Pick of the Day: YouTube Videos by The Georgia Red Mud Painter

YouTube videos by The Georgia Red Mud Painter
YouTube profile - RedMudPainter
eBay shop - Georgia Red Mud Painter

Memorial Day News

It's been a quiet week on the blog front, but holiday weekends make for a great time for catch up. The debut exhibition for the American Ruralist Movement has come to a close, but not without one final mention in Crain's Chicago Business. Thanks to The Georgia Red Mud Painter for some recent improvements on the MySpace page and this shot with the official A.R.M. catalog and hat. News on the street is that A.R.M. may be looking at a 2008 exhibition with South Shore Arts and a 2009 exhibition in Greece. A.R.M. member Harry has an upcoming weekend solo show with Estel Gallery July 10-14, The Georgia Red Mud Painter will continue to post new works on his eBay storefront Georgia Red Mud Gallery, and Chicken George remains as active as ever on both his blog Chicken Dead Chicken and eBay page.

Thinking ahead to the future of A.R.M. and poking around on Flickr, we found the artist collective Art Dorks and their inspirational website artdorks.com. The collective has two upcoming shows: a show opening June 8 at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles and a show opening June 15 at McCaig-Wells Gallery in Brooklyn. We found Art Dorks via member Thinkmule who will be participating in both exhibitions. Thinkmule, amongst hundreds of other projects, flickr groups, clients, and exhibitions, manages an Art a Day style blog definitely worth consulting, The Lumper.

photo credit: Thinkmule Flickr
photo credit: Thinkmule Flickr

photo credit: The Lumper screenshot

Last week, we posted seven limited edition prints on our Etsy storefront, Dolan Geiman Depot. Prices range from $65-$200. A few samples follow:

Barnyard Billboard

Kentucky Road Trip

American Rural II

Slowly, but surely we've been adding friends to our Network page. Now through July 1, we're wheeling and dealing as usual and raffling off an Etsy gift certificate for $25 to all link exchange participants. We'd love to add more friends, especially individuals that already link to our website and need to be included on the page. To participate, send a 75 x 75 pixel image of yourself to info{at}dolangeiman.com and the desired hyperlink HTML/title/alt tags.

Dolan Geiman link exchange

New Work by the Ruralists on eBay

Chicken George
eBay seller name: chickenbone1236

The Georgia Red Mud Painter
eBay seller name: georgia_red_mud_painter

Good Reads: Chicken Dead Chicken

American Ruralist Movement member Chicken George has posted some photos from the opening reception at Chicago City Arts Gallery as well as our studio on his blog, Chicken Dead Chicken. As we've mentioned a couple times in the past, Chicken George was the major inspiration for us starting our own blog and it continues to be one of our favorites in the ol' blog world.

While we're mentioning Chicken George, check out a few collaborative pieces he created with his ex-girlfriend while visiting Chicago on eBay. They're nice and cathartic...

In the News: Affordable Art in Chicago & ARM in Flavorpill

Harry - "Favorite Songs"
one of the many affordable works available from Chicago City Arts Gallery during the American Ruralist Movement exhibition

Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a nice story on galleries and retailers in Chicago that sell affordable yet original artwork ("Affordable Art" April 13, 2007). We were pleased to see the friendly face of Sacred Art owner Sarah Chazin, seller of works by local artists Citizen Shay, Anne Leuck Feldhaus, Dolan Geiman, and others.

This week, the American Ruralist Movement exhibition was also in the news. Read the mention in this week's edition of Flavorpill Chicago and catch the show Tuesday-Saturday at 410 S. Michigan Avenue Suite 601.

While the Chicago Sun-Times article does not mention Chicago City Arts Gallery, well over 50% of the works in the A.R.M. exhibition are under $1000 and the word on the street is that owner Matt McDermott may be launching an e-commerce Chicago art prints site in the near future.

Now go fill those barren walls!

New Videos by The Georgia Red Mud Painter

We love the homemade art videos by A.R.M. member The Georgia Red Mud Painter. Check out his two latest creations on his MySpace page www.myspace.com/thegeorgiaredmudpainter.
The second video previews the works to be exhibited at the upcoming ARM exhibition, opening this Friday, April 13, at Chicago City Arts Gallery.

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Technorati Tags: georgia folk art georgia artist painting

Early Warnings: American Ruralist Movement

Garden Totems (Dolan Geiman): to be exhibited at the American Ruralist Movement exhibition

Dolan Geiman, Harry, Chicken George, The Georgia Red Mud Painter
Chicago City Arts Gallery
410 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 601
opening reception: Friday April 13 4:30-9:00pm
chicagocityarts.com
read curator's statement from Chicago City Arts Gallery director Matt McDermott

preview additional works in show >>

watch video by The Georgia Red Mud Painter about his work in the show

learn more about A.R.M. on myspace

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Technorati Tags: folk art outsider art Southern art Chicago art assemblage recycled materials birds

Sexfist to Perform at A.R.M. Opening April 13

Discover local bluegrass band Sexfist, performing live at the opening reception for the American Ruralist Movement exhibition at Chicago City Arts Gallery on Friday the 13th: "A six piece band, (guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, dobro and upright bass) Sexfist focuses on tradtional vocal harmonies, hard driving instrumentals and sincere lyrics."

Check out Sexfist live from the Fine Arts Building on April 13.
View their full show schedule, including a free show every Tuesday night at Red Line Tap (7006 N. Glenwood Chicago).

Ruth Lopez Mentions American Ruralist Movement in Time Out Chicago

All thanks to Harry for the first official print coverage of the American Ruralist Movement here in Chicago. If you missed last week's article in Time Out Chicago, here is Ruth Lopez's column on the Fresh Faces exhibition (with 20+ works by Harry) currenly on view at Judy Saslow Gallery.

Time Out Chicago / Issue 99: Jan 18–24, 2007

“Fresh Faces”

Judy A Saslow Gallery, through Feb 10.

This outsider/self-taught/visionary art gallery continues its tradition of spotlighting contemporary artists who are working under the influence of those genres in an annual show. This version of “Fresh Faces” features work by three artists: Caroline Anderson, Karl Mullen and Harry. While the textured abstractions by Anderson and figurative works on paper by Philadelphia-based artist Mullen didn’t hold our attention, the latex on wood paintings in muted tones of one Harry C. Underwood (who just goes by his first name) did.

Harry, a member of the Plowhaus artist cooperative in East Nashville, Tennessee, first showed up in Chicago a few years ago at the now-defunct Jane Addams Hull House Center for Arts & Culture in Uptown. He’s aligned with local artist Dolan Geiman and Texas artist Chicken George to form the American Ruralist Movement, which lists among its interests “cutoff denims for swimmin’.”

In a painting titled The Most World Famous, Henry Darger meets Grandma Moses in a large narrative painting that includes little boys standing near a motel pool in their swim shorts, a floating stripper, a quaint Tennessee town on a hillside, soldiers and a trolley car. Tiny lines of nearly unreadable text seem scratched on the surface. Harry has a penchant for certain motifs and objects—bathing beauties and motel pools, old bicycles and vintage cars, and even a pose of a man and woman in conversation—which make repeat appearances in his many paintings. Rather than boring, though, Harry has created a unified vocabulary for his winsome work.—Ruth Lopez

The Georgia Red Mud Painter

Here's a little pic of The Georgia Red Mud painter in his house studio in Georgia. On our way to Key West, Josh and I stopped for coffee and to chat about the state of the folk art world. Mostly we just stopped to chew the fat and gossip.

I almost tripped over these stacks of paintings when I walked into his studio. So many nice pieces, featuring the ever-popular roosters and horses and catfeesh, all full of that Georgia red clay mud. He paints and scratches out his art images on everything from paper to board to Winn-Dixie grocery bags. It is interesting to me also that The Georgia Red Mud Painter uses the color black to paint all of his characters, no matter what their actual race. In many of his works, I see an attempt to blur the boundaries of race and to tie men together as humans existing in a landscape. He has made for his icons things such as snakes, catfish, roosters, and horses: symbols laden with significant historical and religious context.

Heres a poem I wrote about The Georgia Red Mud Painter, a man full of heart and Southern tales:

hunkered down in his bunker down in Georgia
slaving over portraits of slaves in cornfields
rich history ties his thoughts to dying folklore
when Jake-leg liquor bent the knees and innocent bodies bent the trees;
to be southern is to learn to churn the wrongs of history into the butter of unforgetfulness.
best friends with those whose grandfolks eyes saw civil war’s un-chivalry
a man whose art, tall tales impart , with kindest heart thrown to it
indebted to the mud that coats his brushes as hes thought to use it,
whose work says “add clean clear water to Georia dirt and it just comes out as Georgia mud”
and so a tool, no need for school, is this to his best uses
to tell the stories of faded glory, and all its southern abuses

To purchase works by The Georgia Red Mud painter, visit his Ebay store or see his work in Chicago at the April American Ruralist Movement exhibition at Chicago City Arts Gallery.