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Like many of the so-called Outsiders, including
Finster (whose CD The Night Howard Finster Got Saved included
titles like "Rock and Roll and Preacher Finster"),
Thorn likes to explore religious themes in both his music and
his art. One of his drawings depicts the demise of a fictional
bluesman, Thunderbolt Brown, and the ensuing battle for his soul;
in "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand," he sings of a
fed-up preacher who quits the church to preach instead from a
roadside fireworks business. The devil is never far away: He
appears as an almost lovable, pot-bellied figure strolling across
the surface of Thorn's Ain't Love Strange album and pops
up again in the CD booklet, seated atop a trailer eating lunch
as two commandment-breaking lovers meet inside.
"When I draw these pictures of the devil and God, I'm really
just drawing the bad and the good," Thorn explained. "Whatever's
bad to you is the devil. Whatever's good to you is God."
And the self-portrait in which he faces down Lucifer in a boxing
ring? "When I draw the guy with the horns, I'm just drawing
whatever's troubling me. It ain't a literal devil." In Thorn's
world, "what's troubling me" can mean anything from
a broken heart to the latest episode of The Jerry Springer
Show.
Outsider Art? Visual blues? If Paul Thorn and Jimmy Lee Sudduth
are any measure, the artists really don't care what you call
it. Thorn claims his main concern is doing things "by the
spirit and not by the letter." Sit with Sudduth for a while
and you'll discover he's just as proud of having built a patio
for the director of the local art museum or of his innate power
to heal warts as he is of his recognition in the art world. For
Sudduth, at least, making pictures is just a part of life. He's
like a Delta boogie man doing what comes naturally: mulling over
his existence and finding a way to express its meaning.
(copyright 2002 Straight Up Inc.)
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