August 2, 2004

Biography Explores Genius, Complexity Of Artist James Castle

A new biography titled James Castle: His Life and Art explores the life, genius and motivation behind one of Idaho’s greatest enigmas. Written by Tom Trusky, a Castle expert, director of the Hemingway Western Studies Center and Boise State University English professor, the book contains rare documents and photographs, exclusive interviews with Castle’s family and childhood friends and the testimony of contemporary art and medical experts. Labeled for his entire life as deaf, mute, illiterate and mentally challenged, Castle is now thought to have actually been autistic. Born in 1899 in the mountain town of Garden Valley, Idaho, he was the fifth of seven children. He never learned to speak, had a limited ability to read and write and he seemingly refused to be taught to sign. His primary form of communication was the thousands of drawings and illustrations he produced during his lifetime. Houses, domestic scenes, family members and friends were endlessly rendered in what some have termed a primitive “folk art” style from crude tools and supplies * ink made from soot and saliva, pens fashioned from twigs or sticks, and canvases scavenged from scrap paper, cardboard, books and the many catalogs that flowed through his parents’ general store and post office. Even when family, friends, curators and artists purchased paints and brushes for him, late in his career, he preferred to make his own tools. Amazingly, although unschooled, he was able to grasp the concept of several artistic principles, including vanishing point perspective. Largely undiscovered and unappreciated during his lifetime, he is now considered by many art historians to prefigure a number of the major schools and *isms of 20th century art. After decades of making unrecognized art in an icehouse and abandoned chicken shed, Castle began making “Dreamhouses” 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 “Dreamhouses,” Castle used apricot pits to scrape the wax coating from dairy product containers. The artist would then wet colored paper and laboriously rub the tinctures into the feathery, scraped container surfaces, creating vibrant glowing replicas of the residences that took root in his imagination. His family realized he was trying to communicate with them and in 1963 purchased a small mobile home using proceeds from the sale of his works. Castle, who moved to the Boise Valley with his family in 1924, worked in this “Dreamhouse” for more than a decade before he died in Boise in 1977. In addition to his drawings, Castle filled hundreds of books with illustrations during his lifetime. The most rare and intriguing are his Icehouse Books. Found in an icehouse in Garden Valley, the handmade book art volumes have survived fire, ice, decay, demolition and indifference * some even survived the Teton Dam disaster in 1974. Another set of four books, known as the Early Attic Collection, was recently discovered in a box of tattered books and catalogs purchased for $10 at a Caldwell estate auction. Those books are now being stored in the climate-controlled archives at Boise State’s Albertsons Library. They will be unveiled at an international conference this fall on the East Coast. In his capacity as Castle’s biographer, Trusky has written articles in Biblio, Raw Vision, Folk Art, Journal of Artists’ Books and The Idaho Review. With Boise State communication professor Peter Lutze, he directed and wrote the video documentary Dreamhouse: The Art & Life of James Castle for Painted Smiles Press. In 2000, Dreamhouse premiered on Idaho Public Television. As well, Trusky has curated Castle art book exhibitions in Canada, England, New York, Chicago and other U.S. venues. James Castle: His Life and Art (190 pages, hardback and paperback, $29.95 and $19.95, more than 100 black and white and color illustrations) is published by the Idaho Center for the Book. Proceeds from the book’s sale pay for ICB printing expenses. -30- Contact Tom Trusky Department of English 208 426-1999 Media Contact Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275