Red Shed
~ story and photo by Ryan Stacy
Over time, generations of fine artists, artisans, and craftspeople have forged— and carved, and sculpted, and polished— Brown County’ s reputation as a community of creativity and imagination. The works of art found in any number of our shops, stands, and galleries reflect the deep pool of talent at work here every day, their creators’ dedication and discipline abundantly obvious. But the paintings of Norman Ulery( 1947 – 1976), many of which are housed at Red Shed Studio outside of Nashville, might be especially remembered as the truly original expressions of Brown County’ s earliest“ outsider artist.”
Though he was born and raised in northern Indiana, Ulery’ s journey to Brown County was an indirect one.“ When he was a child in Peru, Indiana, he would draw on every scrap of paper he could find,” says Normajean Macleod, Ulery’ s daughter and the proprietor of Red Shed.“ He had polio early on, so he didn’ t get to be as active
22 Our Brown County • Nov./ Dec. 2018
Normajean MacLeod in the Red Shed Studio.