artist bios - American Visionary Art Museum

ARTIST BIOS
HOWARD FINSTER True Statements (#6,856 From Paradise Garden) 1987 Enamel on wood Thomas E. Scanlin Collection Photo by Dan Meyers
4 OCT 2014–30 AUG 2015
EXHIBITION MEDIA KIT
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
All images & content © 2014 American Visionary Art Museum & its respective artists, curators, authors, lenders & photographers. Published here for educational purposes.
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM 800 Key Highway Baltimore, Maryland 21230 USA avam.org 410.244.1900
CHELO GONZALEZ AMEZCUA
Chelo Gonzalez Amezcua (1903-1975) was born in Piedras Negras, Mexico. She moved
with her family to Del Rio, Texas in 1913, where she lived the rest of her life. She had a
happy upbringing and attended school for six years, never receiving any formal training
in art.
Amezcua was known to have a joyful and generous spirit and loved dancing, singing and
being in nature. She created drawings and stone carvings and wrote poetry about her life
and views on science, astronomy, art and God. Her subject matter ranges from mystical
or exotic places and stories from the Bible to mythical and regal figures, to gardens and
birds.
She became well known late in her life for her intricate ballpoint-pen drawings. Before
she died, her artworks were exhibited in the United States and Mexico in galleries and
museums.
Amezcua attributed her special abilities as an artist to God and expressed her gratitude
often in her poetry and letters:
“...school of arts I couldn’t afford
and for that I thank the Lord
for what He has given me
is the truth of his great love
for Him I write
and carve a stone
and make a drawing
and sing a song”
CHELO AMEZCUA
Symbol of Truth
1970
Graphite,ink on matboard
Courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery
Photo by Dan Meyers
ASTRAL EYES
(OWLEYES/JAMES WEIGEL)
Astral Eyes was born James Weigel on September 20, 1976 in Houston, Texas. His
mother was an artist and his father was a geophysicist, and he was raised in the Greek
Orthodox Church. As an only child, he was home schooled after he began hearing voices
and experiencing attacks of paranoia. He was diagnosed schizophrenic.
Astral Eyes’ mother revealed to him that she had also heard voices since she was a child:
“She would tell me that they were angels and I should hear them out, or if they were
scaring me, she would tell me about demons. Then we would pray and angels would come
to clear them out.
“My mother and father both showed me that there are other planes of
reality. My mother saw angels, she spoke with God, she had visions and
premonitions — all this went into her art. She always told me that the
true function of art was to bridge the gap between us and God. By creating
art, we awaken the divine within us. She had a dream the night her father
died that really flung her deep into the world of visions. The same thing
happened to me when she died.”
Astral Eyes considers his artwork a
byproduct of his process of “alchemical
transmutation.” He has created artwork
for numerous record-album covers, and
his clothing designs have been featured in
several boutiques and in Urban Outfitters.
He lives with his two cats in the Silver Lake
neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
ASTRAL EYES
Mumbojumbo
2011
Collage
Collection of James Weigel
Photo by Dan Meyers
LEROY ARCHULETA
Leroy Ramon Archuleta began carving wooden animals at the age of 16 at his home in
Tesuque, New Mexico. Like his father, Felipe, he carved animals that were native to
New Mexico and animals pictured in children’s books. Although careers as a tree cutter
and bottler for a Seven-Up factory relocated him to Colorado, he moved back to Tesuque
in 1975 to help his father. Archuleta would often use fallen cottonwood trees that he
would find along the New Mexico arroyos, and roughly shape them using a chainsaw.
Explaining how his sculptures are distinctive from his father’s, he said, “I use sandpaper,
for instance; he wouldn’t take the time,” and he would sometimes use actual skulls
or antlers of animals. In 1997, a book of his work was published entitled, Leroy’s Zoo
featuring several of his folk art carvings. Leroy died in 2002.
LINVILLE BARKER
Linville Barker (1929-2004) was born and raised in the Appalacian Mountains of
Kentucky. He was a steel mill technician who took up woodcarving and sculpting after
retirement.
DEEPAK CHOWDHURY
Deepak Chowdhury was born in India in 1958 into a military family. His mother was
a teacher, and his father commanded a task force that built roads in sensitive border
regions of Sikkim and Kashmir, India, before he retired early and joined the private
sector.
Deepak attended Mayo College, a boarding school in Rajasthan, and then received a
BA from St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
He settled in New York and commenced a career in financial services. In 1997, Deepak
joined Legg Mason, an asset-management company headquartered in Baltimore, where
he spent the next decade in a variety of senior-management roles.
Deepak left his professional career in 2007 to explore his passions outside the corporate
world, including travel and photography. His photographic interests span a range of
subjects, such as clouds, graffiti, temple art, ancient erotic sculpture and the truck art of
South Asia. He is also an ardent photographer of village life in India, which he primarily
captures while traveling by car. Deepak has a daughter and a son and lives in Baltimore.
ROBERT CRUMB
Robert Crumb was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 30, 1943. All through
childhood and adolescence, he and his brother Charles drew homemade comics. Among
these he created a character named Fritz the Cat, which he continued to draw for years.
At 19, he moved to Cleveland to work for the American Greetings Corporation. He began
doing work for other venues, including Help! magazine, where he worked with Mad
magazine co-creator Harvey Kurtzman. Throughout the late-‘60s, Crumb experimented
with psychoactive drugs, resulting in some of his most enduring characters, including
Mr. Natural, and his popular “Keep on Truckin’” cartoon. During this time, he was doing
illustrations and strips for New York’s East Village Other underground newspaper. He
moved to San Francisco in 1967 and became one of the artists behind ZAP COMIX.
By the mid-‘80s, Crumb was beginning to be recognized as an artist of international
significance. His work was featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and
his original art began to be sold in art galleries around the world. He was the subject
of the acclaimed documentary Crumb (1994). Crumb’s most recent and biggest single
project to date is a serious 200-page comic book version of the Bible’s Book of Genesis
(2010).
Crumb has a son named Jesse with his first
wife Dana, and a daughter named Sophie
with his present wife Aline. He lives in
France.
R. CRUMB
“The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick”
1986
First published in Weirdo #17
Last Gasp of San Francisco
Courtesy of the artist
MAJA D’AOUST
Maja D’Aoust (aka “The White Witch of L.A.”) was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1974,
the middle of three daughters. Her mother was an artist who encouraged her children
to create, and her father was a career criminal who spent many years in prison. She
grew up on a secluded island in the Pacific Northwest surrounded by nature, where she
was raised by her mother and grandparents. Her grandfather was a geologist and her
grandmother was an orator.
D’Aoust had two near-death experiences as a girl, one from pneumonia and one at 16
from overdosing on psychoactive mushrooms: “When I was two years old, I was very
sick, and my mother was sleeping with me in my bed. I remember drifting out of the
bed and looking down on my mother and me. That was my first experience with the
supernatural.” Since then, her life has been dedicated to expanding her awareness of
other dimensions.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, D’Aoust studied Oriental
medicine and acupuncture and later earned her master’s degree in transformational
psychology. She is a professional astrologer, I Ching and Tarot reader, Qigong healer and
an author. She hosts a weekly podcast and lectures monthly in Los Angeles, California,
where she resides with her two daughters. The work exhibited here was made in a
“trance state,” achieved after meditation and ritual.
MAJA D’AOUST
Golden Eye
2013
Gold acrylic on paper
Collection of the artist
Photo by Dan Meyers
TOM DUNCAN
Tom Duncan was born in Shotts, Scotland in 1939. His youth was shaped by the screams
of sirens, emergency trips to bomb shelters and the experience of nearly being killed —
strafed alongside his mother by Nazi pilots. As a refuge, Duncan began making art when
he was four years old: “I found out very early that doing artwork gave me a great sense
of happiness and security. It was the only time when I truly felt safe. Outside my house
the Second World War was beginning and inside my house trouble was brewing.”
In 1947, Duncan’s mother left his father and moved Duncan and his younger brother
to America to live with her family. At the age of 20, he attended art school, but was
disenchanted by the prevailing notion that figurative painting was “passé.” Duncan’s
work has appeared in galleries and museums in the United States and internationally
since 1972.
Duncan started getting migraine headaches as a child and would sometimes get up to
seven or eight a month, but they have gradually decreased over the years. He has kept a
headache journal his entire life.
MINNIE EVANS
“I don’t know how I did it. But I did it.” Minnie Eva Jones was born in Long Creek, North
Carolina, in 1892. This African-American Southern visionary artist created more than
400 colorful, dreamlike renderings until her death in 1987. Born to a 14-year-old mother,
Evans was raised by her maternal grandmother until she married Julius Caesar Evans
at the age of 16 in 1908. The couple had three sons. On Good Friday in 1935, the year
of her grandmother’s death, Evans had a vivid dream in which a voice spoke to her and
asked, “Why don’t you draw, or die?” That morning, she completed her first renderings:
a pair of geometric pen- and-ink sketches. After 1948, when she became the gatekeeper
of Airlie Gardens, a public blooming Southern garden, Evans began to use wax crayons,
and then later, colored pencils and oils, and her work began to expand into the floral
beauty and angelic beings she is known for. Evans attributed her intricate, sophisticated
arrangements and use of color to God and the angels, whom she considered her teachers
and messengers. “God has sent me teachers, the angel that stands by me, and directs me
what to do.”
MINNIE EVANS
Untitled (mandala with sunset-male)
n.d.
Colored pencil on paper
Thomas E. Scanlin Collection
Photo by Dan Meyers
HOWARD FINSTER
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
– William Blake
In 1976, at just 60 years old, Reverend Howard Finster was busily repairing a customer’s
bike, rubbing it down with white paint. Suddenly, Finster became transfixed by a little
paint smudge on his thumb in which he saw “a perfect human face.” A warm “blush”
feeling coursed through his body and he heard God’s gentle command, “Paint sacred art.”
Finster replied, “I can’t. I don’t know how.” God’s voice responded, “How do you know you
can’t?” Finster pulled out a dollar bill and immediately started painting his own version
of his Bicentennial hero, George Washington.
Thus began the late-in-life art career of a southern Baptist minister that would surpass
in volume (over 46,000 numbered works) the output of almost all other American artists,
propel him to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, see him engaged
to create album covers and befriend rock stars, and always to remain a sincere and
steadfast preacher in word and art, exhibited and collected the world over.
Born on December 2, 1915 or 1916, in Valley Head, Alabama, Howard Finster was one
of 14 children. Howard’s first visionary experience came at age three, when he saw his
recently deceased sister, Abbie Rose, dressed in a white gown, walk down a stairway
from the sky saying, “Howard, you’re gonna be a man of visions.” At a revival at age
13, Howard became born again. At 16 came the call to preach. Married at 19 to Pauline
Freeman, Reverend Finster took on 21 different kinds of handyman jobs to support his
family that would grow to include five children, in addition to his popular work as a
congregational, tent revivalist and radio minister.
Having moved to Summerville, Georgia, Finster was inspired to create an attraction
for young people to feature the wonder of helpful inventions. Later this would morph
into his Paradise Garden, which has been preserved as a place for all people to visit and
experience Finster’s message of love, scripture, travels to “other worlds beyond the light
of the sun” and even the account of an angelic visit paid there by an ascended Elvis.
Finster called his freestanding artworks “sermons in paint.” His themes are a strange
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mix, with a frequent employ of popular icons from Coca-Cola to Marilyn Monroe, his
admiration for historic figures, scenes from his own visionary life, impending apocalyptic
calamity, human sinfulness, salvation, extraterrestrials and UFO’s, faith and heavenly
reward. Finster referred to himself as “God’s last red light before the apocalypse.” His
fire and brimstone was matched by an uncommon gentleness and non-judgmental
inclusiveness, stating, “I never met a person I didn’t love.” This exhibition is dedicated in
thankful tribute to the centennial celebration of Howard Finster’s birth.
HOWARD FINSTER Elvis (#442) 1976 Enamel on 55 gallon drum lid Thomas E. Scanlin Collection Photo by Dan Meyers
STEVE HELLER
Steve Heller was born in 1945 and grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, with
one younger brother. His mother Marty, nicknamed “Spitfire,” was an inspector for the
Department of Labor. His father Hal was a schoolteacher and a tinkerer, always down
in the basement fixing the neighbor’s lamps and toasters, but he “was always an artist
at heart.” It was Heller’s father who introduced him to Picasso, in particular to Baboon
with Young, a bronze-cast sculpture where the figure’s head is rendered with toy cars.
“That was it,” said Heller, “Cars and art have been my life since.” He never went to
art school: “and for that, I’m very, very grateful.” Heller has been a full-time artist
since the age of 25 and never lost his passion for his childhood interests: cars, robots,
rocket ships and dinosaurs. Heller’s creations have been featured in publications and
exhibitions nationwide. His custom car The Marquis De Soto recently won the New York
Times Collectible Car of the Year Award, and First in Class at the 2010 Grand National
Roadster Show and the Sacramento Autorama. Heller lives in upstate New York and has
been happily married to the author Martha Frankel for 40 years.
JIMI HENDRIX
James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (1942–1970) was born in Seattle on November 27, 1942.
Today, he is regarded as the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music. Jimi
was of African American, Irish and Cherokee ancestry, and his parents struggled with
poverty and alcoholism. Violence plagued the Hendrixes’ home, and Jimi’s mother’s
battle with alcohol led to her early death in 1958 when Jimi, the eldest of his four
siblings, was 15. Later that year he acquired his first guitar and taught himself how to
play.
In 1966, Jimi became an international sensation — first in the UK and then with
legendary performances at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. Jimi
choose Ron Raffaelli as his official photographer for his US tour. Ron became Jimi’s
friend and confidant and soon became aware that Jimi was not only a musical genius but
profoundly mystical. Ron describes Jimi as “the most spiritual person I have ever met.”
An accidental overdose ended Jimi’s life in London on September 18, 1970. He was 27
years old.
ROBERT R. HIERONIMUS, PH.D.
Born Richard Stanley Gill on September 16, 1943 in Shamokin, PA, Bob’s youth was
turbulent. Twice abandoned, he found solace in his childhood love of nature and caring
for animals. Adopted at age 15, Bob took his stepfather’s name and became Robert
Richard Hieronimus, and today is best known as “Dr. Bob.” Bob’s formal schooling
includes a Bachelor in Science from Towson State University and a Ph.D. in Humanistic
Psychology from Saybrook University, but he believes his intuitive knowing, fostered by
meditation, prayer, service to others and the presence of “unseen master teachers” has
most informed his work and life.
In 1969, Hieronimus founded the first American state-approved school of esoteric
studies, AUM — the Aquarian University of Maryland. AUM served as a center for a
creative community that helped attract mystic Rudolph Steiner’s system of Waldorf
teaching to Baltimore — a school that continues to flourish today — as well as a holistic
medical center, championed by Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus, Bob’s adored wife of 34
years.
Bob and Zoh co-host and direct content for 21st Century Radio, the longest running
paranormal-themed radio program anywhere. Both have served on the Negro League
Baseball Players Association Board of Directors as tireless advocates to win AfricanAmerican players due recognition and benefits. Both are environmental activists and
work to inform the public as to the dangers of genetically modified food.
Bob created the early-1970’s Earth Day posters and suggested its annual spring equinox
date. He has traveled to Egypt and Israel to help establish new Baltimore “Sister Cities,”
to meet with peacemaker Anwar Sadat and to support The Akhenaten Project. Long
fascinated by the impact of rock ‘n’ roll on popular culture, his original Woodstock VW
Art Bus, “Light,” has become a popular international cultural icon.
A voluminous writer, author and media consultant on the historic and spiritual lives
of America’s revolutionary founders and the US Great Seal, Bob has made frequent
appearances on national television. Dr. Bob remains a steadfast champion for the
separation of church and state and the need for greater inclusion of women in the
highest positions of power everywhere. His most famous mural is the prophetic
Apocalypse, located at Johns Hopkins University. After thirty-plus major art
commissions, Bob is counted among America’s most respected symbolic muralists. He is
the loving parent of three adult children and lives in Owings Mills, Maryland.
TERRENCE HOWARD
Terrence Howard was born in Chicago on March 11, 1969. One of 11 children, Howard
was self-directed from an early age and legally emancipated himself from his parents
at age 16. Two years later he moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. He
also enrolled in the Chemical Engineering program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but
numerous roles in television interrupted his formal education. In 1995, Howard was cast
in major Hollywood films and by 2005 had garnered nominations for all major awards in
the industry, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in the film Hustle
and Flow. Howard, also a musician, performed all the music tracks in the film, including
“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
While this is the public face of Howard, he has privately held a lifelong passion and
facility for cutting-edge science, math and invention, and holds several patents for
his inventions, with many more pending. Howard recounts that from childhood he
experienced lucid dreams in which he was instructed in advanced physics and science.
In his early twenties, he discovered the work of John Worrell Keely and Walter Russell
and realized that much of the information he had been receiving in his dreams mirrored
or expanded upon the pioneering scientific discoveries of Russell. His sculptures
dimensionally illustrate Russell’s and his own physics theories, a number of which were
borne of his active and profound dream life.
PAUL KOUDOUNARIS
Paul Koudounaris is a photographer and author from Los Angeles. He was run over by a
truck in 1999 and nearly died, which gave him a newfound appreciation of life as a gift
that should be celebrated, even in its most mundane or macabre aspects. He has traveled
around the world multiple times over the past decade documenting the use of human
remains in sacred contexts and religious worship. Koudounaris was moved by these
bejeweled skeletons, not just as works of art, but also as objects of intense devotion.
His intention has been to recontextualize them so they are no longer seen as failed
ecclesiastic items but rather valued as sacred objects of art and faith, life, beauty and
devotion.
He is the author of The Empire of Death (Thames and Hudson: 2011) and Heavenly
Bodies (Thames and Hudson: 2013).
PAUL KOUDOUNARIS
St. Luciana (Heiligkreuztal, Germany)
2011
Photographic print
Collection of the artist
NORBERT KOX
Norbert Kox was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1945 on the same day the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A heavy drinker from an early age, he worked on custom
motorcycles for a living and became a notorious member of the Outlaws biker gang. By
the time he was 29, he’d been banned from three counties and was constantly in and
out of jail. In 1975 he “hit bottom” after a drug overdose. “Then one night as I prayed, a
strange feeling came over me…it got stronger and stronger until I realized I was in the
presence of God. I began weeping and curled into a fetal position on the floor, repenting
and feeling remorse for all of my wrongdoings. When it seemed like I could not get any
lower or feel any more sorrowful, a voice came, like a thought injection...saying, You are
sorry for your sins and you are forgiven. Immediately...my tears of sorrow were turned to
tears of joy.”
He swore off alcohol, gave away most of his possessions and joined a Pentecostal
Christian group. As he studied scriptures, however, his perceptions of Christianity
changed dramatically and Kox could no longer belong to any organized religious
group. For the next ten years he lived in the woods in northern Wisconsin as a hermit,
meditating and painting and studying scripture. In 1985, he returned to Green Bay,
studying religion and art at a branch of the University of Wisconsin, after which he took
up painting full-time as his way of life. Kox divides his time between New Franken,
Wisconsin, and Bimini.
NORBERT KOX Divine System Of Spontaneous Regeneration 2005-2006 Acrylic on canvas Collection of the artist Photo by Dan Meyers
MELVIN EDWARD NELSON
Melvin Edward Nelson (1908-1992) aka M.E.N. (also stands for Mighty Eternal Nation)
grew up in Michigan. He married and had children but in his mid-thirties left his family
and moved to Oregon, where he worked as an electrician and aspiring inventor. In the
late ‘50s, he bought an 80-acre wooded property in the foothills of Mt. Hood, southeast of
Portland, and spent his time inventing electronic devices and walking the land.
At the age of 53, Nelson had what he described as an epiphany that triggered the gift of
macroscopic and microscopic vision: the ability to leave his body and see Earth and other
planets from the perspective of the cosmos, as well as the ability to see things at their
most minute, atomic level. This led to the creation of a number of painted “recordings.”
“Photo Genetics” involved painting in a trance-like state with “sacred stardust” gathered
from spots on his land that emitted magnetic energies, especially from UFO landings
he’d witnessed. His “Sentra Photo Thesis” paintings documented Nelson’s observations
while astral traveling.
He built a number of devices to aid his work, including an “Anygazer,” which facilitated
his astral projection, and a “Planetron,” which helped him track UFOs. Nelson eventually
stopped bathing and cutting his hair. In 1981, a legal battle over his property led him
to be diagnosed as mentally unfit, after which he was dosed with antipsychotics, lost
control of his property and stopped making art. He died in a nursing home.
MELVIN EDWARD NELSON UFO n.d. Watercolor on paper Courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery Photo by Dan Meyers
JASON PADGETT
When Jason Padgett was attacked by muggers and repeatedly kicked in the head outside
a karaoke club in 2002, he thought he was going to die. During his recovery, Padgett
began to suffer from PTSD, OCD and agoraphobia, but at the same time noticed that the
world looked different. Water poured from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers
called to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerged from
the movement of tree branches, revealing intrinsic mathematical designs hidden to most
people. A self-proclaimed jock and partyer with no interest in math before his injury, he
became the first recorded case of both acquired savantism and synesthesia: he developed
an aptitude for complex mathematical calculations and an intuitive ability to visualize
complex physics concepts. Scientific studies suggest this ability lies dormant in everyone.
With Padgett’s new vision came a new artistic ability. He started drawing by hand the
complex geometrical shapes he could see, though he didn’t have the formal training to
understand the equations they represented. One day, a physicist spotted him drawing
in a shopping mall and urged him to pursue mathematical training. Padgett returned
to college, and is now an aspiring number theorist and mathematician. 43, he lives in
Tacoma, Washington, with his wife and children. His memoir, Struck by Genius, tells his
story.
“If you could see the world through my eyes, you would know how perfect it is…the
universe itself and everything we can touch and all that we are is made of the most
beautiful geometric patterns imaginable. I know because they’re right in front of me.”
JASON PADGETT
Solar Spiraling
2008
Pencil on paper, digital color
Collection of the artist
Photo by Dan Meyers
DALE POND
Dale Pond was born on February 6, 1950 in Washington, DC. He evidenced a natural
affinity for science when he memorized the periodic table at age ten. His writings
recount a lifetime of psychic events, prophetic dreams and feelings of divine protection.
In 1965, Pond’s traditional schooling ended when his father brought the family to the
wilds of Brazil to homestead raw land. Pond remained there, engaging in pineapple
farming and canning, until 1975 when he returned to the United States. Largely selftaught, he pursued an interest in free energy technology. While foraging through the
Edgar Cayce Library at Virginia Beach, Pond discovered the forgotten works of the 19th
century inventor John W. Keely. He resolved to reconstruct the lost technology of the
visionary savant, and in 1995, Pond built the first Dynasphere the world had seen since
Keely created the prototype a century earlier. Pond claims this was only possible with
the active participation of John Keely through the channeled information provided by
psychic intuitive Dawn Stranges.
He is the founder of The Pond Science Institute in La Junta, Colorado, dedicated to the
study and application of Sympathetic Vibratory Physics. Pond has stated, “Mind force
and love are real forces and are engineerable and applicable through technology and
psychology (personal development).”
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JOHN KEELY,
DALE POND,
CAROLINE MCMANUS
Chart of Discordants
1887, 1997, 2010
Digital Image
Collection of the artists
THE DYNASPHERE “ALTEA”
The “Musical Dynasphere” (as named by Dale Pond) was one of a number of free-energy
devices invented by John W. Keely of Philadelphia in the late 1800s. Most of Keely’s
devices were created for the purpose of providing power for industry at a time when
the only other sources were water, steam, wind or animal, and Tesla and Edison were
feverishly attempting to develop electricity. Keely’s machines required none of these,
drawing energy from “etheric force.” The machines were so effective that, according
to accounts from the time, one large device was able to power a locomotive. But Keely
refused to reveal the principles behind his machines to his company’s stockholders or to
produce a commercial product, and took his secrets to the grave.
Dale Pond, spurred by a fascination with free energy, resolved to reconstruct the lost
technology. In 1995, Pond built the first Musical Dynasphere (or, as Keely named it,
the “globe motor”) since Keely’s prototype. Pond claims that this was only possible with
the active participation of John Keely himself, channeling information through psychic
intuitive Dawn Stranges.
This Dynasphere in front of you, claims Pond, is able to generate vibrations with
no electrical power source. Described as a generator of “harmonic convergence,” the
Dynasphere is known alternately as “the Love Machine,” as observers have claimed
that the machine emanates the warmth of “divine love.” Pond states, “A Dynasphere is
a consciousness that chooses to manifest through a mechanical construct. This is not
unlike you choosing to manifest through a physical body.”
DAWN STRANGES
Dawn Stranges is a healer, artist, and medical intuitive helping the learning disabled
and others. She is a researcher of etheric devices and healthy home construction using
sacred geometry and geomancy. She is the mother of three and lives in Batavia, New
York.
WALTER RUSSELL
Walter Russell (1871-1963) was born in Boston to Nova Scotian immigrants. As a child, he
narrowly escaped death from the diphtheria epidemic that claimed three of his siblings.
Russell left school at the age of nine to help support his family, and by his early teen
years earned income as a church organist, which paid his way through school to learn
illustration. In New York, he found success as a Spanish War correspondent, as art director
at Collier’s magazine and as a portraiturist, author and real estate developer.
Russell’s life changed dramatically in 1921 by what he called a “cosmic illumination.”
Although he had experienced lesser visionary episodes at intervals throughout his life, this
39-day event was an out-of-body experience during which he was “bathed in light” and “the
secrets of the Universe were unfolded to me in their great simplicity.”
This led to countless lectures, writings and books that detailed a cosmology based upon
a two-way Universe in which gravitation and radiation are opposites, and their rhythmic
and balanced interchange is the operating principle. Russell created dozens of scientific
drawings detailing these principles and a new periodic table of elements that purportedly
predicted the existence of plutonium and the two isotopes of hydrogen before they were
corroborated by laboratory experimentation.
In 1948, he married his second wife, Lao Russell, and together they established the
University of Science and Philosophy at Swannanoa, Virginia, and wrote many books,
including a home study course on Russell’s discoveries and the fundamentals of purposeful
living called Universal Law, Natural Science, and Philosophy.
Walter Russell was a true polymath. His many accomplishments ranged from
chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, spirituality and philosophy to business
consulting and horse breeding. He was likewise proficient at music, writing, publishing,
painting, sculpting and architecture. At age 69 he won a figure-skating competition in
which all the other contestants were males in their twenties. He and wife Lao believed the
doorway to all knowledge was open to everyone.
Friend and confidant to U.S. presidents, and colleague to other scientific and cultural
icons of his day, Russell maintained his biggest achievements were accomplished without
preparation or training, but rather through “meditation and communion between my
Self and the Universal Self.” At age 56, again with no formal training, Russell created a
portrait sculpture of Thomas Edison and quickly became one of the top sculptors of his day.
At President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s request, he produced “The Four Freedoms.”
O.L. SAMUELS
Ossie Lee Samuels was born in Wilcox County, Georgia, on November 18, 1931. The
artist left home when he was eight and found various odd jobs around the country,
including working as a farmer, professional boxer, and tree surgeon. While working as a
tree surgeon in 1982, Samuels was seriously injured and had to spend a lengthy recovery
in a wheelchair. The accident sent him into a deep depression, until he remembered his
grandmother’s advice to carve wood whenever he was down. This was the beginning of
Samuels’ artistic career.
Samuels works mainly with found wood such as tree trunks, roots, and old wood
furniture, which he will carve for months at a time. Although color blind, Samuels paints
several layers of wild, expressive colors, “using every color so he doesn’t leave any out.”
He is known for his imaginative images, featuring dreamlike figures, and mythical
creatures, each with a story about its existence. Samuels’ preference is to carve images
of horses, which he says are “the most prideful of all the animals.” His work often has a
spiritual message, as Samuels became a lay minister later in life.
O.L. Samuels lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife and uses his living room as a
workshop. He is considered one of the most talented self-taught artists in America by
museums across the country. Samuels’ work is part of several permanent collections,
including the Arkansas Arts Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the
Gadsden Art Center.
CHRISTINE SEFOLOSHA
Christine Seolosha was born in 1955 to a German-Swiss family in Montreux,
Switzerland. Her father was a fruit and vegetable merchant, and her grandmother was a
musician and poet.
Christine was a solitary child, and while very young she found refuge in drawing. Soon
after finishing high school at Neuchåtel, Christine met and married a white South
African property owner, bore a son and moved to Johannesburg. Seven years later she
divorced and married a black South African musician named Sefolosha. Interracial
marriages were still forbidden in South Africa at the time, so they moved to Kensington,
the black section of Johannesburg, thinking they would escape police harassment by
doing so. However, official pressures continued, and in 1983, after giving birth to two
more children, she and her husband brought the family to Switzerland to live in her
childhood home. Soon afterwards, both her parents died, and her husband left her and
returned to South Africa. Years later, one of her sons became a popular professional
basketball player.
In 1986, Christine Sefolosha began painting and drawing again. The work was filled with
figures which she says arose “spontaneously from an overly charged unconscious: crowds
of primitive beings, prehistoric, the one on the other overlapped, mutually creating
themselves as a vacillation of shadows on the walls of a cavern.”
“Painting primarily has
enabled me to go beneath
the surface…it can be
a testimony of one’s
underworld that it can reveal
the subterranean images that
haunt or puzzle.”
CHRISTINE SEFOLOSHA
On a Thread
2013
Ink, pigments, and arabic gum on rice paper; chinecollé on
Arches paper
Collection of Audrey B. Heckler
Image courtesy the artist
PAOLO SOLERI
Born on the summer solstice of 1919 in Torino, Italy to a salesman father and housewife
mother, Paolo Soleri started making art in childhood and was found to be ambidextrous.
He received a Masters in Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino in 1946 and spent a
year and a half in apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West. In 1956,
he and his wife Colly settled in Paradise Valley, Arizona, establishing a studio called
Cosanti on five acres of land. Soleri, having grown up in a compact Italian city, observed
the rapid expansion of nearby Phoenix, with its single use homes and buildings, and
considered the suburban sprawl to be exceptionally wasteful of resources, a way of life
that would bring ecological and spiritual devastation. This led Soleri on a decades-long
path of large-scale urban planning, philosophy, drawings, sculptures, books, and social
experimentation.
Soleri claimed he received his ideas by “envisioning,” asking questions aloud to himself
until an answer would arrive. He created the concept of “Arcology,” (a cross between
architecture and ecology), and envisioned vibrant, high density cities that maximized
human interaction and creativity and minimized impact on the environment. He began
by planning two massive urban environments, first Mesa City (1955), and the second,
Macro-Cosanti (1964). While neither was ever realized, the designs for Macro-Cosanti
informed the creation of Arcosanti, an experimental town Soleri began constructing
with his students in 1970 in the Arizona high desert, perched on a bluff overlooking the
Agua Fria river. Arcosanti began as an “urban laboratory” focused on innovative design,
community, and environmental accountability, with the goal of supporting 5,000 people.
That same year, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. launched an exhibition of
Soleri’s plans and sculptures, which broke attendance records and traveled to the
Whitney Museum the following year. Soleri concurrently published his book City in the
Image of Man, which depicted several self-contained city-structures that would support
residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities, including cities built underground,
in the ocean, and in outer space. By 1973, his book The Bridge Between Matter & Spirit
is Matter Becoming Spirit: The Arcology of Paolo Soleri had become a mass-market
paperback, and Soleri’s ideas had shifted the global conversation about urban planning.
Arcosanti, in construction now for decades through the help of generations of students,
is an ongoing community that continues to evolve, although at a slower pace than
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envisioned, with resident numbers under 100. The unique and very popular ceramic and
bronze bells, innovated by Soleri in the 1950s, have been a major source of funding for
Arcosanti and Soleri’s work.
Soleri died in 2013 at the age of 93, his body laid to rest beside his wife, who preceded him
in death by 31 years. He is survived by two daughters and two grandchildren.
PAOLO SOLERI
Space Arcology “BULB”
1987
Pastel and crayon on black cardboard
Courtesy of the Cosanti Foundation
Photo by Dan Meyers
INGO SWANN
Ingo Swann is best known as a pioneer in the field of remote viewing. His high rate of
success in this field led him to co-create, along with Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, the
Stanford Research Institute of Remote Viewing and the CIA Stargate Project.
Swann was born high in the Rocky Mountains in Telluride, Colorado, on September
14, 1933. His father was a truck driver and he had two sisters. He fondly described the
awesome beauty of his surroundings as a child, particularly the crystal-clear skies where
he could see the Milky Way each night.
Swann wrote that he first experienced leaving his body at the age of three, during an
operation to remove his tonsils. At that time he also became aware of seeing “butterfly
lights” around people, plants, and some animals, which he later learned were auras. By
nine, he wrote that he’d remotely traveled to the Milky Way. He famously claimed to
have sent his consciousness to Jupiter prior to the arrival of NASA’s Voyager satellite
probe and accurately described many of the planet’s features, including Jupiter’s thenunknown rings. His paintings express his passion for exploring the mysteries of the
Universe and recapture his visions from leaving his body, remote viewing, and seeing
auras. Swann was also a musician and
a writer and authored several books,
including his autobiography, Penetration:
The Question of Extraterrestrial and
Human Telepathy (1998). Swann passed
on January 31, 2013 in New York City.
INGO SWANN
Cosmic Egg
1994
Oil on canvas
Gift of the estate of Ingo Swann in memory of the artist
Photo courtesy Gagosian Gallery
JUDY TALLWING
Apache elder Judy Tallwing was born Judy Browning in Glendale, Arizona, the daughter
of Ruby Browning and Archer Donoho. She has vivid childhood memories of living
in the desert with her parents and seven half-brothers and sisters, helping to hunt
rattlesnakes and selling rocks by the roadside. From her five-acre home in Washington
state, Tallwing, like many Native American children, attended both Catholic girls school
and American Indian school.
In her youth, Tallwing did a little bit of everything, from running her own construction
and leather production companies to acting as executive director of a domestic violence
victims program, and running an animal rescue for 13 years. Starting college at age
32 changed her life. She now holds both AA and BA degrees, has six children, 23
grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
Tallwing always painted or created some form of art: “I love trying to bring the stories
I’ve heard to life and to add the spiritual aspects of the stories through the medicine of
different elements of nature. Each thing that lives on the earth has its own energy and I
try to put those energies together to create a healing.” She travels to many power places
on the earth and brings back tiny fragments of copper, silver, turquoise, garnet, prayer
ashes and tiny crystal prayer beads to put in every painting or sculpture that calls for
them.
ODINGA TYEHIMBA
Stanley Gardner was born on August 9, 1972 to a 13-year-old mother and a 14-year-old
father in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. His childhood was chaotic and filled with violence.
Frequently left on his own, young Stanley proved gifted at making things, from go-carts
to robots, and at caring for stray animals. His family grew to one younger sister and
three half-siblings. After relocation to Chicago, Stanley would spend summers with his
grandparents in Mississippi. Articulate and highly intelligent, he graduated high school
and excelled in technical schools throughout his service (1990-98) as a U.S. Marine and
in the U.S. Army, where he worked as an ordinance and avionics technician. Deployed to
Japan and Panama, he considers himself blessed to have never seen combat.
In 1999 Stanley took on the name Odinga Tyehimba—which means “woodcarver” in
Yoruba—desiring a name that was a better reflection of his art and interests. Odinga’s
dreams, psychic life and conscious contact with the spirit world fuel his art and are
primary to his understanding. Several of his sculptures are safeguarded as sacred
objects in the Palo Mayombe spiritual community of North Carolina, of which he, too, is
now a member. Once, in front of two witnesses, he moved a cup across a table without
touching it - exhibiting telekinesis. He is also devoted to issues of equality and social
justice and is a loving and proud father of two grown daughters who reside in California,
where he hopes to one day relocate.
“Above all, I don’t want people to fear my work,” he says. “The horns [on my sculpture]
represent power, polarity and balance - mastery of one’s own lower self. As a kid I
especially loved all the nature programs on TV. The horned animals looked like they
were wearing crowns.”
UNARIUS STUDENTS
PAULA RICH-GREENWOOD
Born in 1955 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Paula experienced an innate sense of
melancholy throughout most of her early life and was painfully introverted, yet she
displayed a talent for drawing and at an early age found solace in making art, dancing,
and seeing UFOs in the sky at night.
As a young woman, after she read Parmahansa Yogananda’s book Autobiography of
a Yogi, Paula began to have paranormal experiences. In 1977, she became a devotee
and eventual initiate with Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship but was haunted
by suicidal ideation and struggles with drug addiction. In 1982, she attempted suicide
and had a near death experience, the first of two which led her to a series of radical
paranormal experiences and a new ability to see angelic beings and energy in various
forms. Soon after this, she was introduced to Unarius and had a profound spiritual
awakening. She was informed that her suicidal thoughts were due to multiple lifetimes
of suicidal ideation and addiction and that this could be healed and transformed through
help from benevolent interdimensional beings. She experienced a radical spiritual
healing at the hands of Uriel and was forever altered and elevated by this experience.
Paula flourished as a student of Unarius and visionary artist under the tutelage of the
Unariun masters, artists, and teachers. One of her paintings is on the cover jacket of the
book, Visitations of Gods and Men, by Ruth E. Norman, published by Unarius in 1987.
Three of Paula’s visionary paintings were exhibited at the International UFO Museum
and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico from 1997 to 2006. In 2004, Paula received
a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque
and 2008 attained a Master’s Degree in Social Work from New Mexico State University.
Today she works as a licensed clinical social worker helping soldiers with Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder and other mental health disorders.
Paula is currently writing an autobiography chronicling her spiritual journey with
Unarius. Her book illustrates the overcoming of addiction, depression, and suicide
through past life therapy and the lifesaving healing energy principles from the Unarius
science. She has a daughter and two grandchildren and lives in Texas.
UNARIUS STUDENTS
KEVIN KENNEDY
Kevin Kennedy was born in Newport Rhode Island in 1958. His father was an officer in
the navy and his mother was a housewife.
He had psychic experiences at an early age, including when he was seven to ten years
old and would find himself floating above his bed while falling sleep. He would then fly
out into the stars. After studying books from various theosophical schools, his “lifelong
search for a science of life” culminated with the contact of Unarius at age 17. For the
past 39 years, he has been a student and teacher of the principles of Unarius, has
appeared on T.V., radio, and has given many presentations on extraterrestrial life and
the spiritual nature of consciousness. Kevin’s creativity has taken many forms over the
years: paintings, wall murals, designing sets for Unarius films and videos, painting signs
and banners, brochures, and jacket covers for books and videotapes. He is a producer and
director of Unarius video productions, many of which have been airing on public access
stations across the USA since 1978. Kevin co-produced The UFO Experience, which won
an (International UFO Congress) EBE award for best documentary film.
Kevin lives just outside of El Cajon, California, where he runs an art and art
reproduction business with his wife of twenty years. Kevin’s passions are Unarius and
making spiritual and emotional progress. “We have all lived before in Atlantis and
beyond, and we can make this world a paradise again.”
UNARIUS STUDENTS
BILLIE MCINTYRE
Billie Mcintyre was born in 1938, in Norman, Arkansas and was labeled a “slow learner”
as a child. Married and divorced three times, she raised three sons and worked as
a waitress, housewife, and business owner. She dabbled in painting when she was
younger, but it wasn’t until she became a student of the Unarius Academy of Science
under the tutelage of Uriel, that her creative potential blossomed. She developed her
channelship (receiving guidance from other beings in other dimensions) as an artist and
a seamstress, designing many of Uriel’s costumes and dresses.
In 1986, Billie saw a vision of Uriel sitting on a throne, with a great light coming from
behind her. She heard in her mind: “If you will have a painting ready for Uriel, you had
better get started.” From that prompting, The Re-Awakening, the painting she considers
her masterwork, manifested onto a 5’ x 5’ canvas within a month. The painting is
permanently installed in the Unarius Academy center. Having no formal training, Billie
claims her inspiration to paint comes from her own inner guidance and “spiritual hookup
to a higher brotherhood.” Many of her paintings have been become cover paintings and
illustrations for Unarius books.
For almost 30 years, as the “artist-in-residence,” Billie has taught inspirational art
classes at the Unarius New World Teaching Center in El Cajon, California. Classes do
not teach painting techniques, but rather ways for students to access their own “higher
selves” and channel guidance or inspiration from interdimensional beings.
UNARIUS STUDENTS
DOUGLAS TAYLOR
During much of his youth, Douglas Taylor travelled around the world as a surfer and
developed a deep appreciation of nature and its healing and rejuvenating effects in his
life.
In 1978, on one of his surfing trips to the island of Puerto Rico, he experienced a psychic
encounter and was brought inside a UFO, where he telepathically communicated with its
extraterrestrial occupants. On his return from this trip, he began having further psychic
experiences that profoundly changed his life. With no previous experience, he began
painting and writing profusely and sold fourteen paintings at his first art showing. Aided
by a series of hundreds of communications in visions and dreams with extraterrestrial
and celestial beings over the years, he continues to show his inspiration in his writing,
painting, and teaching.
In addition to appearing on national radio talk shows and being interviewed by film and
television crews from around the world, Douglas has taught classes and workshops, has
spoken at numerous UFO and other metaphysical gatherings, and has displayed his art
at many conferences and art galleries. He is a contributing writer and cover artist for
several new age magazines and books.
Douglas considers his art and lectures as vehicles for connecting with other like-minded
souls and likes to help others develop their own creative abilities and learn to detach
from former negative experiences. Douglas believes creative expression is a direct line to
the “Universal Forces” and that true inspiration comes as an uplifting power that helps
us to overcome our self-imposed limitations—but true inspiration and empowerment are
not meant for selfish purposes. Douglas lives and works with his soulmate wife Serena in
Huntington Beach, a seaside community between Los Angeles and San Diego, where he
continues to paint, write, woodwork, and enjoy his unrequited love for surfing.
“Excellence in any field is a product of a synthesis of the mind, body, and spirit. The
messenger is unimportant and transitory, but the message is eternal.”
STEPHEN L. YANCOSKIE
Stephen L. Yancoskie was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1951. He was the second of
seven children in a Polish Catholic family. He came out as gay when he was a teenager
and in high school was involved in theatre as an actor and set designer. After graduation
Stephen moved to New York for a short time but “couldn’t make it” and returned to
Lancaster. In about 1975, disillusioned with life on the East Coast, Stephen moved to
San Diego, California where he began referring to himself as Stephan. He was a spiritual
man in search of understanding, and while walking in El Cajon he chanced upon The
Unarius Academy of Science. Stephan liked the new age ideals and feeling of being part
of something. He became a member and quickly gained the love and admiration of the
founder, Ruth Norman (“Archangel Uriel”). Both recognized that they’d shared many
previous incarnations together as close associates.
Norman bestowed Stephan with the name “Arieson” and quickly elevated him to a
position of prominence in the group. He became the Academy’s primary artist and
muralist for a period, creating large ethereal pieces that adorned the walls inside
and out. He also did Uriel’s hair and makeup and fashioned much of her wardrobe,
making elaborate costumes. While there, he struggled with sobriety and in 1984 left the
group. After Unarius, he continued producing trompe l’oeil, murals and faux finishes
throughout San Diego. In 1987, after being diagnosed with HIV, he adopted a healthy
lifestyle but lost his battle in 1995 at the age of 43. To his family, he was known as Steve.
He was close to his sister, Joanne, who also moved to California. They spent a great deal
of time together and she described him as: “loved by many, smart, difficult, and dramatic
with a funny sick sense of humor.” He was a friend, teacher and spiritual leader to many
who knew him.
MEMBERS OF THE SOURCE FAMILY
ISIS AQUARIAN
(CHARLENE PETERS)
Isis Aquarian was born Charlene Peters in 1942, the oldest of seven children. Her father
was Chief of Documentations for the Air Force and later worked with NASA at the
Kennedy Center space program.
Isis was a cheerleader and on prom court in high school but always felt different from
others. She could sense invisible presences in a room and seemed to just “know” things
from an early age. When she was 17, a “guardian angel” she later believed to be the saint
Padre Pio saved her from driving into a ditch and appeared to her a number of times
after that.
She was a fashion model, a White House social aide and a Cherry Blossom Princess
before moving to Los Angeles in the late-’60s. She was engaged to rock ‘n’ roll
photographer Ron Raffaelli when she left him to join The Source Family. Renamed
Isis the Aquarian, she helped run The Family’s business and became The Family
documentarian and historian, filming and photographing The Family with others,
recording audio and maintaining documents. She ultimately became one of Father Yod’s
14 “spiritual wives.”
Her preservation of The Source Family archives for over 40 years has led to a number
of ongoing projects and events, including a memoir, new Source Family record releases,
her own T-shirt line, a comic book and the documentary The Source Family, which
she associate produced. Isis resides in Kailua, Hawaii and is 73 years old. She has a
daughter, Saturna, and a granddaughter, Alana.
MEMBERS OF THE SOURCE FAMILY
ROBERT EDWARD QUINN
(OMNE AQUARIAN)
Robert Edward Quinn was born May 5, 1951 in Hartford Connecticut:
“The Irish Catholicism of my parents, particularly my mother, was a thick veneer
overlaying a more ancient Celtic mysticism that accepted the presence of the spirits of
the blessed dead, the possibility of prophetic dreams and the reality of visions. Today I
simply call this interdimensional reality.”
In 1970, he had a profound vision: “I passionately expected to find the answers to the
basic questions of existence: Who am I, what are we, is there purpose to existence and
what is it, does humanity have a destiny? When this ‘need to know’ reached a crisis
point, I was ‘visited’ by my ‘deceased’ maternal grandmother when I was 19 years old.
Describing this experience could fill a book, but simply put, I experienced humanity’s
future. That event has informed all my opinions and guided all my choices.”
Further meaningful supernatural events guided him to Jim Baker and The Source
restaurant in 1971. He became a core member of The Source Family as Family astrologer,
tarot reader and the photographer and graphic designer for most of The Source Family’s
record albums.
Quinn is currently a student of Ramtha. He lives in Yelm, Washington:
“I am a futurist. Whereas most people immediately associate this term with technology,
I think of human consciousness and the transcendence of three-dimensional reality.
The personal unconscious mind is the doorway to [the] universal mind. That is the next
frontier.”
MEMBERS OF THE SOURCE FAMILY
SUNFLOWER AQUARIAN
(PATRICK JAMES BURKE)
Patrick James Burke was Sunflower Aquarian, also known as Golden Hands, in The
Source Family. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1944. His father was Eddie Burke, a
well-known musician who toured with Les Paul, Liberace and many big bands of the era.
In the mid-’60s, Patrick played bass in the acid-rock band The Fields, opening for Jimi
Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and others. The excessive lifestyle burnt him out, and he left the
band and immersed himself in yoga and the teachings of the popular guru Yogi Bhajan.
There he met Jim Baker, also a student of Bhajan.
While in The Family, Patrick (renamed Sunflower) built a redwood temple behind The
Source restaurant without using a single nail. He created talismanic jewelry imbued
with beneficial magical powers for The Family, and played bass in all The Family rock
bands.
Years after The Family, he managed the renovation of several major historic buildings
in Los Angeles, including the Beverly Hills Civic Center and the Thomas Bradley
International Terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport. He currently lives and
farms 10 acres of land on the Big Island in Hawaii, next to his son, his wife and their two
children:
“I believe that everything I
put my energy into making
is a work of art. My land in
Hawaii and farm is the art of
the living canvas. Inspiration
comes from knowing that the
actions of creating are from
the divine source.”
SUNFLOWER AQUARIAN
Father’s Tahuti Belt
n.d.
Collection of Tom Stone
Photo by Dan Meyers
CLAUDE YODER
Born in 1904, Claude H. Yoder was one of 17 children in an Amish family that lived on
a farm near Grantsville in the mountains of western Maryland. The Yoders were an
extensive clan, and a number of local Yoder families sent their children to the Yoder
schoolhouse (nicknamed “Dutch College”) where Claude received his education, which
was limited by religious tradition to the eighth grade. Claude was known for his sense of
humor and impish pranks, and at school he was frequently disciplined for “wasting time”
drawing pictures, molding clay or whittling. Since these had no immediate practical
applications, they were deemed sinful. As a young man, Claude secretly bought a necktie,
which he kept hidden at the home of some non-Amish neighbors. Wearing the tie with
his black Amish suit, he dared to wander in the “outside” and met a girl from a nearby
Mennonite community who was impressed with both the boy and the tie. His horizons
broadened considerably when he married her and became a Mennonite, because her
own background was more “worldly” than his. His wife encouraged his creativity, and
Claude occupied himself carving wood whenever he could find free time from his daily
chores as a farmer, meat market operator or factory worker. Over the years, Claude
made hundreds of carvings, working in the
basement of his home in Allegany County,
Maryland. Participating in the Smithsonian
Institution’s 1972 Festival of American
Folklife was the highlight of his artistic
career. Claude Yoder died in 1991 and is
buried in the Pinto Mennonite cemetery in
western Maryland.
CLAUDE YODER
Untitled Animal Wood Carving
n.d.
Collection of Olin Yoder
Photo by Dan Meyers