Letter from Jimmy Pendleton, Outsider Artist
I can't even begin to analyze this letter. Jimmy is a mess. The letter, which is one page, double-sided, was written from jail. It's an insane and disjointed stream of consciousness that ends suddenly when he runs out of paper. Jimmy has lived his whole life in Indiana, never left it even once for vacation. Jimmy started building this structure called the Barn House in the early '70s and kept building it up until the early '90s. It was primarily made from pieces of old barns that had been torn down. His life was dedicated to this oddity. Rooms upon rooms upon stairs upon balconeys upon cruddy mattresses upon cruddy couches upon a bunch of other random stuff... Too bad he ended up in jail and the Barn House was left to rot and eventually burn down. People came from all over the world to see this place—along with his other house called Noah's Ark that supposedly would float if you flipped it over—thanks to the Internet. There was a documentary made on Jimmy in the early '90s that shows his very isolated-looking teenage daughter and son talking about their penpals from Thailand and far-off places such as that. Very weird stuff. You can buy the video at the same link as above. The letter was written to Jason Yoder, former photo editor/writer of Nuvo Newsweekly in Indianapolis, who took me (the Webmaster) with him in the fall of 2000 to see the Barn House. The above letter and the Barn House are a perfect reflection of what's inside Jimmy. I took some great video footage of the Barn House that I would like to get out to the public some day, but it might not ever get completed, just like the Barn House. Contact me if you would like to fund this project.