Architectural Fantasies

About the Author

Jo Farb Hernández, Director Emerita of SPACES (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments) and Professor Emerita at San José State University, is an internationally recognized scholar of the work of self-taught artists, and an award-winning author, curator, and photographer. Hernández has been particularly focused on the field of vernacular art environment builders for over five decades–first in the US and, for the last 25 years, in Spain–and is one of very few scholars worldwide to dedicate their careers to this under-recognized group of makers. Notably, her series Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments, (Raw Vision 2013; 5 Continents Editions 2023), based on two dozen years of primary fieldwork in Spain, provides an encyclopedic treatment of the field.

Fred Scruton worked as a Brooklyn-based freelance photographer of artwork and architecture for twenty years, and his photography and writings have been reproduced in numerous books and periodicals, including Raw Vision and Folk Art Messenger magazines. His work has also been exhibited widely at such venues as The Drawing Center and OK Harris Gallery in New York City. Now Emeritus Professor of Art at PennWest University, Scruton travels extensively throughout the United States to document self-taught, “outsider,” and “visionary” artists and their built environments. Often befriending them, his process of collaborative documentation typically extends over many years, with repeated return visits.