REPENT was inspired by the work of Jesse Howard (1885-1983), a folk/outsider/naive artist. I first saw his work in Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century, published as an exhibition catalog by the Museum of American Folk Art. What is striking to me about Howard’s work is the intense effort contained in his paintings-as-rants, and the overall texture of their deliberate lettering. Howard’s work can be seen in the collection of the Kansas City (MO) Art Institute.

Jesse Howard’s obsessively lettered paintings and sculptures are the cousins of these signs (left) which appear from time to time nailed to telephone poles around here and elsewhere. The honest expression of an inspired amateur–something you might encounter by chance–can be more wonderful, memorable, or surprising than anything a trained artist might invent or that an aesthete might expect.

Includes 2 versions of each capital, and numbers, punctuation, pointing hands, and international characters.