The Accidental Artists : Discovering What Folks on the Edge Can Do

What are we talking about, when we talk about contemporary American folk art?

It’s not carved wooden duck decoys, rustic weather vanes or quilts copied from patterns handed down through the generations, according to one of the field’s top collectors.

“What we’re talking about, first of all, is work by people who are untrained in the arts and isolated from the academic tradition in America,” says Chuck Rosenak, who with wife Jan has crisscrossed the United States for two decades collecting the work of more than 400 artists.

The second part of the definition is that these “self-motivated” individuals “are not aware that they are artists and are not doing it for any commercial reasons,” Rosenak says.

Examples of work by 72 of these “outsider” artists come to the Laguna Art Museum Friday in an exhibit drawn from the Rosenaks’ collection and organized by the Museum of American Folk Art in New York.

As might be expected for a field of art defined more by what it isn’t than what it is, the works encompassed by the “Cutting Edge” exhibition are eclectic and idiosyncratic, using both traditional and non-traditional materials and methods.

Gregorio Marzan’s representation of the Statue of Liberty, for instance, incorporates Elmer’s glue caps along with plaster, fabric, tape, glue, a wig and a light bulb. Although a resident of New York City, Marzan claims to have never seen the statue and took his inspiration from a poster depicting the landmark. Like many artists in the show, Marzan didn’t start creating in earnest until late in life, in his case after retiring from his job in a toy factory.

Jon Serl created his first painting in the 1940s because he wanted something for the wall of his San Juan Capistrano adobe. His growing body of work began to be recognized in the late ‘70s, and in 1982 he was the subject of a one-artist show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Now 97, the self-professed loner continues to paint in a ramshackle Lake Elsinore home he shares with an assortment of dogs and chickens, despite the fact that he is one of the best-known working “folk” artists.

Ted Gordon (who now lives in Laguna Niguel) never shared his compulsive line drawings with anyone until he was “discovered” by the Rosenaks. He is now represented by a top San Francisco gallery, but he continues to call his works “doodles.”

“This art comes out of an intense urge to make something, whether or not someone has formal artistic training,” says Charles Desmarais, LAM director. The museum is showing the exhibit as part of an effort to “recognize that art comes in lots of different packages.”

The Rosenaks, bored with collecting modern art, began traveling what they call “dirt track America” in 1973 in search of artists working outside the mainstream. Back then, Rosenak says, there was little formal recognition of the field, but now “there are shows in museums proliferating all over the country.”

Rosenak, who also collects extensive biographical information on the artists he collects, is not shy about taking a certain amount of credit for the growing acceptance. It’s an area of art he says he and his wife believed in from the start: “We thought that we really had discovered the cutting edge of American art.”

What: “The Cutting Edge: Contemporary American Folk Art from the Rosenak Collection.”

When: Friday, June 14, through Aug. 18. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.

Where: Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach.

Whereabouts: The museum is on Pacific Coast Highway, one block north of Main Street. Metered parking is available on Cliff Drive; bring some quarters.

Wherewithal: Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for seniors and students. Museum members and children under 12 get in free.

Where to call: (714) 494-6531.