THIS IS THE PLACE FOR DISCOVERIES AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE MOST INVENTIVE ART FORMS – ALL KINDS OF ART THAT IS FAR-OUT, FANTASTIC, FREE-SPIRITED, FUN, FUNKY, PHENOMENAL AND GOOD FOR THE SOUL. (MAMA CALLED IT SUI GENERIS)
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WINTER, THE COLD SEASON OF SHORT DAYS AND DARKNESS. ITS PAUCITY OF LIGHT CAN AFFECT A PERSON’S MOOD AND SPIRIT, AND FEEL DOWNRIGHT GLOOMY — OR NOT. AFTER ALL, FOR SOME GET-COZY ROMANTICS, IT’S A KIND OF SEASONAL BLANKET ENVELOPING EVERYTHING, REASSURINGLY, UNTIL THE SPRING. METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING, RIGHT NOW, THE WORLD IS LUMBERING THROUGH SOME VERY DARK TIMES, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE COULD USE SOME SOUL-BOOSTING LIGHT. HERE’S TO THE GLOW OF FAR-OFF GALAXIES AND THE SHIMMER OF A CHRISTMAS CANDLE’S FLAME. LIGHT OUR FIRE!

IN THIS ISSUE, DON'T MISS THESE FEATURES
Editor’s Letter
What the heck is brutjournal?
by Edward M. Gómez
Upstate New York
At his home in the lower Hudson Valley region, Dennis Gordon, a retired New York City firefighter, has created a world in miniature; there, he makes small-scale replicas of abandoned buildings he has discovered and photographed.
Hiroshima, Japan
Nobumasa Kushino, a leading researcher and promoter of contemporary Japanese art brut, introduces the exquisite drawings of Gataro, a shopping-center janitor who is a self-taught draftsman.
Florida
The Bosnian-born artist Amer Kobaslija is a contemporary history painter who lately has turned his keen observer’s eye on the tropical madhouse that has become his adopted home.
FRANCES SMOKOWSKI: BIG-TIME BIOMORPHIC
Frances Smokowski has brought an intense sense of focus and an explorer’s spirit to each phase of a multifaceted career that has included study and work in the art-therapy field and the making of richly detailed, figurative paintings. Here, we check in on one of the artist’s other passions — her sensuous, biomorphic, abstract drawings.
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THINK SMALL: DENNIS GORDON’S ABANDONED WORLD
Dennis Gordon, a retired New York City firefighter, travels around the U.S.A., photographing abandoned buildings; he uses his photos as reference material for his finely handcrafted, small-scale replicas of those ghostly structures, which are filled with forgotten history. A visit to his studio in the Hudson Valley region. Free-access article.
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THE ARTIST AS “CHRYSALIDE”: CELEBRATING THE POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION
An exhibition at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the subject of transformation from points of view at once artistic and spiritual. Its accompanying catalogue — which is now available, at last — expands upon this multifaceted theme.
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SEARCHING FOR LIGHT IN THE WINTER NIGHT
In this season of short days and long, black nights, we can’t get enough light, light, light. Delicious sunlight — bring on the vitamin D! — is best, but when night falls, we’ll take the glow of neon, streetlights, and the headlights of passing cars. Photographer Bill Westmoreland captures the shimmer of the nocturnal city. Free-access article.
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FRANZ JOZEF PONSTINGL’S TECHNO-ANCIENT-FUTURE ART: ONCE OVERLOOKED, NOW RESCUED
The little-known, Pennsylvania-born, modernist painter Franz Jozef Ponstingl (1927-2004) created some very bizarre art: fantastic visions of otherworldly civilizations, often accented with geometric or abstract passages. The collector John Munice has become their champion — and saved them from oblivion.
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