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Assessment of the Monumental Art of
James Hampton:
The Throne of the Third Heaven
of the Nations Millenium General Assembly
This is a student's review and was done for an academic course.
Final Paper Spring 2002: Aesthetics
Dr. Christy Park
by Virginia Sandman
There have been many interpretations of the monumental work by James Hampton, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millenium General Assembly. The number of speculations about the meaning is rivaled only by the mystery surrounding this great work. The speculations and mystery pale compared to the complexity of assumptions that the work provokes. In my opinion, making assumptions is damaging and basing art history on them is more damaging. In order to understand the assumptions, it is important to look at them with great care. I will attempt to do that in this paper.
James Hampton
James Hampton was born in Elloree, South Carolina in 1909 and raised in a Baptist family. He moved to Washington D.C. in 1931 at the age of twenty-two. He served three years in the Army during World War II after which he returned to D.C. His working life consisted of odd jobs, until he finally became employed as a janitor for the General Services Administration. He kept this position until his untimely death in 1964 of cancer. He was not an out going person; he was a reserved bachelor who did not frequent any one church. He had an ambition of public ministry, probably a store front setting, “ … yet the few friends to whom he acknowledged this goal have described him as unassuming rather than charismatic.”1
Climate in America
The situation in South Carolina was appalling. In 1880 61% of the state population was Afro-American. In 1930, 300,000 Afro-Americans left 25,000 farms behind. This mass exodus was caused by the horrors of lynching. In 1927 the State handbook of South Carolina proclaims the state to be white man’s territory again. In 1930, 50% of D.C.’s 20,000 black immigrants came from South Carolina.2 For southern Afro-Americans, Washington D.C. became the gateway to the north.
In addition, World War I and the Great Depression saw poor Afro-Americans migrating toward the cities. There was the general Great Migration north of all poor people. Northern migration of poor whites took place during the 1950s. Between 1910 and 1970 there was movement north of poor blacks. Previously in 1900, 90% of all African American lived in the south.3 Lynda Roscoe Hartigan says in her paper, Going Urban, “Urban became a euphemism for black.”4
There are some additional occurrences that may or may not have reached Hampton. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s was a major event in Afro-American culture. In Europe, the art elite was discovering Africa, a fact that affected Afro-American painters involved in the Harlem Renaissance. Among Afro-American intellectuals, there was the discovery and celebration of the black common man and his folk culture. However far fetched it may be, Sigmund Freud helped America cast off Puritanism and embrace the primitivism that was so popular in the Harlem Renaissance.5 Hampton clearly did not move in these circles, but one can speculate that these ideas reached him in some small way.
Hampton’s Neighborhood:
Fourteenth and U
His personal life took place in the neighborhood called Fourteenth and U, near Howard University. It was the center for black business, religious activities and nightlife. In the 1920s Harlem Renaissance literary giants Jean Toomer and Langston Huges were famous residents of the nearby Seventh Street. Huges was fascinated with life on Seventh Street. There was a poor working class, in addition to a prosperous middle class. In the 1950s, Hampton rented the garage at Seventh and Shaw that was to be his workplace for constructing The Throne.
Seventh Street was as central as U Street, but more down to earth. There was noise, music, traffic, poolrooms, storefront churches, barbershops, liquor stores, flop houses and lunch counters. Enormous audiences of matinees and evening performances poured into the Howard Theater. There were late night clubs and the Southern Dining Room featured Mrs. Hettie Gross who offered soul food at affordable prices.6
The churches had a personality in their own right. They were often small, compact store front dwellings. The altars had a powerful frontal appearance. There was often a chair that represented the resting place of god, called a mercy seat. There were home made or store bought altar tables. There were pulpits. Religious calendars often hung from altars. There were hand lettered signs of warning or comfort such as GOD IS LOVE. In addition, some people worshipped at home using home-made altars. The services were lively. There were shouting services in storefronts and alley parlors. There were various nationally famous religious leaders, traveling evangelists, revivals and public baptisms.
Charismatic Leaders
There were a number of charismatic religious leaders in Washington during Hampton’s lifetime. It is entirely possible that they were a determining influence. The most likely of them all is A.J. Tyler of the Mt. Airy Baptist Church that was built in 1928. The church façade had an electric sign that read: “Monument to Jesus.” Tyler said that in a city full of monuments there should be a monument to Jesus. Hampton had inscribed A.J. Tyler’s name and the phrase “Monument to Jesus” on his great work. 7
Another religious leader was Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, and his Temple of Freedom Under God, Church of God. He held national radio broadcasts in six cities. He had a wide following, and in Washington his church provided shelter and food during the Depression. He was known for his extravaganzas and pageantry. From Washington’s baseball stadium, Michaux shouted “Hit a homerun for Jesus!” This pulpit to thousands was in Griffith Stadium and in close proximity to Hamilton.
Also blocks from Hamilton was Charles M. “Sweet Daddy” Grace. He had an estimated three million followers nationwide, via satellite churches. His church on Seventh Street was named, United House of Prayer for All people of the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith. He was known for public rituals, faith healings and ceremonies. Most importantly, he worked from a throne. My mother, 12 years old in 1927 and living in New Jersey said, “He was black, wasn’t he? He was in show business, wasn’t he?”
Last but not least, was Father Divine’s Peace Mission. He used a lot of governmental language, rather fitting for a Washington preacher. In 1936 he preached about the Righteous Government Platform and the Nation’s Readjustment Plan. He was reform oriented, promoted heaven on earth by racial harmony, world peace and economic advancement. His Depression era soup kitchen’s were referred by Divine as “Heavens.”
Neighborhood Influence
Haritgan speculates that the forceful theatricality in Hampton’s Throne was not visible in the storefront churches of the neighborhood. She believes that the charismatic pageants and extravaganzas probably had a greater affect on Hampton. Elements of the storefront churches such as mercy seats, ac hoc altars and especially the banner-like signs of encouragement seem to be consistent with the design of Hampton’s Throne. The syntax and grammar used in the title of The Throne is seen in church names throughout Afro-American culture. Debbie Nathan and others refer to the use in Ebonics (Afro-American English) of adjectives branching right and left at the same time.
Some will say that religion at its best is a source of comfort. In Washington D.C. in the 1920s, perhaps we see it living up to these goals. Afro-Americans displaced from farms by the lynching holocaust and experiencing trauma, required a refuge and a community; the church was able to provide some such support.9 The great yogi’s of India say that self esteem is the big challenge for everyone. It is a part of everyone’s life journey. One can only wonder what effect the lynching holocaust had on the self esteem of those who survived or escaped. Leaving home because home is not safe, is difficult enough. Being tossed out alone, with only a neighborhood for comfort – one speculates that the power of Hampton’s artwork that came through his religion was a reaction to a powerful ugliness. Hartigan states:
“Extending from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first century, the lives of these four men [including Hampton] also mirror key aspects of African-American culture that suggest metaphorical migrations, from slavery to social reform, from every day life to spiritual transport, from displacement to adaptation. Each artist’s journey from rural to the urban, reflecting personal, historical, and collective experiences, was a transformative event that inspired astonishing creativity.”10
The Throne
After his janitorial shift, Hampton came home and worked on The Thone everyday for twenty years.11 It was discovered by mainstream culture after his death; it is now housed in the National Museum of American Art, a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. While Hampton was alive, this work was known to only a small number of people. It consists of 180 objects of cast wooden furniture, aluminum foil, cardboard, plastic, and light bulbs. It is a remarkable work of assembly and improvisation with materials. The pieces have been re-worked to look like church furnishings such as pulpits, altar tables and a throne or mercy seat. The throne is placed on a platform against the rear wall. The objects radiate in pairs; they are symmetrically exact. To the viewers left is represented the New Testament and Jesus, to the viewers right is represented the Old Testament and the Law of Moses.12 There is no figurative imagery although there are crowns and winged objects. The words FEAR NOT are positioned at a high central location. The words, “Where there is no vision the People Perish,” appears on many of the 180 objects that make up The Thone.13 I saw The Throne at Boston’s Museum of Fine Art in 1978; I was taken by the impression of a sacred monument.
One of the most mysterious aspects is the text. It remains un-deciphered and its source is still not known. There are some English words and phrases, but it is mostly cryptic. It is printed on framed tablets that hang as part of the work. In addition, there is a notebook entitled, The Book of the 7 Dispensations by St. James. The notebook is 7 X 5 X 1 inches when closed. It has 100 lined pages. The characters are beautifully formed. On the cover is written the apostle’s Creed. This notebook and the framed tablets are the source of much speculation. “Having stymied linguists, cryptolographers, psychiatrists, and mediums, Hampton’s writing system seems to be indecipherable in any traditional sense.”14 For Hartigan, is unclear which came first, the notebook or the monument.15
Speculated Meaning
There are a multitude of assertions about what Hampton’s work means. Stephen Jay Gould is convinced that it views time identically to the 17th century writer Thomas Burnet. A lot of people say it is about the second coming of Christ, others say it is a depiction of heaven, others say it is a glimpse at unsurpassed integrity. Another says it is a “post-atom bomb, sputnik, and civil-rights movement sanctuary for the God in us all.”16 I found a Web page representing African Religions and Vodou that places The Throne as its first image. It is called African-American Folk Art, Visionary Art, Fine Art, and a religious site. Consensus and clarity are hard to find.
Many look at Hampton’s work and see a wholly private, even an anti-social expression. Others don’t agree. Certain landmark exhibitions have created storms of controversy. Of the few people who knew him even fewer have come forward to explain how this great work came about. We who love The Throne and want to know more feel almost like archaeologists discovering the unexplained art of a dead person. We can’t easily piece together who Hampton was, and how the work came about. Perhaps it is our racist culture that has made such mystery possible.
However, Hampton gives us a number of obvious clues. There are Biblical references that obviously are the foundation of its meaning. Attached to some of the objects are labels that refer to biblical writings in Revelations, chapters 20 and 21. Hartigan writes in the Museum of Fine Arts exhibition catalogue that, “On one of the pieces Hampton wrote: ‘the word millennium means the return of Christ and a part of the Kingdom of God on earth.’”17 The same catalogue contains a photograph of The Throne. The photo contains Hampton’s own writing that says the Third Heaven refers to Corinthians chapter twelve, verse two and three. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the specific Revelations and Corinthians verses contains the meaning for Hampton. Also, the word millennium means the return of Christ.
The Corinthian verses refer to a concept of the universe at the time of Christ. At that time it was believed that there was a multi-layered universe similar to the construction of an onion. The layers were called “firmaments’ or shamayim (heavens or sky) in the Old Testament or “heavens” in the New Testament. Most often this belief included seven layers, less common is a three layered universe. The first layer was the earth plane, the second was only water. “However, the third was beyond the sight of human beings. It was the dwelling place of God and his attendant heavenly beings whom he would send to protect Israel and the righteous.” 18
From another Christian source, the first heaven is again life on earth, the second the great flood we know about from Noah. The third does seem to have to do with time, “a world without end,” under Divine administration. There is no imperfection, only righteousness – which is also called paradise.19
Biblical references given to us by Hampton’s own hand refer to paradise, heaven on earth, heavenly time or eternal time and the dwelling place of God.
Perhaps if this work had been done by a sculptor in New York, it may have been ignored. Perhaps it is Hampton himself that adds to the bigness of the achievement. Perhaps, perhaps not. It is colossal partly because something other worldly has been made of such frail, discarded materials. Also, I don’t think just anybody could have constructed it. Hampton’s personal transcendence over the lynch mobs aside, the work is imbedded with holiness. I was a twenty-six year old atheist when I stood in it’s presence. Nothing about Christianity was communicated to me, but I did feel a magnificent paradise.
I think people are so baffled by The Throne exactly because it represents a colossal presence. People get powerfully affected by it. Perhaps it transcends culture and personality. Perhaps archetypal, perhaps the place where dreams and myths come. But that’s me. There has been some colossal scholarship done that supports the fact that this work did not come out of thin air. Hampton was not a madman, a religious fanatic, or a person focussed on a private heaven. The scholarship points toward the evidence of the source.
Hartigan and Robert Farris Thompson
By the description above of Washington D.C. and its Afro-American religion, I’ve outlined some of the most convincing data that supports the argument that Hampton did not make The Throne in isolation. Hartigan and others are convinced that it was not a private, isolated affair, but something birthed from the Afro-American culture.20
Another renown scholar is Robert Farris Thompson. He has made landmark inroads into the meaning and sources of Afro-American art. One aspect is the yard shows of the rural Afro-American south. They are displays that to the Western eye look religious and theatrical. They are also viewed by some Euro-Americans as junk and the product of someone who is not totally sane. They are similar to Hamptons work in this way. Thompson sees the yard shows as directly linked to African spirituality. Hampton’s work is just a twinkle away from being a yard show. In the following passage Thompson describes the African spirit in the Afro-American yard shows. He writes:
“Icons in the yard show may variously command the spirit to move, come in, be kept at bay, be entertained with a richness of images or be baffled with their density, to savor sunlight flashing in a colored bottle or be arrested with the contours, and, above all, to be healed or entertained by the order and beauty inherent in the improvised arrangement of icon and object.” 21
In addition Thompson has done extensive research regarding the African writing systems.
“Thompson has also traced the transfer of West and Central African ideogrammatic writing systems and concepts of literacy to the New World. The forms and meanings may have changed yet the original intent – knowledge and power afforded by sacred divination – has prevailed and resurfaced in the writing systems of southern African Americans, including the ideographic notations of James Hampton composed in conjunction with building The Throne.”22
It is clear that at least some of the sources of James Hampton’s work has originated from the Afro-American religion and culture, and from Africa. There is more evidence given at length in the writings of Thompson and others, for the purposes of brevity I will mark these excerpts as sufficient.
However, in addition to Thompson’s scholarship there is something else that is of interest to me. The gathering place is language. It is connected to the role of art history in our society and to art and social control. I’d like to look at some history of Afro-American folk art and Euro-American folk art. This material is crucial to understanding Hampton’s work. Language is a tricky thing. It appears to be just words, but in reality it defines culture. As Eugene W. Metcalf writes, “… definitions [are] potent tools in the development and control of society.”23
African American Art
Importance of Language
The use of language is linked to art and social control. Art represents a culture’s values. No advanced or intelligent society is void of art. Art is a measure of cultural maturity. No “people that has ever produced great literature and art has ever been looked on by the world as distinctly inferior.” 24 As Eugene Metcalf asserts, “A people cannot afford to let others control the definitions of art.” 25 Language is used to control the artistic criticism. Hampton’s work serves as a good example of this dynamic.
History
When exhibits and books focus on African American Art, generally they are based on the Western Canon. 26 For acceptance, African American artists are forced into that mold. However, Afro-American folk artists have escaped that situation. “From the earliest years of their captivity, blacks had practiced aspects of the traditional arts of Africa.” 27 U.S. culture was based on denying the humanity of blacks. Their art was therefore not named art; language was not applied to it.
The landmark exhibit, “Two Centuries of Black American Art” organized by David Driskell in 1976, emphasized the growth of Afro-American art into high art norms. The books by many respected authors such as Modern Negro Art, by James A. Porter, American Negro Art, by Cedric Dover, Afro-American Artist, by Elsa Honig Fine and African American by Samella Lewis – were focused mainly on “high art.” Most devoted only three to ten pages to Afro-American folk art. 28
Another major exhibit, “Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980” organized by Jane Livingston and John Beardsley in 1982, has been controversial. The Throne was included in this show of 400 objects by twenty artists.
Metcalf’s portrayal of Livingston is empassioned. Metcalf paraphrases her by saying in this landmark exhibit titled “Back folk Art in America,” Livingston’s view is that the art is neither folk art nor fine art; it doesn’t have a category. According to Metcalf, Livingston claims that if there is a common style among the 400 works that is not what is of interest; it is the novelty and individuation that is more assertive. According to Livingston there are only two common traits: one, they have been made by Afro-American artists, and two, the work was made in that last fifty years. She emphasizes that the work is both communal and individual.29
Hartigan’s take on Livingston insightful. Hartigan restates Livingston’s claims that black folk art is not traditional or utilitarian. Livingston recognizes that Afro-American folk art was influenced by a deeply communal culture that survived slavery. However Hartigan says of Livingston, “Black folk art is an underground phenomenon that has nonetheless generated a truly American style, recognizable and challenging beyond its subculture.”30
Metcalf is distressed by the definition of folk art as being both communal and individual. He defines all folk art in this way:
“It is an art in which the tension between personal freedom and social restraints often gives meaning and power to artistic expression. But this tension and paradox can exist only as long as the communal and traditional domains exert a significant influence on the artist. Once individuation and novelty overshadow tradition, as Livingston suggests they may in this exhibition, the art is not longer significantly folk.” 31
Metcalf asserts also that Afro-American folk art is first and foremost influenced by Africa. He makes this pronouncement about Afro-American folk art:
“Created within this traditional setting and made largely according to the ideas and standards of the group, black folk art responds significantly to a collective sensibility that is identifiable and profound.” 32
John Michael Vlach supports the view of Metcalf in his books, The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts (1978) and By the Work of Their Own Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife (1990). Hartigan observes a classic controversy. It is the controversy that is represented between Livingston and Vlach. One side says the work is made in isolation and has its own aesthetic. The other side says that it is utilitarian art that has been birthed of a deeply communal culture. Hartigan makes a case for an alternative approach – that the individual and the communal resources can be interwoven. She warns against finding the influence of Africa everywhere, and sees that tendency as a potential for additional controversy. She asserts scholars need to look closer at the tension between states of isolation and culture. Hartigan points out that W.E.B. Du Bois focused on this very issue in his books, The Nego Artisan (1902) and The Souls of Black Folk (1903).33
There is an important development. Hartigan again:
“Whether emerging from isolation or cultural awareness, many of the artists included in the Corcoran’s Black Folk Art in America exhibition and those discovered in its wake over the past decade are perceived by a number of art critics and cultural historians as challenging the mainstream culture’s assumptions about the nature and sources of creativity.”34
Metcalf announces a challenge for art history: is the art of people like James Hampton folk art or not? There are two historical examples that clarify the confusion regarding language and Afro-American folk art. One is the Harlem Renaissance, and the other is the popularization of American folk art. Both involved discovery and promotion of a new vision of American art through mining unique American art.35
Harlem Renaissance
The manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance is embodied by the book, The New Negro by Alain Locke, a Harvard educated Howard University professor. There were stories, poems and pictures that documented the progress of Afro-Americans. It released new energy into the community, especially the largest Afro-American community in the U.S., Harlem. He believed that creative expression would show the value of the Afro-American culture. He wanted to change the oppressive stereotypes from slavery times of Afro-American indolence and servility. He believed in the power of art, mainly literary art, but also music, painting and sculpture. Indeed, during this time Afro-American intellectuals “… promoted the arts as if their lives depended on it.” 36
Two sources of new energy
There were two developments that created new energy. Previously to WWI, Afro-American folk art was a source of embarrassment. After WWI there was a re-assessment of Afro-American folk culture as a source of distinctive traits of the Afro-American character. It wasn’t considered in alignment with the high art goals of the Harlem Renaissance, but is was considered a powerful new source for creativity among blacks.37
The other new source was Africa. Picasso and the European art elite had, after all, “discovered” Africa. Africa was viewed with sophistication and complexity, especially it’s design tradition. This was a cultural heritage and aesthetic tradition of a proud, ancient culture not rooted in the West.
Afro- and Euro-American interdependence
During the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance, Afro- and Euro-Americans had a vaguely common malady. Referring to middle class, intellectual, Euro-Americans, both groups were not happy with America. Afro-Americans were still climbing out of the stereotypes of slave culture. Indeed, simultaneous to the Harlem Renaissance, was a forceful resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Euro-Americans felt betrayed by the false hopes of WWI, they were not connected to U.S. institutions and ideologies and the Industrial Revolution caused technological and demographic upheaval. Euro-Americans were in revolt. Both groups found a refuge in Harlem. In addition, in the 1920s Freud became a household word. His ideas were misused to attack U.S. business and Puritanism. It was figured that civilization created problems by censoring emotions and drives, and therefore, civilization was evil.
Middle class Euro-Americans socialized with Afro-Americans for the first time. Euro’s saw a welcome change from the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the main theme promoted by the Harlem Renaissance was primitivism. Euros saw a zest, swiftness, savageness and triumph. The two cultures collided. But it was soon to backfire. Primitivism, examined closely can easily become a negative stereotype – and it did.
Euro-American Folk Art
As previously stated, Euro-America of the 1920s needed a strategy to cope with a society in change. In addition to the Harlem Renaissance, some sought the myth of primitivism through their own folk art. Folk art conjured up scenes of an agrarian, independent and a democratic past. Amy Vanderbilt, and Gertrude Vanderbilt’s Whitney Studio Club expanded the market into wealthy and influential circles. Further gusto was drawn from Modernist artists themselves. Folk art was an avenue to break away from Impressionism, representation tendencies in high art, and the hegemony of Europe.
The main player at this time is Holger Cahill. He was the first scholar to write about folk art, and became the Director of Exhibitions at the MOMA in 1932. Cahill proposed that it was an accident of history that we didn’t recognize crafts as a source of high art. Recognizing American folk art helped to reduce European dominance and the ideas that all our art didn’t come to us on ships.38 He ignored the functional aspects of the exhibited works, and the context of the artists lives. He grouped the work into categories of sculpture and painting. He selected pieces that most resembled high art. 39
Folk art promoted using high art standards causes a subtle reallocation. The reallocation is made visual by the new packaging. Doors open to the possibility of new definitions.
At the museum address, folk art appeared child-like and primitive. The museum emphasized its crude art apparatus. It also emphasized the non-elite characteristics of the artists themselves and the culture they came from. The artists didn’t have high art training, and even worse – they appeared too dim-witted to even know that they were making art.40 In 1930 and 1931 Cahill mounted two major exhibitions of folk art at the MOMA, one for painting and one for sculpture. One wants to picture the contrasts. Perhaps the lighting was exquisite, the white walls – pristine, and the exhibitions were concurrent with high society traditions of wine, cheese, and furs. Benches became sculpture, cross-stitched blankets became painting. Perhaps Cahill and others viewed the folk artists as poverty stricken, isolated, uneducated people. Yet they had created beautiful objects – folk art reallocated as art – but they were too wretched a people to realize they were making art. It might have been speculated by a bejeweled gentry that they had no language for art. These were just functional things to the folk artists. Without the name art, the folk could not assign greatness. Without a museum, perhaps, one cannot assign the name art. The sole purpose of museums is perhaps reallocation. A place that once anything is put there, it becomes art.
Conceivably, this is an architectural issue. Or possibly, it is just the act of taking something out of its birthplace – like an animal – and putting it in a zoo. Folk art could be seen as something for civilization to gawk at. Gawking is safest in museums and galleries. Otherwise one must trek to parts unknown. Perhaps terrain where the laws and language are different.
However, for the art elite, gawking at folk art was not the goal, only something to do when feeling lost. As with the Harlem Renaissance, what intellectuals valued most was high art. High art and elitism maintained superiority by authoring and practicing the idea of an exiled art. Being the builders of museums, and therefore the lawmakers of art, high art remained supercilious to the beautiful yet crude, utilitarian refugees.
Naming
As the saying goes, he who makes the rules wins. The same thing happened with Afro-American folk art. Gravestones became sculpture. Afro-American folk artists were undervalued, as were the artists who made it. But for Afro-Americans it was not a matter of upheaval from the Industrial Revolution, or the loss of an agrarian society. It was a matter of gaining human status as the stereotypes of the slavery culture lingered. Language was and is the vehicle of the damage. Naming something art, that is really folk art divests it of its habitat. Its complexity and significance are lost. Slaves were taken from their birthplace and put in European culture. Afro-American folk art was taken from its birthplace and put in museums. For Afro-Americans it was more than disrespect, it was culturally threatening.
In the 1970s, fueled by new ideas in anthropology and folklore studies, a new philosophy of folk art emerged. The practitioners were called folklorists. They believed that social context, not aesthetics should be studied. They were in direct disagreement with Cahill and the philosophy of the 1920s, that focused on visuals only. They avidly went into the field and approached any Afro-American person with a paint brush in their hand. 41 The most unfortunate thing is that some Afro-American artists were labeled folk artists, who were not folk artists. More injury occurred. Rather than no context, a false context developed. Worse than divesting art of context, as Cahill and others did in the 1920s, is an artificially installed false context.
There was an emerging group Afro-American artists in the 1970s who weren’t folk artists, yet they were being classified as folk artists. Naming them folk artists was insulting to Afro-American folk art. Not because their art wasn’t good art, but because Afro-American folk art comes out of a specific culture and history. If you call a television a radio – and you’ve never seen a radio – the concept of radio is lost. Assumptions congregate and become cultural norms through the improper use of language. The consequences of Afro-Americans loosing the concept of Afro-American folk art is a serious historical problem.
Sources of Creativity
Hartigan says that the aftermath of the exhibition Black Folk Art in America, organized by Jane Livingston, has created a challenge to assumptions about the nature and sources of creativity.42 One of our culture’s assumptions is that only trained artists make art.
There is less scholarly writing about James Hampton; Howard Rose and Martin Friedman both consider Hampton. Rose was a professional dealer and collector who published the book, Unexpected Eloquence: The Art in American Folk Art. Friedman was the curator of the Walker Center for the Arts in Minneapolis for 30 years. It appears that these men wrote without the knowledge of the scholarship of Robert Farris Thompson. With the information available from Thompson, it is impossible to view James Hampton’s Throne as entirely private work. However, I’d like to consider that despite this considerable lack of information – perhaps there was some truth about the work of James Hampton that does not come to light elsewhere.
In opposition with Thompson’s work, Rose and Friedman both view the work of Hampton as private and individual.
Friedman’s view of folk art and visionary art is interesting. He says of visionary art that teaching, moralizing and a sense of mission is a motivating force. Visionary artists, like Hampton and also Simon Rodia creator of the Watts Towers, “… ignore conventions and proceed, undeterred, to realize their heroic vision.”43
One could argue that Hampton’s teaching, moralizing and missionary sense were imbedded into his religion, and is further evidence of his folk art roots. However, when it comes to ignoring conventions – which conventions do we consider Hampton was ignoring. He was, after all, living in two cultures. An oppressive Euro-American culture and an supportive Afro-American culture. It goes without saying that he was ignoring Euro-American conventions. Perhaps he was also ignoring other basic human conventions. Something that is similar to a high artist trait. Unlike Elder Lightfoot, Hampton didn’t have national radio broadcasts in six cities. Hampton didn’t get to stand in the middle of Griffith Stadium and shout, “hit a home run for Jesus.” He didn’t have radio shows, stadiums full of faces served by his efforts, or payment for his creations. Applause, money and accolades weren’t part of his life. Hampton was personally isolated. He worked after work. His teaching and moralizing was nearly a silent act. Perhaps you could say he was ignoring the convention of social recognition and distribution, something that comes with the territory for all but a tiny minority of high artists.
Friedman also claims that the visionaries had an inherent sense of the visual potential of materials. The materials were, at least partially, the vision. The materials were as unique and as heroic as the teaching and moralizing. The use of materials by Hampton and others, was as much breaking with convention as were the concepts behind the work – Hampton and Rodia engineered inventions of tinfoil and concrete that was breath taking.44
In addition, there is the idea of time that pops up in research about Hampton. Friedman asserts that the visionary artists equate their monuments with a prolonged life.45 There is a sense of eternity attached to the colossal works. The idea of eternal time resonates with my own experience viewing The Throne.
I find it striking that Friedman found a number of common traits among the work of diverse artists, including Hamtpon.
It is difficult to figure out what Howard Rose means when he writes. Parenthetically, Rose includes Hampton in his considerations with Euro-Americans. He blends Hampton’s life experiences into their life experiences. Despite this unfortunate error, he makes some interesting observations.
He speaks of the uneasy connection folk art has to art history. He also speaks about the lack of tradition and the lack of a rooted culture that existed even among Euro-Americans during the 1700s. In addition, there was a need of finding personal value and universal meaning through folk art.46 Also, many of the artists, like Hampton, made only one monumental work.
Rose does not think much of art historians. Mainly he is not happy with the scholarship applied to American folk art – he finds it bland, boring, full of flag waving and a place for aesthetic disintegration. He does, however, find certain American folk art worthy of the highest praise, Hampton among them.
The lack of traditions or roots experienced by Euro-Americans during the 1700s was in part generated by our founding fathers, according to Rose. He explains that the founding fathers called for the banishment of traditions, and the evacuation of history. America was starting out fresh with the ideals of Jefferson, Emerson and Whitman. The new ideals called for perhaps a new patriotic décor, but instead folk artists heard the call to start from scratch.47 They took the founding father’s seriously, and created a folk art that re-invented the wheel quarter inch by quarter inch. Rose claims that a functioning government (at least for Euro-Americans) gave them the resources to re-invent. He also claims that the lack of tradition and history created a need to leave a mark in the world. Making folk art was a way to feel valued.
The lack of tradition and history also resulted in breaking the rules of art. It wasn’t leisure or contentment that caused this break– it was the disgrace at the heart of contentment that was the source of transcendent forms.48 (If you can figure that out, you’re smarter than I am.) He maintains that America was so much without limitations, that transcendence took place. Each minor expression became a museum.
With these concepts – lack of roots, breaking art rules, finding personal value and one whole life monument – Rose toggles back and forth with rants about the art establishment. To Rose the American folk art canon is intractable; it is an anarchy of norms.49
“I ask you, what has such an enterprise to do with fields and surveys, with adjacent works as total and private in their commitment, with museums and catalogues and a burbling public – with anything, in short, but moments of ice and fire in the tepid continuum, a jolting glimpse of first principles struggling to be born … ”50
The lack of roots and tradition, breaking the art rules, the question of value, a whole life work – added with an intractable canon, these are the threads Rose gathers for us. I find this collection of phenomenon significant. Perhaps artists who are not easily placed in society automatically have no cannon, perhaps they automatically question their value, perhaps it follows that such artists have no traditions or roots and perhaps such artists make a monumental whole life gesture in order to make a gesture at all.
Rose himself brings up the question of value. He asks what is the value of such art to people of our time who are equally adrift and uprooted?
“Simply the uncrutched weight of the things, the implications for a major new art that might have been, lock stock and barrel art, to take up and individually structure the void, raise rootlessness to a positive power. Simply, the glimpse of full integrity, which if one cannot finally approach, will for the reason ever fade or pass into knowledge, but will be a thing forever and therein a joy. Simply, the integrity.
Hampton was not without roots; there was a profound and tangible African and Afro-American art that was his. But there are some shared traits with Euro-American artists who embody Rose’s five threads – one thread of which is uprootedness. Uprootedness, breaking art rules, the question of value, a whole life work, an intractable canon, these are the threads. The pivotal one is uprootedness.
The history in American of abducting Afro-American culture into Euro-American definitions is long and destructive. However, I see some intersection between Hampton and the visionary artists Rose and Friedman contemplate. Perhaps uprootedness is simply a ubiquitous human experience. For 18th century America, there was the uprootedness of being abducted from Africa and there was the uprootedness of choosing to leave England. There’s a big difference. However I do see some an intersection, however mild.
These reflections aside, I think Hampton has accomplished an example of a multi-layered transcendence. Multi-layered because it is powerful and has meaning for non-Christians. Robert Farris Thompson writes:
“mankind must applaud Afro-American art in the United States for its sheer existence, a triumph of creative will over forces of destruction.”51
Rose makes another comment that is poignant:
“The period of the last fifty years or so in fact provides some of our most exemplary figures, mature men [and women] of no previous distinction or abilities convulsed into full blown eloquence – not in order to rise above their stations, but somehow to establish one, to have been before it was too late.”52
Hampton’s monument was made in isolation. It wasn’t until he was dead that the Smithsonian proclaimed his monument a work of art. It may have been valued by the few people who came to worship with him, but he didn’t get the recognition that many of the preachers got. Preaching wasn’t Hampton’s strength. Hampton’s strength was building an example of paradise. A.J. Tyler, Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, and Charles M. “Sweet Daddy Grace” aren’t in the Smithsonian. Perhaps Hampton’s mission was to make paradise corporeal for us -- “to have been before it was too late.”
• • •
There are sources of creativity that don’t fit into art high norms. Labeling artists insane and mad is another favorite pastime. Friedman writes about visionary artists, including Hampton:
“Over the years, as these visionaries extended their imaginary worlds, they were psychologically imprisoned within them. Their transformed surroundings came to represent reality, the outside world became fantasy.”53
In an article about Hampton, the respected Stephen Jay Gould says, “This additional air of mystery [of Hampton’s cryptic text] might encourage a view of Hampton’s entire project as something utterly within himself, something so divorced from social context that we can only judge and interpret The Throne as the creation of a visionary or madman (probably something of both).”54
Betye Saar is an the African American assemblage artist grew up in Los Angeles. As a child, she witnessed the construction of the Watts Towers. In an article focusing only on Hampton, even Saar alludes to visionary artists being not quite normal:
“What impresses me about the work of visionary artists is that it moves beyond formal art structures and freely into the realm of imagination. Visionary artists who create environments seem to have an obsession to build unique domains. These artists are often seen as eccentric by their families and neighbors. Many are recyclers who begin to collect objects and then transform them. They rely on their feelings and intuition. In many cases, they are “guided” by dreams, spirits, visions, voices, or direct instructions from God. Certain images and materials come together, as though of their own accord, and the artist begins to sense emerging patters.”55
Some of Saar’s comments could apply to Hampton. However, certain aspects could refer to fine art as well. I think what she’s saying, is that the visionary artists goes further. I am interested in another comment by Saar. In the same article about Hampton she observes:
“As a mixed media assemblage/installation artist, I collect items and transform them. The difference between my art and a visionary’s, I think, is the end result. I am interested in creating an art object; the visionary is answering a call.”56
Hampton did, in fact, have visions; it is documented in numerous sources. However, I cannot believe that Saar and other artists have not been called.
Having visions does tend to be threatening to people. Perhaps it is the degree to which an artist has visions. Consider Joseph Campbell’s urging for us to follow our bliss, contrasted to something like, say, the Jerusalem Syndrome.57 Many of our major religions have been founded on extreme examples of people who have been called or have had visions. We can’t as a culture be totally afraid of visions. Such extreme visions often usher in a new religion. Perhaps it is the fear of another religion. Or perhaps it is the fear of loosing control. Too much heat or transcendence in an artist makes people feel uncomfortable. Perhaps confronting the transcendence of people outside one’s culture, or artists outside the western canon is simply too threatening. A familiar canon of art laws helps people cope. New laws or what appears to be or is lawlessness is too much. Perhaps it is death or god that is the baseline here, it is simply too threatening to cope with strange images of death and god.
Robert Powell says of Hampton’s Throne that many art historians overlook the communal nature of visions in the Afro-American religions.
“The communal nature of practically all Afro-U.S. forms of worship – from the shared visions and common voices on the subject of conversion found among more traditional [churches] … is often forgotten when Hampton’s Throne is discussed. Preferring to see the artist and his creation as “asocial,” “idiosyncratic,” “obsessive,” and even “mad,” these scholars miss the essential point about “vision” and its power to illuminate and enlighten those individuals who enter into its realm.”58
In my opinion, the issue is fear. The danger is when a lack of understanding of an art form issues its elimination.
Vodou Altars
I discovered a website dedicated to educating the public about African religions and Vodou. The website represented itself using a full screen image of The Throne. 59 Such a bold visual possession of Hampton required a closer look on my part. I was led the 1995 exhibit of “Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou” at the UCLA Fowler Museum. My hope was to discover something more about Hampton.
The exhibition, “Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou” took over two years of research and was finalized in the exhibition of three prototypes of Haitian altars. The prototypes were given to the exhibition organizers from communities in Haiti. The original owners of most of the altar objects were project consultants or informants. The process included the participation of a Vodou priests and preistess, oungans, in order to consummate the spiritual power. One oungan traveled to UCLA to direct the reinstallation of the altars, “for the honor of my country and my religion.”60 Without the participation of the oungan, even as art, they could not be called vodou altars.
I discovered that Vodou altars are arranged to pay tribute to and summon the spirits. They are located in temples or private spaces. They are the place where sacred and profane meet. Karen McCarthy Brown, a Vodou initiate, says that “Altars Happen.”61 They have and ebb and flow, a life of their own. One can arrange a display the objects, but until they are activated through ritual and faith, they are not functioning altars. Sacred knowledge is associated with vodou altars; it is knowledge that refers to an open conduit of communication with the sprits. The knowledge provides the healer with profound levels of knowing about a person. The spirits will not come unless an altar has been heated up through ritual, faith and desire. The point or pwen in a vodou altar is the time and place when there has been an exquisite focus of person and spirit to make healing possible.62
Also, Vodou is about being creole. Donald Cosentino author of Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, writes:
“To look at a Vodou altar cluttered with sequined whisky bottles, satin pomanders, clay pots dressed in lace, plaster statues of St. Anthony and the laughing Buddha, holy cards, political kitsch, Dresden clocks, bottles of Moët & Chandon, rosaries, crucifixes, Masonic insignia, eye-shadowed kewpie dolls, atomizers of Anaïs- Anaïs, wooden phalluses, goat skills, Christmas tree ornaments, and Arawak celts is to gauge the achievement of slaves and freemen who imagined a narrative broad enough and fabricated a ritual complex enough to encompass all this disparate stuff.”63
Charles Merewether suggests an additional aspect to creole and the Vodou altar. Yes, the altar is a point of intense focus where the human and divine meet. And yes, creole is reconciliation of disparate beliefs. But there is more to both. If I read Merewether correctly, he is saying that the relationships of dissimilar objects transforms their meaning. The transformed image of god becomes more sacred than god himself. Viewers become estranged by the capacity of incongruent images to assimilate differences into new meaning. The disparate images sort of shock the viewer into heightened awareness.64
The evocation of the divine is dependent on the absence of the divine. When god is absent, an altar is a place to look. With Vodou altars, as with all altars, god is not there, but you make an invitation. The leap of faith necessary is blind and not rational. To invite a sacred moment exposes oneself to estrangement from oneself. Estrangement means to remove from an accustomed place or relation, that is the sacred place of the altar. Removal from the accustomed place, and into a conference with the divine. Donald Cosentino calls altars working models of heaven.65 Merewether says that one must find the boundaries between logic and “that which is unassimilable, profoundly other, alien.” 66
Merewether compares the task of the ethnographer or cultural critic to the experience of a Vodou altar. If I read him correctly, he says that when in the presence of an unknown culture it is similar to being at a Vodou altar. There are disparate things assembled, you are sort of shocked into estrangement and a higher awareness and there is a great leap of faith necessary in order to expose yourself to a new idea.
“The issue for any cross-cultural criticism is to create a method of open-mindedness, leaving us as much in a position of discomfort about the cultural assumptions and beliefs of others as those of ourselves.” 67
I think the failure to use Merewether’s proposed method is what put James Hampton in the dark for so long.
Art or Religion
Even though the altars for the exhibition, “Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou,” were blessed by preists and great care was taken to follow the wishes and conventions of the religion, David Mayo writes:
“I don’t believe they are alive, but they do convey the spirit of the free-form metaphysics I have had the pleasure of experience in Vodou.” 68
There is something present here besides the lack of an authentic religion in art museums. I think it has to do with the heating up that Brown refers to. Consider for a moment that the artist him or herself can heat up a work of art.
I think Hampton heated up The Throne. Richard Powell reminds us that it was once a religious site. There was a small community of faithful. He says of The Throne:
“a few … like-minded individuals gathered, sang gospel music, raised a modest collection, read from the Bible, witnessed to one another, and in general created a spiritual community.” 69
Powell continues, people perhaps saw themselves as “lucky, and even blessed” to be a “part of such a strange, yet inspiring atmosphere.” They “could take comfort … in the “collective brilliance and shine of Hampton’s sheltered Throne, they were God’s chosen people, they were loved, and their existence matter.” 70
David Stevens, a Philadelphia artist, worked for three years on a piece dedicated to James Hampton. Stevens work is described as startling and innovative. The poignant aspect is that Stevens created a fictional journal inspired by Hampton. The journal is thought of by Stevens as though it were Hampton’s journal describing what he’d be doing in the year 2000. It is a correspondence between him and Hampton’s spirit, as though he was carrying on where Hampton left off. 71
The work of Stevens and Powell’s comment on Hampton’s small community remind me of a vodou altar. Perhaps it is Brown’s description of “heating up,” – the necessary ritual, faith and desire that makes art come alive.
History and Eternity
Removal from the accustomed place, and into a conference with the divine. What this paper has been about is James Hampton’s concept of paradise. Cosentino calls Vodou altars working models of heaven.72 The connection I see between Vodou altars and James Hampton’s The Throne is a model of heaven that has been undervalued and feared. Living in the center of any paradise is history and eternity.
“It is through the perspective of Vodou that Haitians construct their peculiar weltanschauung: a way of seeing history, contemporary society, and the superstructure of religion in one master narrative. From this perspective, history collapses into myth, the secular into the sacred, the momentary into the durative.” 63
Stephen Jay Gould sees in The Throne a visual depiction of Western time. He explains that time in is accounted for in two ways and that these two accounts saturate Judeo-Christian tradition.74 One version is historic time, and the other is cyclical or eternal time.
Historic time represents a sequence of moments, a story of linked events, movement in one direction, and a narrative such as cradle to grave. Cyclical time represents events as states. The states are always present, and never change. There are no distinct episodes, no cause and affect. What seems like motion or progress is really a cycle, time has no direction. Cycles can be seen in days, seasons and years.
Gould points out the link of Hampton’s visual depiction of time with the that of a 17th century man, Reverend Thomas Burnet. Gould compares The Throne with an engraving that was vital to Burnet’s arguments. Burnet’s engraving was placed on the frontispiece of his book, The Sacred Theory of the Earth. During Burnet’s era scientists realized that our earth was not made at the time of Geniuses, but was in fact millions and billions of years old. Burnet constructed earth’s history to stress the need for historic and eternal time.
The similarities between Burnet’s engraving and The Throne are quite amazing, but not beyond belief since Hampton did read the Bible. Gould points out that both Burnet accomplished a visual portrayal of time through bisymmetry. Both Burnet and Hampton put the past on the viewer’s left, and the future on the viewers right. Both put Christ in the center, both wrote at the top, “I am the alpha and the omega,” a way to represent cyclical time. So, in fact, did Hampton. (Gould’s description of Throne time) It is especially interesting to read Gould’s description of Hampton’s painstaking efforts at symmetry:
“Hampton constructed this symmetry with consummate care and attention. Each detail on the left side – a light bulb covered with foil, the wing of an angel, even a small ball of paper wrapped in foil – is repeated in its mirror-image position of the right side.” 75
Later he says::
“The objects of each pair are identical in design to the last detail of bump, bulb, jar, wing and knob.” 76
Betye Saar says of Hampton’s Throne:
“For me, it evoked a deeper, more mystical sensation, as though it were reaching back into ancestral memory and extending into the future like the Temple of Ming in a Flash Gordon movie.” 77
When it comes to paradise, we can all find eternal time. But, according Gould, Hampton took great pains to show us historical time also. Where is the history in this monument? Consider this quote:
“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole … This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more pain than their original sculpture, those icons and sacred vessels taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent … This is the basis of the Antillean experience, this shipwreck of fragments, these echoes, these shards of a huge tribal vocabulary, these partially remembered customs, and they are not decayed but strong. They survived the Middle Passage.” 78
I think what Hampton has done is put together for us the history of suffering and heaven before our eyes. The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millenium General Assembly is the removal from the accustomed place, and into a conference with the divine. It is an historical and eternal document that has been heated by Hampton’s own life, by a small community of followers and by us, the people who are stunned by it.
I’ve heard Afro-Americans say, “you can’t be it, if you can’t see it.” An adage found on Hampton’s black board says, “Where There Is No Vision The People Perish.” Hampton is giving us heaven. In my opinion, it is not just a vision of heaven, but the real thing. Many of us who have seen it experience what is described by Vodou altars – we are exposed to estrangement from ourselves. We are removed from an accustomed place or relation. Into our historical experience, he has inserted a slice of eternity.
Conclusion
I think that art history is a powerful force in our society; it defines what is valued. These definitions determine what is financially underwritten and what is put on view. It also influences us about what to put on view.
Art history had its renewed beginnings in the Italian Renaissance with its interest in Classical antiquity. Fame and the earthly immortality was the paradigm. Vasari dominated this era. Later a new a chapter was ushered in by the dominance of German thought; Winckelmann was the key player. In this paradigm one is to avoid personalities and focus on art as a product of forces. It was focused on beholder rather than artist. Later the exclusive disposition of each individual era was emphasized.79 Presently, Hegel and von Rumohr added their perspectives. However, it was during the 19th century that the institutionalization of art history as an academic discipline took place. 1834 saw Franz Kugler as the first art history chair was at the University of Berlin. Other scholars joined him and a lively culture of art assessment was created. Those who couldn’t find employment in academia were taken in by the great European museums that co-incidentally came into existence at the same time there was an excess of unemployed art historians.
I know there has been a revisionist art history movement. What is interesting to me here is what continues to dominate our thought – these old models based on German thought. The German brain is a brain of logic. As a person of German heritage myself, but possessing an illogical, intuitive, feminist, learning disabled brain – I find the dominance of a logical assessment norm limited. Logic is good and useful. But it isn’t the only tool to use in art assessment. When looking at cultures that aren’t yours, it is also useful to let yourself be open to the strangeness. African-American art, feminist art, gay and lesbian art, working class art and many more are often discounted in our society. The biggest problem in my opinion, is making a language that renders the art of those cultures non-art, and therefore erased. The Throne deserves and has achieved an honorable place in society. However, there is countless art, and countless artists who don’t fit the mold and who have been discounted. This is a damaging aspect of art history. There have been 13 million immigrants into the U.S. in the last ten years. It is essential that we turn away from old assessment norms embrace new ones.
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1 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Going Urban: American Folk Art and the Great Migration.” American Art 14, no 2 (Summer 2000) 39.
2 Ibid. 34.
3 Ibid. 29
4 Ibid. 29
5 Metcalf, Eugene W. “Black Art, Folk Art, and Social Control.” Winterhur Portfolio 18, no. 4 (Winter 1983). 277
6 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Going Urban: American Folk Art and the Great Migration.” American Art 14, no 2 (Summer 2000) 35-36
7 Ibid. 37
9 Ibid. Hartigan. 2000. 36-37
10 Ibid. 48
11 Clark, Sabina.“St. James Exhibit at Klein Gallery: Display his 12 Startling Artworks.” Philadelphia Tribune 113, no 30 (May 10, 1996) 2.
12 Perry, Regenia A. “Contemporary African American Folk Art: An Overview.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 1 (1993): 16.
13 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Going Urban: American Folk Art and the Great Migration.” American Art 14, no 2 (Summer 2000) 34.
14 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Elijah Pierce and James Hampton: One Good Book Begets Another.” Folk Art 19 (Summer 1994): 56.
15 Hartigan. 1994.
16 Rose, Howard. “My American Folk Art.” Art in America 70 (January 1982): 116-29.
17 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe, guest curator. “James Hampton, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millenium General Assembly.” Exhibition Catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (October 19, 1976—February 13, 1977): 4.
18 Ward, Douglas. 2002. The “Third Heaven.” [online] Christian Resource Institute, 2002. [cited August 27, 2002]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.cresourcei.org/thirdheaven.html>
19 No author. 2002. “The Third Heaven and Paradise.” [online] Restoration Light. [cited August 27, 2002] Available from the World Wide Web: ,http:reslightladdr.com/thirdheaven.html
20 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 61.
21 Robert Farris Thompson, “The Song That Named the Land: The Visionary Presence of African American Art,” in Black Art Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art (Dallas Museum of Art, 1989): 124.
22 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 24-9+.
23 Metcalf, Eugene W. “Black Art, Folk Art, and Social Control.” Winterhur Portfolio 18, no. 4 (Winter 1983). 289.
24 Metcalf, Eugene W. “Black Art, Folk Art, and Social Control.” Winterhur Portfolio 18, no. 4 (Winter 1983). 271
25 Ibid. Metcalf. 1983. 271.
26 Ibid. 271.
27 Ibid. 271.
28 Ibid. 272.
29 Ibid. 273-274.
30 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 29.
31 Ibid. Metcalf. 1983. 273.
32 Ibid. 273.
33 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 60-61.
34 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 61.
35 Ibid. Metcalf. 1983. 274
36 Ibid. 274
37 Ibid. 274
38 Ibid. 279
39 Ibid. 279
40 Ibid. 280
41 Ibid. 281
42 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 61.
43 Friedman, Martin. “Naives and Visionaries.” Museum News 54, no. 4 (March-April 1976): 42
44 Ibid. 42
45 Ibid. 43.
46 Rose, Howard. “My American Folk Art.” Art in America 70 (January 1982): 118.
47 Ibid. 118
48 Ibid. 118
49 Ibid. 125
50 Ibid. 119
51 Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. “Recent Challenges in the Study of African American Folk Art.” International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 62.
52 Ibid. Rose. 1982. 122
53 Friedman, Martin. “Naives and Visionaries.” Museum News 54, no. 4 (March-April 1976): 43.
54 Gould, Stephen. “James Hampton’s throne and the Dual Nature of Time.” American Art 1, no. 1 (Spring 1987) 49.
55 Saar, Betye. “Temple for Tomorrow.” American Art 8 (Summer/Fall 1994) 132.
56 Ibid. 132.
57 Fein, Judith. 2000. Jerusalem Syndrome. [online]. Minnesota Public Radio. 2001. [cited September 1, 2002] Available from World Wide Wed: <http:www.savvytraveler.com/show/features/2000/20000603/Jerusalem.shtml>
The Jerusalem Syndrome is when an otherwise mentally healthy tourist imagines that they are a person from the Bible. They often have imaginary conversations with biblical persons, and hold impassioned public lectures about the Bible.
58 Powell, Richard J. “Art, History, and Vision.” The Art Bulletin 77, no. 3 (September 1995): 381
59 Hounon, Mamaisii Vivian Odelelasi Dansi. 2001-2002. The Ancestral Religion in West Africa and The Afro-Diaspora. [oneline]. [cited July 1, 2002]. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.mamiwata.com/champollion.html
There is a navigational error. To view the Ancestral Religions website, delete “champollion.html” and it will come up.
60 Cosentino, Donald J. “Vodou Altars.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 66
61 Brown, Karen McCarthy. “Altars Happen.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 67.
62 Ibid. 67
63 Cosentino, Donald J. “On Looking at a Vodou Altar.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 67.
64 Merewether, Charles. “A Matter of Recognition.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 72
65 Cosentino, Donald J. “On Looking at a Vodou Altar.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 67
66 Merewether, Charles. “A Matter of Recognition.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 72
67 Ibid. 72
68 Mayo, David. “I Married a Voodoo Altar.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 70.
69 Powell, Richard J. “Art, History, and Vision.” The Art Bulletin 77, no. 3 (September 1995): 380-381
70 Ibid. Powell. 380-381.
71 Clark, Sabina. “St. James’ Exhibit at kein Gallery: Display has 12 Startling Artworks.” Philadelphia TribuneI 113, no. 30 (May 10, 1996): 9-+.
72 Cosentino, Donald J. “On Looking at a Vodou Altar.” African Arts 29 (Spring 1996): 67
63 Ibid. 67
