Gayleen Aiken, Folk Artist
Bill Schenley
BARRE, Vt.
Folk artist Gayleen Aiken, who captured a national audience with
neon-bright imaginings of childhood friends, died Tuesday, friends
said. She was 71.
Aiken was a developmentally disabled woman whose formal education
ended before high school. She began drawing and painting at age 2, but
never showed her work until she was discovered by a Vermont
grass-roots arts organization in the early 1980s.
Today, her works hang in galleries in Boston and New York, and in the
permanent collection of the Rockefeller Museum of American Folk Art in
Williamsburg, Va. She co-wrote and illustrated a book, "Moonlight and
Music" and was the subject of a movie.
An Internet art gallery was offering two of her paintings this week
for $2,200 each.
< http://www.theoutsidersart.com/gallery/gayleenaiken/ >
Word of Aiken's death came from Grassroots Art and Community Effort,
or GRACE, a Hardwick arts group whose former director, Don Sunseri,
discovered Aiken's work. He became her mentor and friend. Aiken had no
living relatives and GRACE became her second family.
Photo: http://www.berenberggallery.com/artists/aiken/Aiken2.jpg
Her work (great stuff):
http://www.rawvision.com/back/aiken/GAYLEEN_PIC2.JPG
http://www.berenberggallery.com/images/Aiken%20SuzyCatLrg.jpg
http://www.berenberggallery.com/artists/aiken/images/Aiken--Family-Heirloom-Old-.jpg
http://www.berenberggallery.com/artists/aiken/images/Aiken--Her-Mistre'-Nickeleo.jpg
http://www.berenberggallery.com/artists/aiken/images/Aiken-Country-Art-Studio-Ho.jpg
More on Gayleen Aiken: http://www.rawvision.com/back/aiken/aiken.html