By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – For those interesting in intriguing art, the Customs House Museum show “The Outsiders: Folk Art from the Hicks and Vander Elst Collections” checks off all the boxes. It’s an exhibit that makes a viewer want to eavesdrop on what other guests are saying. Do they like it? Or are they saying, “I could draw that” or “My (fill-in-the-blank age) child could do that.”
Folk Art isn’t for everybody; it’s simplistic rather than elaborate. As opposed to fine art, Folk Art is naïve in style. Often called Outsider Art in the modern era, this style of expression has its roots in rural, self-taught craftsmen whose work is beyond the typical structures of the art world. In the U.S., such art tends to come from the South.
The artistic parameters of Folk Art perplex some viewers and entice others. Whichever camp you find yourself in, this show is a concentrated sampling that represents two private collections.
The Reverend Howard Finster, who passed away in 2001, was a Georgia artist known for his plywood cutouts of angels, like the one seen in “The Outsiders: Folk Art from the Hicks and Vander Elst Collections.”
One of the collections is on lend from Robert Hicks, a Leiper’s Fork collector who also happens to be the author of the best-selling novel “Widow of the South.” Hicks was the first Tennessean to be included in Art & Antiques magazine’s Top 100 Collectors in America, according to the museum. The
other collection is on lend from the Vander Elst family.
There are many notable Folk Artists among the works that grace the Orgain Gallery at the Customs House Museum. Among them are Jimmy Lee Sudduth, who used materials including mud, sugar and berries to create his paint; the Reverend Howard Finster, who is popularly known for illustrating album covers for R.E.M.’s “Reckoning” and Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures”; and Benjamin F. Perkins, Robert Roberg and Mose Tolliver (also known as Mose T).
The collection features a range of artistic mediums, including sculpture, mixed media, paintings on wood and clay. The clay jugs by Georgia Blizzard 
are particularly charming. She began creating figures from clay when she was only eight years old because she was too poor to buy toys; her mother showed her how to fire them to hardness.
Those who have lived in Clarksville for many decades will be familiar with the late Folk Art sculptor Enoch Tanner (“E.T.”) Wickham. His massive concrete sculptures were once a roadside attraction in nearby Palmyra. Folk Art is not only part of the South’s culture, it is part of Middle Tennessee’s culture. This show gives visitors a wonderful sampling of those roots.
“The Outsiders: Folk Art from the Hicks and Vander Elst Collections” will be on view through Sept. 7 at the Customs House Museum, 200 South Second Street. For more information, call the museum at 931-648-5780.
PHOTO: Alabama’s Jimmy Lee Sudduth used materials including mud, sugar and berries to paint his artworks on plywood.