n OUTSIDER ART
highly visible exhibitions like the Outsider Art Fair, an annual
four-day event founded in 1993 that hosts more than 60 inter-
national exhibitors displaying works from “artists pushing the
boundaries of creativity.”
Former SCN clients Bob Sulin, Jon Espegren, Jeff Work-
ing, Wendy Chu and Jerry Williams have been shown at the
Outsiders Art Fair, and SCN’s inclusion at national gatherings
as well as at local galleries and events like Sac Open Studios,
Verge’s annual tour of more than 250 artist studios around the
region — SCN was a featured stop last year — has helped art-
ists find recognition outside the walls of the classroom.
“Art shows make me totally excited,” Franklin, the SCN
client, says.
This feeling of excitement is one that permeates pro-
grams like SCN, where the focus is on the process of making
rather than the promise of selling. (When artists like Frank-
lin do sell a piece, Berger says the artist keeps the amount of
the sale minus the cost of materials.) But as with any art form
on public display, buyers often come calling — and when that
happens, it’s important for program directors and gallery
owners to know how to handle an often complex situation.
WHO SELLS OUTSIDER ART?
In March 2013, an untitled mixed-media work of colored pen-
cil, wax and other materials on paper depicting a man on
horseback by outsider artist Martín Ramírez fetched more
than $270,000 at Paris auction house Cornette de Saint-
Cyr, setting a sales record for the artist. His other works had
reached prices as high as $95,000 (at Christie’s in 2003) and
$134,500 (at Sotheby’s in 2011).
Ramírez immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the ear-
ly 1900s and worked for the railroads in California between
1925 and 1930. After suffering a head injury or stroke and be-
coming homeless, he was institutionalized and diagnosed
with schizophrenia. Ramírez spent more than 30 years in in-
stitutions, first at Stockton State Hospital and later at DeWitt
State Hospital in Auburn. At DeWitt, Tarmo Pasto, a visiting
art professor, came across the arresting artwork Ramírez had
been making with the materials around him — brown paper
bags, examination-table paper, oatmeal, fruit juice, saliva
and crayons.
Ramírez’s art was eventually introduced to the wider world
by Pasto, artist Jim Nutt and Chicago-based art dealer Phyllis
Kind. Since Kind’s first solo exhibition of Ramírez’s work in
1973, the artist’s drawings and collages have become some of
the most highly valued examples of outsider art on the market.
But not everyone has such a story.
“It’s a crappy roll of the dice,” says Moe, who believes
some of Ramírez’s market value is due to the finite avail-
ability of his work since his death in 1963. His work didn’t
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