Books

  1. Tom Patterson — The Tom Patterson Years: Cultural Adventures of a Fledgling Scribe (Jargon 117)

Description

Hiding Press is honored to present our first collaborative publication, The Tom Patterson Years, in conjunction with the Jargon Society and book designer Jonathan Greene. The Tom Patterson Years is the latest addition to the Jargon Society's legendary book series, and the first published installment in an autobiographical trilogy. The protagonist is the author, the city is Atlanta, and the year is 1977. Patterson paints a vivid picture of the city's bohemian scene at a pivotal, energized moment in its history. The narrative follows his trajectory as a regional journalist, small-press publisher, and budding arts writer over seven years, and it details the beginnings of his involvement with outsider art. Anecdotes of a lively personal life form the thread connecting a series of engaging, sometimes hilarious stories about poets, performers, artists, culture mavens, and distinctive characters with whom the author became acquainted. Some of these individuals and groups have remained obscure, while others have attained enduring fame or notoriety (the Sex Pistols, the B-52's, Bruce Hampton, Saint EOM, Howard Finster). Equally important to the story's cultural timeline are artists Bob Tauber and Mark Smith, publisher/editor Fred Brown, poet Jonathan Williams, writer and arts administrator Laura Lieberman, pioneering art dealer Judith Alexander, and artist/folklorist Fred Fussell. The book's title, which Patterson uses satirically, was supplied by the musician Bruce Hampton, a key figure in the narrative.

About the author

As a writer, independent curator, former small-press publisher, and erstwhile art-magazine editor based in the American South, Tom Patterson has pursued an autonomous path since the early 1970s. Patterson is the author of Howard Finster: Stranger from Another World, (Abbeville Press, 1989), St. EOM in The Land of Pasaquan (Jargon Society, 1987/University of Georgia Press, 2018) and Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2001). Since the early 1980s his writings have appeared in art magazines including afterimage, American Ceramics, American Craft, Aperture, ARTnews, Art Papers, BOMB, Folk Art, New Art Examiner, Public Art Review, and Raw Vision-the London-based international journal of outsider art, of which he is a former U.S. editor. As a curator he has organized exhibitions for the American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem), Virginia Commonwealth University's Anderson Gallery (Richmond), the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (Queens, NY), the Terra Museum of American Art (Chicago), the Gregg Museum of Art and Design (Raleigh), and the Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle).

Jonathan Greene:
b. 1943. Born in New York City, Jonathan Greene earned his BA in literature from Bard College and went on to study poetry with Robert Lowell and folklore with Alan Dundes. The author of more than 20 chapbooks and volumes of poetry, Greene has run Gnomon Press since 1965.

Format

6 × 9 in.
208 pages (with 10 pages of photographs)
Designed by Jonathan Greene

ISBN

978-1-7337098-9-7

Price

$18 + $4 shipping