Jamie Franklin with selections from his collection. Photo by Rhonda Ratray.

Jamie Franklin has been the curator at the Bennington Museum in Vermont for the last 15 years. In that time, he has also assembled a personal collection of art from around the world ranging from calligraphic drawings to art created in prisons and psychiatric hospitals—a collection one might label “outsider art.”

But Franklin says, “I don’t like the term outsider art. There are art worlds; there is no Art World. There are artists working in many contexts, and many never get acclaim.” If one must use a term, he prefers “self-taught”—even though he notes artists in his collection like Helmi Juvonen, who was traditionally trained but also made art after being committed to a hospital, complicate this definition.

At Bennington, Franklin oversees the largest public collection of Grandma Moses paintings. Around 2013, the museum started collecting regionally specific self-taught artists to contextualize her work. But Franklin’s personal collection of 20th-century self-taught artists goes back to 2010, when he saw an unusual drawing at auction that included a tree, the Lord’s Prayer, and Rip Van Winkle. It was inscribed “to Dr. Joseph Draper by Major W. King” and valued at $300–$500. When his $250 bid won, Franklin’s personal art collection officially began. After some digging, he discovered King was a patient of Draper’s at the Vermont Asylum for the Insane in the 1880s. Eventually, King was released, became a farmer, and bequeathed his estate to Ashfield, Massachusetts to care for the poor.

Major W. King (1856-1918), Reply to a Christmas Present of a Watch, c. 1885, ink on paper.

Joseph Rinkowski (1906-1980), Ship in a Lighbulb, c. 1975, mixed media in a found lightbulb.

Sarah Mary Taylor (1916-2000), Blue horse, marker on paper.

While this work started Franklin’s art collection, he has always loved collecting—whether orchids, Muscle-Men toys, or birds. As a boy, he raised show pigeons, lories, lorikeets, and ring-necked pheasants with the aspiration of studying ornithology and becoming a zoo’s bird curator. As a teenager, he developed a passion for antiques, history, and art, which had the distinct advantage of not needing “cleaning up at the end of the day.”

Franklin enjoys categorizing but, as a curator, breaking down borders between categories is just as important to him. His house is filled with his son’s and friends’ art, ships in light bulbs, and the self-taught artwork he has acquired through eBay, auctions, yard sales, and an occasional dealer. His collection is full of unique pieces (which the museum has the right of first refusal to), the most expensive of which cost him a few thousand—and most of which are much, much cheaper. One example is a mixed-media piece by Purvis Young, who according to Franklin is the “most prolific artist in the history of the world.” Some of his works fetch more than $25,000, but Franklin acquired a small piece for $100 on eBay.

A highlight of Franklin’s collection is a set of more than 100 drawings by Elsie Gowans (a.k.a. Polly EGG). These otherworldly line drawings incorporating outer space and other realms show her creative path and holistic vision. While he has tracked down some information about the artist (she was institutionalized and also wrote and patented song lyrics that “kind of make sense if you sing them fast with a bebop intonation.”) The “individual details matter less when you have a whole body of work to see. Knowing an artist’s biography and cultural context adds important meaning and layers, but I don’t like to overindulge context.”

Elsie Gowans (1895-1967), [Intergalactic Travel], 1958.

Elsie Gowans (1895-1967), Planet, 1959.

Another beautiful piece is a sculpture Lucy Robinson, a Baltimore-based artist who rolled crepe paper into colorful, rope-like forms and adorned objects with them. Franklin has a globe covered with fantastical symbols and figures that draw on astrology and geometric forms. And there is a work on paper by J. B. Murray, whose power lay in his “deep and mysterious spirituality that was grounded in larger cultural practices of which he was a direct participant.” But it is hard to choose a favorite among the pieces in his collection that include work from Paul Darmafall, Paul Humphrey, Charley Kinney, Joseph Rinkowski, Sarah Mary Taylor, Mose Tolliver, Charles W. Tower, and a series of paintings simply signed “Ray.”

As a curator, Franklin gives viewers context. He sees self-taught artists like Modernists, who didn’t play by the rules, and Surrealists, who created their own worlds. As a collector, however, Franklin doesn’t need to explain everything historically. Collecting makes him a better curator, he says, because he sees things in fresh ways as he hangs pieces in a less structured context. He collects because he is “just a really curious person and gets bored quickly.” He relishes sifting through his archive and rehanging the collection of art—and art, he stresses, by its nature comes from everywhere and is wonderful because anyone in the world is capable of making it.

J. B. Murray (1908-1988)

Poem/letter by Charles W. Tower (1850-1903)

Basil Merrett, c. 1945-1960

Merrill Densmore (1943-2006)

Purvis Young (1943-2010), [Fire Dancers].

All photos taken by Jamie Franklin unless otherwise noted.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: CORWIN LEVI

Corwin is a visual artist working in design, illustration, bookmaking, curating, and writing. As an artist, he has attended over twenty artist residencies. He has also have lived in eighteen cities across twelve states. Along with Michelle Aldredge, he co-created Mirror Mirrored: An Artists’ Edition of 25 Grimms’ Tales. He is currently remixing vintage game boards and making a book from illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.

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