shell Garden in Southbourne, UK, a site beloved by locals and holidaymakers, was suddenly destroyed.

Howard loved to adorn his site with inscriptions, mostly carved into stone tablets. Here is a selection of these inscriptions, from the weblog Cream Tea Club, republished here with friendly permission of its author Ann Davey.

Above inscription says:

It's not the man who knows the most
who has the most to say.

It's not the man who has the most
who gives the most away

And this tongue-twister:

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you

Keep on smiling and the world smiles to

A quote from Shakespeare:

To see much is to learn much

About an wise owl:

A wise old owl lived in an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke,

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can't we be like that wise old bird.

And to conclude:

The dawn of the morn for glory,

The hush of the night for peace,

In the garden at eye says the story,

God walks and his smile brings release

More inscriptions on the Cream Tea Club website. Enjoy !

pictures courtesy of Antonella Fadda from the website ghilarzaedintorni

above picture is a still from her video

Ghilarza is a community of almost 5000 inhabitants, located on the Italian isle of Sardinia.

Life and works

Born and all his life living in this community, Fellicu (actually Raffaele) Fadda (b. 1932) was educated in a family that respected religious values and he himself would share these values.

Fadda had a job as a mason, but at age fifty he entered another career, becoming a selftaught sculptor.

His sculptures have been mostly made from basalt, abundantly available in the region. Fadda would make sculptures of animals, but in general one finds depictions of people, often with a religious connotation or reflecting Sardinia's earliest and recent history and its traditions.

Fadda first made small busts, and then, experiencing he was on the right track, he went to make larger creations, both stand alone ones and ensembles.

The sculptures with a religious connotation offer a variety of holy persons, shepherds at the manger, depictions of love and charity, compassion, motherly care, love between people....

Epiphany

Sardinia is known because of its nuraghi, ancient stone towers of various sizes, created by stacking bricks without any grout. Fadda's sculpture garden has references to the megalithic secrets of the island where he was born, such as a megalithic stone construct, kind of a dolmen, with three standing stones and a cover stone, lifted with instruments Fadda constructed himself without any study of archeology.

Another stone construct made by Fadda is reminiscent of the megalithic structures on the isle of Malta.

Among Fadda's sculptures that refer to Sardinia's recent history we find a statue of Sardinian authoress and Noble prize winner Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) and a statue of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), the Italian philosoper and poliitical leader, who when young lived in Ghilarza (The house where he lived now is a museum dedicated to his life and works)..

Nowadays (2014) in his early eighties, Fadda for over thirty years has been active in making sculptures and I suppose the number of his works is in the hundreds.

Documentation

* Fadda´s personal website, edited by his daughter
* Trailer of Un Facteur Cheval en Sardaigne, movie by Giuseppe Trudu (Youtube,aug 2012' 2´48`', with Fadda talking about life and works, voice over in french)

* Lithos, video by Angelo Fadda in honor of her father (Youtube, jun 2012, 5´10`)

Fellicu Fadda

Sculpture garden

Ghilarza, Sardinia, IT

visits on appointment

all pictures courtesy of Jean-Louis Bigou

In the community of Montséret near Narbonne in southern France, an ensemble of sculptures is under construction*, which although there are links to outsider art, best could be qualified as an art environment

Life and works

Born in Nîmes (southern France) in 1971, Florent Hamel had a difficult childhood, grewing up in a disadvantaged area of the city. He joined the graffiti scene, making realistic pieces on walls. In this scene it is customary to work with aliases, and Hamel invented his nickname Spiktri, he currently still uses.

Spiktri refers to spiral. carré (square) andtriangle, or life, male and female, concepts and symbols which stand for two antagonists in life, the masculine (violence, aggression, evil) and the feminine (peace, love, sex, good) and in line with this his work has two axes: agressive art and love revolution.

As in this clip on Youtube (3'44, downloaded jan 2013)

Although Hamel never attended art classes, he masters the art of drawing rather well. A talented, energetic artist, alongside making murals, Spiktri began working with other techniques and materials, like doing paintings on canvas and making sculptures.

Because of his experiences with street art, but undoubtedly also because of his personality, he works quickly, as if in urgency.

In creating his sculpted art works, sculpture street art as he has named it, he uses recycled material, wire, drift wood, as for example can be seen in a series of skulls on Saatchi on line

the entrance

Since the artworld has not received his work in a way Hamel would have liked, he decided to take an independent position and seek his own way to promote and present his work.

So in 2010 he began transforming the rather large garden of a holiday resort he ownes into an art environment, a project nowadys still in progress. The site, spanning some 13.000 m2, has four holiday houses which can be rented in summer.

Hamel being a fast and prolific artist, the garden meanwhile has a varied collection of large, robust sculptures, mainly made from recycled materials.

The pictures give an impression.

Hamel being a self-taught artist, his sculpture garden can formally be classified as an outsider art environment, but I doubt he would be happy with such a designation.

So let's say this site is just an art environment tout court, or even better, it's Spiktri's garden.

Documentation
* Spiktri's personal website
* Article about the garden in regional journal Aube Times (nov 2013, in english, on ISSUU, click to page 22/23)
* Article on Jean-Louis Bigou's weblog, 30-1-2014 (in french)

note
* I am indebted to colleague blogger Jean-Louis Bigou, who pointed me to this environment, and provided both pictures and information

Florent Hamel aka Spiktri
Jardin de Spiktri
1010 Route de la Mer
11200 Montséret, Aude, FR
can be visited from oct-april,
in summer only on appointment

pictures from the Beaume-Drobie webssite

In the commmunity of Chandolas (Ardeche area in France), a permanent open air exhibition of scultptures, located where the D 208 departmental road almost meets the D 104, features Alphonse Gurlhie.

Life and works

Alphones Gurlbie (1862-1944) was born in Chandolas. His mother died when he was six years old and he soon learned how to stand for himself. He loved to roam in the rocky area of the region and became an expert in hunting and fishing.

At age sixty-one, in 1923, he began making sculptures from reinforced concrete mainly depicting animals in

a naive style, such as beavers, otters, foxes, snakes, birds.....

Gurlhie has continued making sculptures for some twenty years, and alltogether he has produced some thirty creations, which he installed in the garden around his houses in Beauchastel and Chandolas.

Gurlhie has been buried at the cemetery in Chandolas in a tomb he himself had created, kind of a neolithic dolmen made from iron and concrete (I couldn't find a picture on the internet)

Not taken very seriously in his time, Gurlhie nowadays is seen as a precursor of art brut.

His artistic legacy for a large part has been saved, nowadays owned both by the coummunity of Chandolas and by private persons and a local company.

When in 2012 the community of Chandolas, in connection with the union of communities in the region, took the initiative to create an exhibition ground for its collection of Gurlhie's sculptures, the private parties joined this initiative and so an open air exhibition of Gurlhie's creations was realized.

The site is located not far from where Gurlhie originally lived in Maisonneuve and where he had his sculpture garden.

Documentation

* Page on the official website of the Communauté des Communes du Pays Beaume-Drobie

* Ivan Tzikuniv & Yves Luxerau, Gurlhie, l'homme, l'artiste, l'art brut. Le phénomène connu à la ronde, de Chandolas à Beauchastel. Lagorce (Eds du Chassel), 2013. - 155 p

Alhponse Gurlhie
Exhibition of his sculptures (Sculpture garden)
Chandolas, Cévennes d'Ardèche, FR
can be visited freely

From the Alps to the Adriatic Sea over a length of more than six hundred kilometers, the River Po crosses northern Italy. Mostly calm, the wide river can sometimes rise to great heights, which in the recent past has led to major floodings.

Life and works

Born in Catanzaro in the south of Italy, Alberto Manotti (b. 1942) during World War II came to live in Boretto, a community of some 5000 inhabitants in the central part of the river Po, on its right bank, a city that hosts an important touristic harbour and the Museo del Po, della navigazione interna e del governo delle acque (Museum of the Po, of inland navigation and of water management).

Manotti, who had a job in a furniture factory, became a man whose life would be determined by a passion for the river.

He would spend there as much time as possible and at some moment in the nineteen seventies, after a woman with her children were drowned in the river, he decided to construct kind of cabin on a sandy spot along the river, a cabin which could be a refuge, an observation post or a facility to warn people to be careful in getting along with the river.

view from the bridge over the Po west of Boretto

To construct the cabin, Manotti used driftwood, and the fun of making a construction with this material, may have inspired him to continu and make a large wooden structure similar to a ship, just using material supplied by the river.

picture by Gloria Annovi, from the website Remark

It eventually became a wooden structure, some 40 m (131 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) high, with ladders, walkways and lookouts.

Fun for kids to climb, of course, and just as adults, they were welcome to visit the site.

this and the next two pictures (2009) courtesy of
Tyler Keller and Tara Alan

Indeed, Manotti lies to talk to children about his passion and he has added playground equipment and funny sculptures to the site, such as above Pinoccio.

From 2009 on, probably when he got retired, Manotti is full time involved in his project.

A photo with writing, mounted on a part of the construct, informs visitors how this all came about. It says:

BORETTO - il fiume PO

ANDIAMO IN SPIAGGIA A VEDERE LA "NAVE"

La Nuova Grande Costruzione di ALBERTO

Realizzata con materiali naturali trasportati

dal fiume e tante ore di lavoro....

In english: "Boretto...the river Po/Come to the beach to see the "ship"/ The great new construction by Alberto/made with natural materials transported/by the river and many hours of work ..."

Compared to the forces of the river in the case of increased water level, the wooden structure of course is fragile.

Manotti has made constructs of poles that allow the ship to stay above high water level, but the forces of nature have their impact and the construction must be regularly maintained and often changes in the structure have to be implemented. The latter undoubtedly so much to Manotti's satisfaction.

Continuous change

The theme of continuous change inspired Italian filmmaker Elena Fieni. She met Manotti by accident in 2003 during a period of great drought, and got his cooperation to shoot a film about his relation with the river.

Entitled Visible...Invisible: un re racontta il suo regno the first version in 2004 was shown to the inhabitants of Boretto. In 2008 a version showing footage shot in intervening years, was ready. The movie has been presented on various festivals, but is not available on the internet.

Continuous change is typical for the art environments presented in this blog. The creators of theses sites continu, often untill old age, to supplement and change their creations. And when they pass away it is not uncommon their creations gradually disappear.
.
Documentation/more pictures

* Costruttori di Babele website
* Website Remark (about Reggio Emilia), article and pictures (aug 2012)
* Website "going slowly" by Tyler Keller and Tara Alan, touring cyclists who visited the site in 2009 (in english)
* Article in Gazetta di Reggio (january 2014)
* Visibile...Invisibile: Un Re racconta il suo Regno, movie by Elena Fieni (2008, 57')

Alberto Manotti
Re del Po
Boretto, IT
on the beach near the bridge in the
road from Boretto to Viadana
visitors welcome

the cliffs at Ault

(licensed under Wikimedia Commons)

Ault is a small community of some 4000 inhabitants in Picardy, in France, located on a cliff facing the Channel. In this area, dominated by the Somme Bay, live and work several artists who depict the beauty of its nature. The art of the artist presented in this post, however, is about emotions we all may experience, both sad and happy ones.

Life and works

Caroline Dahyot (b. 1968), who got a rather religious education in an overprotected and austere setting, which increased her rejection of authority, in the late nineteen eighties was enrolled at the Ecole d'Arts Graphiques, where she just went her own way. At that time, in order to create a reassuring universe, she obsessively decorated the walls of her apartment with painted frescoes.

After Paris, she stayed for some time in Nice, making illustrations for magazines.

In 2001 she came to live in northern France, where she got a house on the rue Saint Valery in Ault. Following her deepest artistic motivations, Caroline made all kind of dolls and transformed the interior of the house by adding frescoes and mosaics to walls and ceilings.

decorated interior

picture by Caroline Dahyot, from her FB page

Untill around 2006 she absolutely had no ambition to exhibit, but this changed, and in 2007 she had an exposition entitled Poupées d'amour (Love dolls) in Criel sur Mer, where she presented the puppets she had created.

It was an important happening, since here she met other artists with whom she felt akin, the world of art singulier (singular art), as outsider art is referred to in France.

Transforming the facade

The house on the rue Saint Valery, named Villa Verveine by former owners, from old had some mosaic decorations. The designation Villa is somewhat excessive for a terraced house in an average, not very remarkable street.

picture from the website Baie des artistes

Caroline decorated the facade in a more striking way, transforming the already present mosaics into frescoes depicting people and other representations.

However, when in the autumn of 2010 she added a more than lifesized representation of a young couple, Ault's mayor (probably taking into consideration complaints by inhabitants) was not amused and ordered the removal of the fresco's.

facade as in 2010

(licensed under Wikimedia commons)

The mayor's ruling caused a lot of public debate, regional t.v. payed attention to it and an internet petition in favor of Caroline was organized.

The video (Youtube, 1'53", oct 2010, french spoken) has a news item on regional tv, showing the facade in the streetscape.

Eventually the mayor agreed that the frescoes could stay.

The decorated facade is not a steady-state, occasionaly the decorations will be updated.

Art Singulier

Besides being a singer in the Duo des Falaises, Dahyot is actively imvolved in the world of singular art. She has taken part in various exhibitions and this year (2014) she will participate in the first ever Festival d'Art Singulier in Belgium (april 4-5-6, Han sur Lesse)

Introducing her as participant of this festival, Iza Daussaint has said: her works are "magic items with protective powers, capable of providing, restore or maintain love and family unity ..."

Documentation, more pictures

*Caroline Dahyot's webshop
*Her website (works, interior, exterior)
* Her Facebook page

Caroline Dahyot
Villa Verveine
21 rue Saint Valéry
80460 Ault, Picardie FR
exterior can be seen from the street
no public visits, except during occasional expositions

sculpture of Saint Jacques, installed in 2011

pictures courtesy of Dominique Clement

From old a halt on the way of Saint Jacques to Santiago de Compostella, Joncels is a medieval village of some 250 inhabitants in the Herault department in southern France. Just outside the ramparts, in former centuries there was an inn where travellers could stay when the gates were closed at night.

An inn with a large collection of wooden sculptures

This house, dating from the 16th century, since 2002 once more became a hotel, named Villa Issiates, an auberge that warmly welcomes those travellers who are walking their way to Santiago de Compostella.

Run by Giedre and Alain Ivinskas this hotel has a very special ambiance because of the many wooden sculptures that are installed at the premises and decorate its walls.

Life and works

These creations have been made by Kazimieras Peciukevicius (b. 1928), who is the father of Giedre.

Born in Lithunia. he is a descendant of a Jewish polish-lithunian family that in the 19th century migrated to the United States, but having inherited a large farm in Lithunia, returned to that country before World War II.

In the 19th century Lithunia was part of the Russian Empire, untill in 1918 it regained its independence. In 1940, during the second world war, the country was occupied first by the Soviet Union, subseqently by the Germans and then in 1944 once more by the Soviet Union.

As a counterforce against the soviet-russin occupation a strong partisan movement emerged, uniformed, operating in smaller and larger units, with the large forests as a shelter.

Vigorously pursued, most partisans would make use of the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953, although some groups continued their activities up in the nineteeneighties.

March 1990 Lithunia finallly became an independent nation.

Peciukevicius, who was in his twentieth after world war II, joined the partisans and so he spent a large part of his young life in the forests.

This may have influenced his later creative work, such as he also has undergone influences from polish, russian and lithunian culture.

After he had participated in the partisan movement Peciukevicius had a large variety of jobs, and at some moment he became the owner of the house in Joncels, that nowadays is the hotel Villa Issiates, run by his daughter and son-in-law.

Peciukevicius has become a gifted self-taught creator of wooden sculptures which embellish the property in large numbers, calling an atmosphere of another world, a world perhaps of gnomes and woodland spirits one supposes present in dense forests....

Currently at age eighty, Peciukevicius likes to stay with his daughter and son-in-law during the months in autumn and winter when the hotel is closed. A nice periode to make new creations.

Documentation, more pictures
* Weblog Herault Insolite
* Article (may 2011) in regional journal Midi Libre
* Facebook page of the hotel

Kazimieras Peciukevicius
Auberge aux bois sculptés
Rue du Plô
34650 Joncels, Herault, FR
open to the public

Chop, La maison "couleurs des temps"/The house "colors of the season"

A new book about Spanish art environments

Marie-José and Jean-Marie Moren, Paradis de statuettes/Paradise of statuettes

Biagio Lapolla, Il giardino di spaventapasseri/The garden of scarecrows

Joan Sala, Casa del escultor/House of the sculptor

André Debru, Les débris de Debru/The debris of Debru

First lustrum of this blog

Angelo Cerpelloni, La casa delle conchiglie/Shell decorated house

René and Huguette Pellé, Jardin decoré/Decorated garden

Vincenzo Lucchesi, Eremo/Hermitage

Chris Goedhart, Italiaanse droomtuin/Italian dream garden

Pierre Martelanche, Le Petit Musée/The Small Museum

New weblog by Jean-Louis Bigou

George E. Howard, Inscriptions on stone tablets in his shell garden

Fellicu Fadda, Sculpture garden

Florent Hamel, aka Spiktri, Le jardin de Spiktri/Spiktri's garden

Alphonse Gurlhie, Jardin aux sculptures/Sculpture garden

Alberto Manotti, Re del Po/King of the river Po

Caroline Dahyot, Villa Verveine

Kazimieras Peciukevicius, Auberge aux bois sculptés/The inn with sculpted wood