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10 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
Whimsical art enthusiasts celebrate 25 years of outsider art
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BY FRANCESCA SAGALA
hose who are on the hunt for something different – for something of the whimsical variety – need look no further than the Outsiders Outside Art Fair, which is held every Labor Day weekend at the barn-turned-art-gallery, Judith Racht Gallery, in Harbert. It’s a type of artwork that owner Racht prefers above all other ones. “It has to be kind of wacky, something off kilter about it - which I like,” she said. Off-kilter art wasn’t in short supply at this 25th annual fair, which took place Friday through Sunday, Sept. 3-5, in tents behind the gallery as well as inside of it. This year, Racht said that there were 32 booths of artwork underneath the tents, with some of those booth containing dealers representing the artists. No matter her unique they are from each other, one common thread runs through the pieces of art that were displayed at the fair: They were all created by artists who had no formal training. “Nobody ever said (to the artists) you have to stay in the lines, and you have to make the sky blue and the stars yellow -they sort of march to the tune of their own drummer,” Racht said. Having worked for John Wilson, founder of the first United States international art exposition in Navy Pier, Racht said she would often uncover items at auctions that she knew that someone “just made from their hearts.” When she first started her gallery in Lakeside, visitors would often want to peek upstairs at the “funky” items in her children’s bedrooms – and wanted to buy it. Once someone conceived a name for it: outsider art. “They said, ‘You know, that outsider art that you do,’ and I said, ‘Oh - is that what you call?’” Vasso Kolias was selling a digital reprint of her silk screens from the late 1960s and 1970s. She was cleaning up her house and had sold most of her silk screens when she
decided it was “time to reprint them – people love them.” “It’s the same color and same idea - just a smaller size,” she said. Kolias said she discovered the fair after visiting the gallery during a recent art show for a friend.
Art lovers unite underneath the tents
A screw and bolts creation by Matt Swenson, Inc
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Vasso Kolias displays her digital reprints of her silk screens
Matt Swenson of Michigan City stands by one of his unique paintings
ulie Schwarz of Blacksmith Photography in Sawyer was displaying her hand-altered Polaroid pictures. “This is the new film for the old Polaroid cameras - what you see is what comes out of the camera, so each one is an original, and what I do with my collages is I take multiple pictures of an object like a clarinet or album cover and I CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
Visitors browse the Judith Racht Gallery
