"Pain Then Glory"

A piece of strangly brilliant thrift store art I spotted at The PSB Gallery of Thrift Store Art. Link is on the side bar.

Priceless Thrift Store Kitsch

FUN WITH A HOSE AND A TUBA

Here's a fascinating piece of way out there thrift store art...wish I had this one. To see more click here.

My Thrift Store Art Collection

As I promised you on Monday, here's some of my thrift store art collection. It's amazing the strange art treasures you can find by looking around in thrift stores. Here are my six favorites. I do have others, but I feel that these are the ones most worthy of conclusion. Kudos to my wife for the photagraphy.

1. Above is a fiery, amazing piece that hangs in our living room. I do not know what the artist was thinking, but the deep oranges and reds lend a certain warmth to the room.




2. This one hangs in our bedroom. This painiting has an eerie, transparent, ghost-like quality to it. The woman appears to be sad and fading. I love this one.

3. This is a frightening, larger than life matador. This painting is gigantic, and I have nowhere to hang it right now. If you look carefully his eyes will follow you as you walk by him.

4. Ok. I don't know what the artist was thinking that painted this one. Are these aliens or people? And what are they doing? Where are they? This painting is gigantic as well, with blinding primary colors that slap you in the face every time you see it.

5. This is a beautiful surreal piece. I love the dreamlike serenity of this one. The rich blues and greens are very calming. Note the phallic imagery here. Was this unintentional or deliberate? No one will ever know...

6. Last but not least, the disturbing, almost psychedelic Elvis portrait. I don't know why anyone would have wanted to paint this piece, but for whatever reason, they were proud enough of it to sign it. The frame is shot on this one, but as soon as I can get another frame it's going back up.

THE PSB GALLERY OF THRIFT STORE ART

I love thrift store artwork. The three one-of-a-kind paintings pictured above are ones that I would die to have hanging on my wall. I'm addicted to these misunderstood, neglected, saddening, and mind blowing works of art. Just because somebody does not have the artistic talent to get their work out into the serious art world does not mean they do not have a vision. And a strong vision they may have too, no matter how misguided it may be. Some of these artists could make it into fine art museums but something about their work is too intense, too out of proportion, or too personal to make into it the mainstream. Let these works of art live. Get them out there and give them publicity even if someone only paid five dollars for it at a thrift store. That's why I love places such as the PSB Gallery of Thrift Store Art. They are working hard to keep the one-of-a-kind never to be reproduced visions of these artists alive and immortalized. You can find the paintings pictured above there plus many, many more, so you should drop on by and see the kind of eye candy they have on display there. There are other sites that serve as museums of thrift store art as well but I have found this one to be the most exhaustive.

I love collecting thrift store art myself and have a modest collection of it. I'm going to be putting together a display of some of my thrift store art treasures and posting it soon, so stay tuned.