Come Into My Mind

The Center for the Study of the American South cordially invites you to a free public lecture "Ethnoserendipitology" with documentary filmmakers Scott Blackwell and Patrick Long, featuring a special world premiere showing of their film Come Into My Mind, a documentary feature on the South's self-taught artists, on Friday, November 12, 2004, at 12:00 pm, in the Union Movie Auditorium, Graham Student Union, on the UNC Campus.

Free and open to the public. Light refreshments served.
Visitor Parking information here:
http://www.unc.edu/visitors/parking.html

Jimmy Lee Sudduth, self-portrait
© 2003 Immaculate Baking Co.

"When setting out to make a documentary about self-taught artists, it's all about finding what you’re not looking for." -- Scott Blackwell and Patrick Long

Patrick Long is a father, husband and erratic, non-fiction filmmaker for the last 15 years. His documentary projects vary from the plight of America’s last free-roaming Buffalo Herd to self-taught artists living in the American South. When he is not wrestling with kids, cameras or computers – he is trying to figure out how to make a living despite having a talent for taking on projects before there is any plan to pay for them.

Scott is founder and a board member of The Folk Artists Foundation. He has been an avid collector of American folk art for about twelve years. Along the way he has established relationships with many artists and their families. He has traveled extensively throughout the South collecting exclusively from the artists themselves. After realizing that collecting was only a small part of the obsession; he attributes his view of the South to have been changed by these artists. They showed him the faith to just put it out there and see what happens.

Mose Tolliver,Kiss, © 2003 Immaculate Baking Co.

Scott in his other life is an entrepreneur. When he's not on the road collecting folk art, Scott maintains his role of owner/founder of Immaculate Baking Company.

More information about the Immaculate Baking Company: http://www.immaculatebaking.com/
More information about the Folk Artists Foundation: http://www.immaculatebaking.com/ourfoundation.shtml

Come Into My Mind

Synopsis: Two white guys drove deep into the American South determined to make the first-ever comprehensive documentary on living self-taught artists. Armed with a digital video camera, carefully constructed questions and a passion for the art, they visited as many artists as time allowed. Their intent was to show the artists in their natural environments, let them explain their art in their own words and to uncover the deeper meaning of their creative efforts. These artists entertain hundreds of uninvited visitors from around the world every year, surely they have answers for those who seek. The summer was hot and humid, even by southern standards. The artists did tell their story in their own words but what these two idealists managed to capture was not the Ken Burns/PBS quality documentary they imagined. The environments were not what they expected, the artists were as individual as their work and the story never did unfold as planned. Where the art takes you is where you go. When you arrive there is still much more to see. Beneath the piles of discarded phonebooks, roof tin, gutters, wire hangers, plywood, house paint and whatever else an artist can scavenge for a “canvas" there is art. The eye cannot keep up with the mind and words are not adequate for description. To take it all in takes all the senses not just the two available to the electronic documentary. The humidity itself was invisible to the camera yet its electronics couldn’t function at times because of it how it made those circuits feel. Why not just let the artists talk we decided and that proved to be what happened best for our purposes though even that fell short of what we slowly figured out as our prepared questions non-sequitered into the haze.

Without formal training or the inhibition of critical expectation, Southern self-taught artists create diligently to fill the space where they live and please their collectors. This passion attracts people from around the world, thousands of whom arrive on their doorstep uninvited. They come to meet the creator and maybe buy some art. Visitors are always welcome. This film visits some of these artists and they tell you in their words why they create and why people come.

What is the message of your art? We’ll if that question ever got answered, we wouldn’t need to ask it.