Gregory Blackstock
December 5, 2007 1:07 PM   Subscribe

Autistic retired pot-washer Gregory Blackstock creates striking artworks of everyday items. Short YouTube interview here. If you're in Seattle, you can see him tonight at the opening of his exhibition at the Garde Rail Gallery.
posted by Armitage Shanks (11 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
An excerpt of the book Blackstock's Collections with more pictures at Amazon.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 1:18 PM on December 5, 2007


Very nice. Thanks.
posted by jiiota at 2:12 PM on December 5, 2007


Blackstock's Collections is about the coolest holiday gift one could possibly receive. Thanks for reminding me about this gem.
posted by gum at 2:18 PM on December 5, 2007


He's pretty incredible. The lack of whitespace is pretty amazing. I couldn't begin to fill nearly every available space like that and still keep the size of the printing uniform. And his letterforms are awesome!
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:41 PM on December 5, 2007


Nice...I read all the interview stuff and looked at all the examples before looking at the video, and when I did he looked and sounded exactly like the mental image I had formed in my mind.
posted by anazgnos at 3:33 PM on December 5, 2007


Nice. Do want!
posted by John of Michigan at 3:42 PM on December 5, 2007


Metafilter: Loud Filthy-Mouth Offender, The Overemotional Dirtbag!
posted by nzero at 4:26 PM on December 5, 2007


I like the uniformity of dimensions in his visual lists, and they are pleasing to the eye, but (and I know I am very much the devil's advocate here, as his work is so popular with those commenting above) I find myself viewing them more as simple, kid-friendly drawings than artistic works of any distinction. I honestly feel a lot of people can, and do, make work of this quality or better without it being deemed art.

I guess it is the simplicity of the works that makes me see them more as something I might buy in an education store and hang in a kid's room as a learning aid, than something I'd go to see in a gallery and 'ooh' and 'ahh' over.
posted by misha at 7:26 PM on December 5, 2007


I like "the art supplies" best; many of the others seem like very fine illustration, almost commercial graphics. In "art supplies" (and maybe some others) the apparent obsessiveness, the seeming need to include everything, makes it really engaging. The gallery person's statement "[H]is autism did not make him become an artist, nor is he an artist because of it… " may be true, but his autism seems to have contributed to the art itself.

There are quite a few autistic artists (say that 5 times quickly), several indexed here, and it would be interesting to see if there are commonalities across them, such as prominence of obsessive elements.
posted by cogneuro at 8:51 PM on December 5, 2007


Another.
posted by cogneuro at 9:29 PM on December 5, 2007


cogneuro FTW.

Nothing against Mr.Blackstock or his very nice drawings. Or the post, for that matter.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:14 AM on December 6, 2007


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