Grass-Roots Art : Exhibit Is a Reminder That Folk Talent Is Often Found Close to Home

Questions of definition hover over “Visions from the Left Coast: California Self-Taught Artists,” the fascinating exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Forum.

As the show’s title implies, the subject here is the work of artists from outside the art world, those who have been variously described as “folk artists,” “naive” and--the umbrella term--”outsider artists.”

The lingering problem of description and categorization cuts to the core of the art’s nature. These artists did what they did not for financial gain or by careerist calculations. Many didn’t even think of their work as art, in the capital A sense. It was just something that had to be done.

Or, as the late Tressa Prisbrey, who built the epic “Bottle Village” in Simi Valley, put it in the fine film “Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village,” “I just took a notion.” Her notion took root in 1956, when she was 60, and the notion grew wings. She worked on it for a quarter century, creating 13 buildings and 22 sculptures on her land.

Part of what makes this show so fascinating is that it hits close to home. We somehow expect that folk art will bubble up from the deep American South or other rural areas cut off from the leveling influence of a plugged-in life. But “outsiders” are everywhere, even in the sunshine state. Even in your back yard.

“Old Man” Block was a blacksmith in Solvang, who produced enchanting images of his locality on cardboard--sometimes with separate paintings on either side. Through his eyes, we see Solvang not as kitsch central, but as an enclave of old world-meets-new world charm.

Sanford Darling began painting scenes of his world travels and decided to attach them to his modest Craftsman house in Santa Barbara, eventually construing the legendary “House of 1,000 Paintings.”

An affable sort with tales to tell, he welcomed visitors to his in-house gallery. I remember going to see the house as a kid and gazing in awe--an early art appreciation lesson.

After Darling died, the house reverted back to a conventional residence. At the Contemporary Arts Forum, a mock-up of a wall holding several Darling paintings serves as a reminder of the glory days.

And what protocol, what set of standards do we use in describing the unique phenomenon that is Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village, an oasis of home-brewed culture at 4595 Cochran Road in the middle of suburban Simi Valley?

The elaborate series of structures, constructed from bottles instead of bricks, and with dolls and other materials filched from the local dump, has been rightfully lauded over the years as a kind of folk art landmark.

Tressa Prisbrey was born Theresa Luella Schafer in Minnesota in 1896 and died in 1988. Hers was a rough life, apparently lined with a salty wit. At age 15, she was married off to a 52-year-old man, and bore seven children, six of whom died before her. Adversity may have driven Prisbrey to fling herself into the bottle village.

By her accounts--which waver depending on the source--it all began when she wanted to build a house for her pencil assemblages. Bottles became a more economical alternative to bricks or cement. Over a million bottles later, her three-acre parcel was an iridescent junk art/funk architecture microcosm. She also built walls and gardens, sometimes lined with auto headlamps.

A few of Prisbrey’s pencil assemblages are represented in the show, but these are just tip-of-the-iceberg hints of the larger story.

The Prisbrey site you find today is a far cry from the grand palace of funky beauty seen in the film or in the glittering photos in the new book “Gardens of Revelation: Environments by Visionary Artists,” by John Beardsley (Abbeville Press).

Besides the natural ravages of time and unfortunate incidents of vandalism, the Northridge earthquake exacted a mighty toll in 1994--knocking holes in walls and collapsing some structures, including the pencil room--and rendering it unfit for public access.

Once upcoming restoration work is done, with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency the Village may, more than ever, earn status as Ventura County’s gift to the art world.

Whereas the “House of 1,000 Paintings” no longer exists as such, and Simon Rodia’s Watts Tower has enjoyed preservation and protection efforts, Bottle Village is in a precarious between-state.

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The “Preserve Bottle Village” committee, which acquired the property in 1986, hopes to raise funds to secure the site’s future and open it to the public.

Even in its present state of disrepair, though, Bottle Village serves as an inspiration, a shrine to individuality and self-motivational gumption. It’s all the more powerful in the depersonalizing midst of strip-mall mauling and bedroom community facelessness.

You duck into the kiva-like “Round House,” an enclosed world unto itself, and get a powerful sense of Prisbrey’s purpose.

The ambience in these tight quarters, muted, colored light shining through the bottles, is at once highly personal and universal in expression. Prisbrey was an “outsider” who created a world unto itself, with an insider’s vision.

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DETAILS

* WHAT: “Visions from the Left Coast: California Self-Taught Artists.”

* WHEN: Through Oct. 21.

* WHERE: Contemporary Arts Forum, 653 Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara.

* CALL: 966-5373.