"Intangible Spirit" An obituary for artist Harry Blomme published in NUVO August 13, 2003

By Mary Lee Pappas Published in NUVO August 13, 2003 Harry Blomme knows what God looks like. “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” he once told me. Blomme, a local artist, passed away suddenly the weekend of July 12. He was 69. “He lived his life in preparation for this,” Bill Bickel, director of Holy Family Shelter, said. In 1997, Bill became Harry’s caseworker at the Homeless Initiative. A former Southern Indiana farmer, a Flemish Canadian export, Harry was homeless and epileptic. “Health was always a concern,” Bill said. I first met Harry six years ago when he and Bill visited a Massachusetts Avenue gallery where I worked to check out the art. I can’t recall whose art was hanging on the walls, but Harry I remember vividly. He gave me a deftly drawn charcoal portrait of a girl as a token of his visit. This was typical Harry. “It always amazed him when someone would take an interest in him,” Bill recalled. “He was spiritual and approachable. He looked at situations so optimistically and held by his convictions. He was much, much more than a homeless artist. That doesn’t begin to explain who he was. He broke stereotypes and boundaries about homelessness without knowing it. He looked at himself as being one of us and folks treated him that way. That’s what we want. No one should be labeled.” When U.S. Rep. Julia Carson was presented with two of Harry’s paintings, “She was, I think, very humbled,” Bill said. One was of Carson and the other was of Rosa Parks, who Harry had read was an inspiration to Carson. Harry sold some of his paintings at Utrillo’s Art, owned by Greg Brown. “He intelligently approached his work. His method was fascinating and impressive. It’s stuck with me and affected my own work,” Greg said of his friend Harry. Three years ago, just before Harry got settled into his apartment (called “studio-studio”), he lived with David Hittle, of Lutheran Child and Family Services. The annual April Show, an art show inspired by Harry’s talent, started from their close friendship. “Very intangible” is the only way David could explain the impact Harry has had on him. “Harry had a clear and profound effect on people he may have only met once or twice.” Harry’s passing was sudden. “He was doing very, very well,” Bill said. “I saw him the day before and he was having a blast,” Greg recalled. “He’s kind of a gad-about. He was full of life and having fun.” Harry’s funeral was July 19 in his hometown of Rockport, Ind. “It was packed. It seems that the people of Rockport knew Harry as we knew him here. He was known for pulling out his sketchbook,” David said. “The music was awesome. Southern Indiana shoutin’ Pentecostal music. Very bluegrassy. Real good stuff.” “I would put Harry up there as one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had,” Bill said. David had difficulty putting the effect Harry has had on his life into words. “Gargantuan is the only word to describe it.” A memorial service for Harry will be held at Roberts Park Church on Aug. 14, 6:30 p.m. If you own a piece of Harry’s work, please bring it for a display after the service. For more information on Harry’s art visit www.aprilshow.org. The Web page for an interview with Harry July 3, 2002, can be found at www.nuvo.net/news/archive/002660.html. Harry Blomme, Julia Carson, Bill Bickel, David Hittle, Roberts Park Church, Greg Brown, Utrillo's Art Gallery, Indianapolis, Indiana, The April Show

Greg Brown's misfit masterpieces

NUVO Newsweekly, January 30 to February 6, 2002

Page 8

Mary Lee Pappas

An eccentric repository for orphaned kitsch paintings, Utrillo's Art Gallery, appropriately named for a so-so artist whose work was mass-marketed in the 1950s, falls someplace between a thrift shop and a gallery. “I collect art from the thrift store,“ Greg Brown, artist an owner of Utrill's Art, states. Provincial grandma art, religious kitsch, student stuff, paint by numbers and 1950s schlock reproduction popular prints are among the genres of original kitsch art paintings he emancipates from thrift shop shelves. Some are kept for his personal collection, others are sold.

“More people’s paintings are going to end up at thrift shops the museums,“ Brown says. “Thrift stores make art valuable,“ and affordable for anyone to own.

Brown has been conducting misfit masterpiece search and rescue missions since opening his first shop at 10th and Rural in December 1994. That venue became a successful free-form arts space for five years, before moving to the current location at 3318 E. 10th St., where the focus is kitsch recovery and frame sales. Original fine’s cell anywhere from $5 to $500 to a clientele Brown described as “a real wide variety.“ He adds that some people are embarrassed to admit they like this instinctive, thrift shop sort of art. Regular Utrillo customers “are right across the social spectrum. All shapes and sizes and colors and economic conditions – everybody. It’s neat that way.“ Brown’s collecting advice is, “start cheap and work your way up.“

Brown is supporting the local arts in a very fundamental way. He understands, validates and celebrates the simplicity and necessity of self expression. He knows and already practices with the Arts Council of Indianapolis is preaching in their new the Arts Can Help add campaign: “The arts play an integral role in the daily fabric of our lives… We work hard to support the creative and meaningful work of our arts and cultural organizations as well as our local talented artist.“ The difference is they see “critical activities for the arts community," as their website and TicketCentral in the ArtsGarden, stating, “Your assistance is needed to help us continue to create the best climate for the arts to thrive."

The anonymous, untrained and amateur artists whose salvaged work winds up at Utrillo's paint in a style affectionately dubbed “naïve." Brown defines naïve artist as those “who have a sense of art history and strive to paint in a European style,“ though they actually have no training, sense of depth, composition or color. Creating art is purely joy filled and experiential for them. “I like that kind of sweet art,“ Brown explains.

Some naïve art comes straight from artist to him without the second-hand retrieval effort. Jerome Neil, Jan Boyer and Harry Blomme are three such artist in Indianapolis who are represented at Utrillo's. “I try to promote stuff I love personally,“ Brown says. “Different artists have different needs for representation. I promote amateur art and naive art because I feel it’s important to validate."

Brown, who received formal art training at Indiana University in Bloomington, recently examined his fascination with naïve art by attempting to paint similarly styled figures. “One thing I was really bad at was figures. I thought, I’m gonna do something I don’t know how to do." Humbled, he gained valuable personal insight about how art should be approached. “That was the hardest thing.“ Brown says. “The simplicity embarrassed me. Why could I love it in somebody else and not love it for myself? That’s when I really started to examine my attitude toward art.“

Brown deduced the art he loved represented emotional, private and meditative qualities derived from the primary, free and flexible act of making art. Naïve art became for him, “people really trying really hard to do something they wanted to do." They are honest artistic efforts that liberate personal creativity, produce pride, create a sense of fulfillment and artistic accomplishment. Brown concluded that the sweeping demographic eureka, that anyone can paint, was precisely why he sells and collects this kind of work. “They do it for love and I think it comes through."

Brown adds, “Art is not for the elite anymore." The arts have to be for everyone now, as elitist dwindle and charitable anonymity seems passé. “It’s a breakdown of dominance,“ Brown says. 

Paint by numbers kits, recently celebrated an annual exhibition at the Smithsonian, and once thought to be a violation of art by arts aficionados, testify to the power, need and desire for personal expression – even if simulated. Realistically themed kits introduced people to art, supplies, the process of creating, personal expression (albeit predetermined) and gave them works of art to hang in their homes. The paint by numbers paintings, which Brown collects, became a popular pastime in the 1950s when increased prosperity, consumerism and leisure time were on the rise. The art experience suddenly became easily accessible at an affordable price.

“People are starting to look toward art. The inherent experience of painting and being creative is a good common ground,“ Brown says. “The breakdown of the rules will disperse art into the general population. Some people will be offended and some people are gonna be thrilled. I see the universality of it, but I also insist on my own personal path." Brown knows the principle of joy that creating and observing art produces – and how that experience can be muddled or lost in the arts administration underbrush of grants, commissions or capital campaigns. Of his forsaken finds, he says, “They’re worth more than three dollars to me."

Jerome Neil

“This is my think tank,“ Jerome Neil said of his Wheeler art studio. Born and raised in Chicago, a lifelong Midwestern inhabitant, Neil has been humbly selling (his painting start at $65) and exhibiting his work here and there for four decades. The Wheeler has enabled him to pursue his newfound, full-time artist life. Paintings of airplanes, dinosaurs, trains, cowboys, landscapes, musicians, monorails, Dick Tracy, Roman soldiers and an R2-D2 portrait – “I’m on a Star Wars kick for the kids“ – are perched, displayed and stacked anywhere space allows.

“There’s no special topic. I paint what I want to,“ he says of his diverse imagery that stylistically hops, skips and jumps, from traditional tree filled landscapes to energy and people filled murals. “Figuring out what color you’re gonna to start with is hard, but they’re nope problem,“ he says of his even more different, yet proficiently composed, tribal and angular abstracts. Most of his can’t-pin-the-tail-down instinctive works are randomly named after song titles from his jazz record collection and fueled by his love of world history.

“That is it. That’s the main thing,“ he says of his passion for the past. A whole new series of Paris, London and Amsterdam Street scenes and architectural paintings, inspired by a recent tour of Europe with his children, have begun to creep across what little wall space is left. Could the painting of Notre Dame be named “April in Paris “or “Cool Boppin'"?

“It was wild taking a boat trip up and down the Thames,“ he recalls, explaining that he was too busy “taking in the sights" to paint there. He is currently executing dual images of Piccadilly Square: “All it is, is a place with a bunch of stores.“

Neil usually paints two or three nearly identical paintings, keeping the best of the set for himself. He toils with paint texture to achieve small strokes of painterly thickness as he elaborates on and enhances the finished work – a testament to his compulsive personal perfectionist tendencies.

“Changing light changes the color and movement and presents problems,“ he says if his ceaseless touchups on always evolving paintings. When asked why he painted in oils, Neil matter-of-factly says, “I like the smell of it. “