May: Gayleen Aiken
It is almost contrary for a folk artist to be reclusive and at the same time popular but that’s what happened to the elderly Gayleen Aiken, sometimes called the un-Grandma Moses. Tucked away in rural Vermont, her paintings are funny, yet poetic, with an autobiographical twist. Recently she said,” My work is more like that man’s [Norman Rockwell] than Grandma Moses’. He’s a storyteller like me”.

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June: Lewis Smith
Shortly after his death in 1998, the 91 year old outsider, Lewis Smith, was virtually unknown. It was only after his passing that a treasure trove of over 2000 drawings, poetry and essays were discovered in a small house nestled in the overgrown woods. Drawn in a cartoon style like Betty Boop, his erotic depiction of women has an innocence all its own. Smith’s muscular and gaudy Zany Ladies are in athletic poses – an amusing viewpoint from an outsider artist.

Smith spent most of his life on the family farm in Ohio. He was somewhat of a folk historian, documenting his own life and the life around him.

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July: Merrill Densmore
Merrill Densmore was born in the the mid 1940’s and grew up in the remote Northeast corner of New England. His creative process began with crayon drawings and “paint by the numbers “ kits. But within a few years, he gravitated toward the acrylic pallet enabling him to paint with greater depth. Although sometimes merely suggested through shape and color, one can see the majestic, seasonal landscapes of his childhood home. Densmore's work has been exhibited throughout New England.

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August: Larry Bissonnette
Larry Bissonnette was born in Winooski, Vermont in 1957. He began drawing prolifically by the age of five and since then has always manifested an exciting irrepressible creativity.

Expressing great urgency, Bissonnette draws images on paper and board with paint, crayon and marker. He glazes these pictures with scotch tape and fragments of plexiglass, sometimes framing them with old wood. The finished pieces are heavy constructions, usually showing either icon-like portraits or long, horizontal landscapes. It is with this determination and intense concentration that Larry Bissonnette sifts the glaring world into fine shafts of light.

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Denise and Michael Ulick, formerly from New York, and owners of Church Street Art Gallery, have been collecting folk and outsider art for over 20 years. With their guidance, they have helped startup collectors appreciate these art forms from a cultural and aesthetic perspective.

Also represented at the Church Street Art Gallery are: Molly Batchelder, Streeter Blair, Ken Bridges, Robert Blackburn/Van Hook, Brian Cohen, Florence Grende, Justin McCarthy, R. A. Miller, Lee Neary, Ben Owen, Margo Russell, Jack Savitsky and Jimmy Sudduth, along with anonymous artists of the 19th. and 20th. century.