Davis Dimock: The Gift

"A guy came here once from some outsider art magazine. He was taking pictures and he asked, "Do you do anything else?" So, I showed him some of my drawings. He said, "These are great. We could use these." I told him I didn't want them out in the world. It seems pretentious to think of myself as an artist. I think of artists as people who are going through the angst of creating stuff, and then the angst of getting a gallery to show the stuff, or sell the stuff. And I don't like capitalism. It's depressing. By just creating something on the land, my payment, my pleasure, is when other people spontaneously stop and look at it." Davis Dimock, who passed away earlier this week, was a self-described art laborer. Reflecting on his life, editor Richard Whittaker says, "How many remarkable individuals are there who we never hear or meet -- shining, exemplary lives quietly lived that we sorely need to encounter as encouragement for our own best impulses? Here is one of them, who with his wife, herself quietly remarkable, we lost a few days ago. It was my good fortune to have known them both and to have been buoyed by their unique qualities and courage." Read his interview with Dimock here.

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