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Blackstock’s Collections: the Drawings of an Artistic Savant

Gregory L. Blackstock, a retired pot-washer, is an autistic and artistic savant.

Blackstock’s Collections: The Drawings of an Artistic Savant is a wonderful collection of Blackstock’s drawings. He creates visual lists of everything from tropical fruits to German fighter planes. Browsing through the book reminded me of drawings I made in my childhood, ever fascinated with cataloguing and classifying the seemingly mudane.

All his drawings are created with pencil, black marker, and crayon. To create a larger canvas to work on, he often pieces together varying sizes and shades of paper, mistakes are glaringly fixed with white-out, and everything is carefully labelled in his own charming, deliberate script. It’s outsider art, but it’s quite skilled nonetheless; much of it is drawn from memory.

There’s a certain satisfaction one gets from making lists, and it’s reflected in Blackstock’s artwork.
If anything, the book reminds me what a joy it can be to just draw.

  • Josh S.

    Very interesting.

  • Josh S.

    Very interesting.

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