Paper Short Abstract:

Hanging in rural pizza shop, a painting depicts sasquatches spraying water on the building as it burns. Otherworldly beings instructed its painter. “Outsider artists” are often written as antisocial, but this case shows how idiosyncratic beliefs can powerfully connect individuals to their community.

Paper Abstract:

There is a tiny pizza shop in a rural area devastated by wildfire where a painting hangs on the wall that depicts two female sasquatchs spraying water on the roof of the building as it burns. After talking to the owner of the shop, I met “Justin” who lives nearby. Justin told me he painted the painting and gave it to the pizza shop’s owner because it “explained” how the restaurant survived the fire and because they are friends. Justin created an outward and material expression of his solidarity with his community in the face of a shared trauma, but it was beings from another dimension that told him in to do it.

Outsider artists are often imagined as antisocial and creating unconventional pieces that emerge from personal trauma, idiosyncratic beliefs, or visionary experiences. In recent decades, this art and its often-romanticized artists have become a lucrative form of high art. Justin, however, sells his art in the form of refrigerator magnets at local shops, as memorials for friend’s and colleagues’ pets, commissioned landscapes for local offices, and he gives many away to friends. Justin’s main career is making dental crowns from impressions.

Part of lifelong practice of visionary painting, Justin holds idiosyncratic religious beliefs that emerge from specific and repeated visionary encounters with supernatural beings, and those idiosyncratic experiences compel him to create art for his local community. Challenging how we imagine and depict visionary experiences, beings from beyond are helping Justin build and restore his community.