Swan Daashuur, an artist and jewelry maker who works out of the National Transit Building in Oil City, helps set up a retrospective art show in the new Graffiti Gallery in the basement of the Transit Annex. Work by the late Norman Scott “Butch” Quinn, a lifelong resident of Oil City who gained national acclaim, will be featured at tonight’s opening of the Graffiti Gallery. By Jerry Sowden

The Graffiti Gallery in the National Transit Annex building in Oil City is providing counterculture art connoisseurs an inside scoop on outsider art tonight at the new showroom’s grand opening.

In keeping with the theme of outsider art, the posthumous guest of honor will be Oil City folk art hero Norman Scott “Butch” Quinn.

“This is a retrospective,” said Joann Wheeler, the Oil City Arts Council coordinator. “This is a ‘let’s get together and remember Butch and have a party while we’re at it, because he was a party kind of guy.’”

This photograph of “Butch” Quinn appeared in a January 1997 edition of the newspaper that featured an article about Quinn and his work. File photo by Jerry Sowden

While Quinn’s reputation as a “party guy” forever preceded him, so too, did his reputation for prolific, nontraditional art productivity.

“His work was very, very legitimate, and he ended up with an incredibly respectable collection,” Wheeler said.

“Butch would have 20 or 30 pieces of art going at any given time,” said Billy Hadley, owner of Billy’s Bar on Seneca Street and a friend and former landlord of Quinn’s. Hadley owns three of Quinn’s original works, including his last known piece, a painting called “Black Belt Brothers.”

The son of an Oil City factory worker and a Rocky Grove nurse, Quinn graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1957 and took on an assortment of odd jobs ranging from delivery truck driver to manual laborer.

More than 25 pieces of Norman “Butch” Quinn’s work, including these two rolling pin animals, were procured from businesses and private owners throughout Oil City and Venango County for display during tonight’s grand opening of the Graffiti Gallery in the basement of the National Transit Annex in Oil City. An artist reception will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the gallery. By Jerry Sowden

Quinn’s “everyman” style and lack of formal art education developed into a simple, but vastly unique, approach to art around 1974.

Using found objects and materials, Quinn made art out of nothing and everything: rolling pins, refrigerators, ironing boards, fan blades, beer bottle caps and the stamps from the tops of Chesterfield cigarette packs.

“His work was very simple,” said Kay Woods, a friend of Quinn’s and contributor of seven pieces of his work to the exhibit. “Butch did ‘folk art’ before there was a title for it. Everything he did was from the gut.”

An overdue retrospective

“I think it’s way overdue,” Woods said. “Butch would have wanted his art out there. He loved people, and he loved doing art for people.”

An eccentric who was recognized for his drinking habits as much as his art, Quinn received praise from experts across the country while living in relative obscurity in his own hometown.

“I don’t think Butch was terribly ambitious in marketing his career,” said Wheeler, who began working with the city’s arts community shortly before Quinn’s death in July 2006. “He sort of became famous in spite of himself.”

Critics, indeed, took notice.

Quinn had exhibits all over the country, including shows in the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City; the Westmoreland Museum of Art in Greensburg; Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center Art Gallery; the Sanford Gallery in Clarion; the Octagon Center in Ames, Iowa; the Tartt Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and the Smithsonian Institution of American Art, also in D.C.

“Butch is a good resource because a lot of people know of him in Oil City,” said Swan Daashuur, an artist and jewelry maker who works out of the Transit Building and who helped design the Graffiti Gallery. “Plus he’s been in the Smithsonian, so that should be another good pull for people to come.”

Wheeler said it had been her goal from the very beginning of her involvement with the Oil City arts community to hold a retrospective exhibit of Quinn’s available work.

Wheeler procured more than 25 pieces of his work from businesses and private owners throughout the city and county, then combined them with other outsider art from regional artists.

“A lot of people in the community have his work,” Wheeler said. “And even a lot of people who aren’t necessarily arts-oriented remember him with great affection.”

“It’s nice to know that what he did hasn’t been forgotten,” Hadley said. “At least it meant something.”

Outside of tradition

“There’s an opportunity (at the Graffiti Gallery) to do something different,” Wheeler said. “What we’re trying to do here is offer a more stripped-down look with more of a focus on each individual piece ... so you see each piece for itself. It’s a great way for individual artists to be showcased.”

Deemed a “New York-style” gallery by Daashuur, the garden level exhibition room is located on Seneca Street just one building over from the 15-year-old Transit Building Art Gallery.

“The look of this gallery should be like an upscale New York art gallery,” Daashuur said. “And I think we’re achieving that.”

“Swan has really been the driving force in designing the gallery,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler added that outsider art — in particular Quinn’s — was a perfect nontraditional launching point for the unique gallery.

“We asked people to submit in the spirit of outsider art, even if they had an art education, even if they are part of the establishment,” Wheeler said. “Everything here is quirky and nontraditional in some way.”

Along with Quinn, the exhibit will showcase other regional and relocated artists including transplants Margaret Brostrom from California and George Cooley, from Massachusetts along with Carol Mc- Donald from Forest County and Bill Brady from Centerville.

The Outsider Art exhibit will run through Oct. 22, at which point the gallery will shift to a “Day of the Dead” show in the spirit of Halloween. Daashuur said the studio will display new exhibits every six weeks or so, with a holiday exhibit following the Halloween theme.

Both Wheeler and Daashuur said the gallery is continuing to seek support from area artists and volunteers interested in helping develop and maintain the gallery while expanding its artistic scope.

“We need a lot of people on board for this effort,” Wheeler said. “Right now, we’re just trying to get the word out.”

The grand opening of the Graffiti Gallery will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight at 210 Seneca St. Drinks and appetizers will be provided.

All donations will benefit the Arts in Oil City.