The need to personalize our surroundings is a defining human characteristic. For some this need becomes a compulsion to transform their personal surroundings into works of art. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has undertaken the mission to preserve these environments, which are presented for the first time in Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds. This colorful and inspiring book features the work of twenty-two vernacular artists whose locales, personal histories, and reasons for art-making vary widely but who all share a powerful connection to the home as art. Featured projects range from art environments that remain intact, such as Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in California, tosites lost over the years such as Emery Blagdon's six hundred elaborate "Healing Machines," made of copper, aluminum, tinfoil, magnets, ribbons, farm-machinery parts, painted light bulbs, beads, coffee-can lids, and more. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds is the first book to explore these spectacularly offbeat spaces in detail.From "Original Rhinestone Cowboy" Loy Bowlin's wall-to-wall glitter-and-foil living room to the concrete bestiary of "witch of Fox Point" Mary Nohl, each artist and project is described in detail through a wealth of visuals and text. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds reminds us that our decorative choices tell the world not just what we like but who we are.

The human-constructed modifications of the environment and landscape examined in the essays collected here have been referred to as everything from piles of junk to the greatest accomplishments of humankind.

A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes recognizes that change is a driving force in all the arts. It covers major trends in music, dance, theater, film, visual art, sculpture, and performance art--as well as architecture, science, and culture.

This classic sociological examination of art as collective action explores the cooperative network of suppliers, performers, dealers, critics, and consumers who—along with the artist—"produce" a work of art. Howard S. Becker looks at the conventions essential to this operation and, prospectively, at the extent to which art is shaped by this collective activity. The book is thoroughly illustrated and updated with a new dialogue between Becker and eminent French sociologist Alain Pessin about the extended social system in which art is created, and with a new preface in which the author talks about his own process in creating this influential work.

For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of American Folk Art web site. This is the first comprehensive, scholarly study of a most fascinating aspect of American history and culture. Generously illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every aspect of American folk art, encompassing not only painting, but also sculpture, basketry, ceramics, quilts, furniture, toys, beadwork, and more, including both famous and lesser-known genres. Containing more than 600 articles, this unique reference considers individual artists, schools, artistic, ethnic, and religious traditions, and heroes who have inspired folk art. An incomparable resource for general readers, students, and specialists, it will become essential for anyone researching American art, culture, and social history.

Providing an excellent example of why folk artists can be appreciated as carriers of knowledge, even if they are unaware of it, this book could change the ways we understand and appreciate American folk arts. Connecting a sharecropper from Georgia in the Southern United States to a protector and healer in Touba, Senegal, West Africa, the holy city of Mouridism, and the final resting place of its founder, Shaikh Ahmadou Bàmba Mbàcke, it makes an interesting link while examining the cultural aspects of two very different and yet similar paths of life. Historians and art historians alike will find this investigation of African American art and folk culture both interesting and insightful. Not only does this book trace the characteristics of art through the African Diaspora, but it also traces Islam through those same diasporic transportations of colonial exploration and slavery.