Discover more about the Electric Pencil.
(click the image)
Monday, March 19, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Mystery of the Electric Pencil
Our documentary tells the story of an extraordinary artist who in 1925, at the tender age of 17, was committed for life, to State Lunatic Asylum #3 in Missouri. Although we’ve discovered the identity of the artist, that discovery has revealed many mysteries yet to be resolved. With your help, using Edward's life history as a starting point and these amazing drawings as a backdrop, we plan to not only profile an amazing artist – but we’ll also tell the under-told story about how mental illness affects families and society... A story with great relevance today.
We’re off and running!... We launched our Kickstarter Fundraising campaign to help us get this tragic, yet inspiring story out. Kickstarter, as you may know, is an exciting new form of grassroots fundraising and marketing for creative projects. How does it work? A pledge of any amount officially makes you a backer of the project. Pledges will only be processed if we make our total goal within 30 days...so time is of the essence! Check out our REWARDS! It would be great to have you part of this important unfolding story!
THE STORY:
Five years ago, New York based artist and art dealer, Harris Diamant, discovered an extraordinary hand made album containing 283 drawings done on ledger sheets from State Lunatic Asylum No. 3, in Nevada MO. The unknown artist was given the name THE ELECTRIC PENCIL, based on the title of a single drawing.
The album and drawings look like artifacts from a distant time; arresting portraits of people with startling eyes wearing 19th century clothing, Civil War soldiers, antique cars, fantastic boats and trains, country landscapes with roaming animals, and other drawings that seem fanciful and bizarre. Who was this artist? The artwork is a treasure-trove of clues… a diary that tells a story in the artist's own personal symbolic language.
Our documentary will tell the story of how this treasure was lost and then found. It's a tale of mystery and detective work that led to the discovery of the artist's family, confirmed the artist’s identity, and unearthed parts of his tragic, yet uplifting life story. Although we’ve discovered the identity of the artist, that discovery has revealed many mysteries yet to be resolved.
The ledger sheets, each imprinted with the name of the hospital, are another important clue...one that opens a door to a story of historic significance, the under-told and nearly forgotten saga of the beginnings of our mental health care system.
Our documentary project grew out of our increasing fascination with what we were uncovering. Our 18-minute documentary, The Electric Pencil -- introduces the story we've uncovered so far. Your support will help solve the unanswered mysteries and questions surrounding The Electric Pencil... helping us to produce a feature-length documentary for a national audience that tells the full story of the artist's troubled life and his extraordinary art.
Check out our Kickstarter video to see what we've done so far and come along with us on this journey of discovery...Thank you for considering our project!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
THE ELECTRIC PENCIL, The Artist's Identity has been discovered!
Our new VIDEO http://electricpencildrawings.com/video3.html tells the story of Outsider Artist James Edward Deeds Jr. Committed for Life at the tender age of 17 to Lunatic Asylum No.3, Nevada, MO in 1925 after a stormy adolescence and chronic abuse at the hands of his father
WHO WAS JAMES EDWARD DEEDS JR.?
Heavily subjected to psychotropic drugs and electric shock treatment, his is a tale of the need to create, even in the most adverse conditions. Deeds executed an extraordinary album of drawings, acknowledged as masterpieces of Outsider Art. The incarcerated artist created a world of formal beauty and calm in a life that could only be described as hellish. His story is a journey through changing times and the beginnings of our modern mental healthcare system.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
READ THE REVIEW!
NY Journal of Books Review...
In 1970, a young boy rifled through a large trash container in Springfield, Missouri. He reached in his hand and pulled out a handmade album knit together with fabric and leather. Opening it, he saw drawings, 283 in all, that had been somewhat lovely sewn together into the old album, each hand numbered, and each drawn on ledger pages from the State Lunatic Asylum No. 3, located in Nevada, Missouri...
In 1970, a young boy rifled through a large trash container in Springfield, Missouri. He reached in his hand and pulled out a handmade album knit together with fabric and leather. Opening it, he saw drawings, 283 in all, that had been somewhat lovely sewn together into the old album, each hand numbered, and each drawn on ledger pages from the State Lunatic Asylum No. 3, located in Nevada, Missouri...
Most of what we know about the Electric Pencil is conjectural, gleaned from the content of the drawings themselves. From the style of the clothing and the furniture, the model year of the cars that are depicted and, most importantly, from the open date of 190_ on most of the ledger sheets (which made them obsolete in 1910), we can fairly assume that the drawings were created around the year 1910. We know that the album of drawings was rescued from a trash heap that was located off Seminole St. in the Brentwood section of Springfield, Missouri in 1970.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
THE ELECTRIC PENCIL'S IMAGES WERE FOUND SEWN TOGETHER AND BOUND INTO THIS HANDMADE VOLUME
Handmade fabric, leather and cardboard album ... 9” X 9.75” ... 9.75” X 17.75” open
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Here's what the Press had to say about the Premier Showing of THE ELECTRIC PENCIL at Outsider Art Fair 2011...!
To read the whole article just click on the quote...
From Trash to Treasure – Unknown Artist makes his mark on the Outsider Art Market | The Home of Folk Art
From Trash to Treasure – Unknown Artist makes his mark on the Outsider Art Market | The Home of Folk Art
The ‘known’ part to the story starts in the year 1970 with a young man finding some intriguing pictures on the top of a trash heap on Seminole Street in the Brentwood neighborhood of Springfield, Missouri. A story starting off similar to that of the finding of Charles Dellschau’s art. The Springfield art, 283 pieces, remained with the lucky young man for 36 years before he decided to sell the lot being attributed to a mystery artist known as “Electric Pencil.” The new owner, Harris Diamant, for the past four years has been on a type of scavenger hunt following clues hoping to shed some light into who this artist, Electric Pencil, may have been. The leads have taken Mr. Diamant on an adventure that could be out of a mystery novel. He recruited a private detective to help aid him in his search for clues and a psychologist that created a profile of the artist who, in the early 1900′s, was institutionalized in a Nevada, Missouri, hospital. At this point Mr. Diamant has produced a book of the artwork by the Electric Pencil which is due out March 1, 2011. For more information on the artist and the book visit Mr. Diamant’s website www.electricpencildrawings.com. There will also be a one-man show on the Electric Pencil at the Outsider Art Fair 2011, in New York, February 11-13.
HISTORY
Around the year 1910, a patient at State Lunatic Asylum No. 3 (subsequently State Hospital No. 3) in Nevada, Missouri, who referred to himself as THE ELECTRIC PENCIL, executed 283 drawings in ink, pencil, crayon and colored pencil. he drawings were done on both sides of 140 ledger pages, each bearing the name of the hospital. They were sewn into a hand made fabric and leather album.
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