News

Apropos of our recent story about Northcoast visionary artist Reuben Sorensen, who some claim is an outsider artist, the other Journal (from Wall St. not G. St) sheds new light today on just how hard it is to get into the outsider world.

NEW YORK -- This morning, Ross Brodar plans to rent a 24-foot truck and load it up in Brooklyn with scraps of wood and sheets of paper, all covered with the pictures he paints of boxy faces and stick-figure bicycles. This afternoon, he'll drive it into Manhattan and park in front of the Puck Building in SoHo, just in time for tonight's opening of the Outsider Art Fair -- the premier showcase for art that doesn't quite belong anywhere else.

Outsider artists are mainly self-taught and often troubled. Mr. Brodar believes he fits right in. He wants the fair to hang his pictures. But the fair's insiders decide on that and, for reasons he says he has never heard explained, they and Mr. Brodar are on the outs. So, for the next three days -- and for the 10th year running -- Mr. Brodar's art, along with Mr. Brodar, will be hanging out outside.