Emery Blagdon

1907-1986 · Callaway, Nebraska, USA

In a shed on the Nebraska plains, a farmer spent thirty years building a machine out of baling wire, foil and paint that he believed could heal the sick.

The life

Blagdon was born in 1907 near Callaway, Nebraska, rode the rails as a young man, then came back to the family land. After losing both parents to cancer, he became convinced that the earth’s elements and energies could be arranged to ease pain and illness. From the mid-1950s until his death he worked on what he called his Healing Machine, filling an entire shed, and invited locals in to feel its benefit. He called the individual pieces his pretties and rearranged them constantly, by his own account according to the phases of the moon. He died in 1986.

The work

A single evolving installation: chandelier-like constructions of hay-baling wire, tin foil, magnets, beads and painted parts hung from the ceiling, with jars of salts and minerals, and vivid mandala-like paintings on board wired in among them. After his death the work was kept together, and pieces of the Healing Machine are now held by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Why we love them

He built a power station for hope and gave the electricity away free. Art as medicine, prescribed by the acre.

Go deeper

• Emery Blagdon at the Outsider Art Fair
• Emery Blagdon on Wikipedia
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

← Back to the field guide