News Release

CENTER NEWS / September 15, 2008

Idaho Center for the Book Releases New DVD About Idaho Artist James Castle

The Idaho Center for the Book, housed at Boise State University, has released “James Castle: Dream House,” a DVD about the prolific, self-taught Idaho artist.

“James Castle: Dream House” includes interviews with Castle’s family, childhood friends, artists and art professors, gallery directors and curators — as well as more than 100 images of rare historical photographs and never-seen Castle art works. Produced by Boise State professor Tom Trusky, Castle’s biographer, this DVD takes an intimate look at an artist who was largely unrecognized during his own lifetime.

Castle was born in Garden Valley, Idaho, in 1899. He was thought to be deaf throughout most of his life, as well as mute, mentally challenged and illiterate. Contemporary medical and art experts such as Dr. Uta Frith and Roger Cardinal believe Castle was autistic and perhaps able to hear, but unable to process sounds despite his ability to vocalize. Analysis of his work suggests that Castle was highly intelligent and possessed limited reading and writing abilities.

Castle was sent to the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind in 1910 and studied there for at least five years. His family says that they were told to keep art supplies from their son and to encourage him to learn to speak, sign, fingerspell and read lips — all of which the educators had been unable to teach him. Other reports suggest the family was always in need of help and that they withdrew their son from school and attempted to make a ranch hand out of him. Castle would have none of it and instead busied himself making his own art supplies. He fashioned sharpened sticks and twigs into pens and made ink from stove soot and saliva, using found paper as canvases and book pages.

Castle began making “dream houses” — for which the DVD is named — in the 1940s. These small drawings, if black-and-white, were fancifully fashioned homes with polka-dot roofs and tweed, plaid or herringbone siding. For color dream houses, Castle used apricot pits to scrape the wax coating from dairy containers; he would then wet colored paper and laboriously rub the tinctures into the feathery, scraped container surfaces. His family realized he was trying to communicate with them and purchased a small mobile home for him in 1963. He worked in his dream house for more than a decade.

Castle devoted himself to making art for more than 60 years. Although briefly “discovered” in the 1960s, the self-taught artist was largely unrecognized during his lifetime. He died in obscurity in 1977 in Boise. Castle left behind more than 20,000 artworks. A dedication exhibition at the Idaho Center for the Book in Boise in 1994 featured the first display of Castle books; his work has gone on to gather international attention.

“James Castle: Dream House” was directed by Boise State professor Peter Lutze and Rod Cashin of Academic Technologies and authored by Paul Brand of Pretty Good Productions in Coeur d’Alene. It is $19.95 and available for purchase through the Boise State Bookstore and Amazon.com. For more information, call Trusky at (208) 426-1999.


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Media Contact: Julie Hahn, University Communications, (208) 426-5540, juliehahn@boisestate.edu

Boise State University is “The New U Rising” with record student enrollment, new academic buildings, additional degree programs and a growing research agenda. Learn more at www.boisestate.edu. 
 

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Last reviewed on Monday, September 15, 2008