James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, a film by Jeffrey Wolf, has been selected to screen at the 5
th Annual True West Cinema Festival in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday, August 9 at 5:00pm (
www.truewestcinema.org). This annual film festival is “dedicated to the pioneering spirit of the West, and to all those artists and filmmakers out there who like to ‘go it their own way.’” How appropriate then, to include the first film production of the Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists by a first-time director about an artist who lived his whole life Idaho.
“In Castle,” writes Philadelphia Inquirer art reviewer Edward Sozanski, “the foundation, started by Wolf and local collectors Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, chose a perfect subject to launch its organization publicly. Almost every self-taught artist offers historians and curators a colorful backstory. In Castle's case, it was the fact that he was born deaf in rural western Idaho and never learned to speak, read or write, or to communicate in sign language (because he refused to do so). Supported by his family, he spent his entire life making art—drawings, collages and constructions. . . . The life is truly inspirational, and the art can be sublime. Re-creating the life of a mute, illiterate artist who has been dead for more than three decades is a daunting challenge. The life must emerge in the art, and in this film it does so eloquently.”
The Boise Art Museum has organized numerous exhibitions of Castle’s work, and two—in 1963 and 1976—in his lifetime. Curator Sandy Harthorn remembers, “He seemed pleased that people were looking at the work and pleased to be there.”
First-time film director Jeffrey Wolf has made a successful career of editing such feature films as Billy Madison, Madeline, Beautiful Girls, Holes, First Sunday and the upcoming Longshots. In 2005, Wolf began filming James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, a creative manifestation of his commitment to the art and film worlds, which represents his vision—focusing on the merits of Castle’s art production while showing various aspects of the artist’s life as a means of enriching the viewers’ understanding and appreciation of the artwork.
James Castle: Portrait of an Artist features interviews with painters Stephen Westfall and Terry Winters; gallerists Jacqueline Crist, Frank Del Deo, and John Ollman; curators Ann Percy, Sandy Harthorn, and Robert Storr; art historian John Yau; Gooding School Museum curator Jerry Wilding; frontier historian and former Idaho Supreme Court justice Byron Johnson; Castle collector and concert pianist Christian Zacharias; Idaho-born singer-songwriter Rosalie Sorrels; as well as Castle’s nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, and cousins.
A true case of triumph of the spirit, Castle’s inspirational story is one of monumental achievement.