Jessie Dunahoo

1932-2017 · Lexington, Kentucky, USA

Deaf from birth and blind from young adulthood, he sewed grocery bags and scrap fabric into vast rustling canopies he called shelters, built entirely by touch.

The life

Dunahoo was born in 1932 in rural Kentucky and grew up on a farm in an era with little formal support for disabled people. Deaf from birth and losing his sight as a young adult, he built his own systems for moving through the world: paths, earthworks and tactile guide lines strung across the family land. Late in life he joined Latitude Artist Community in Lexington, where his sewing grew into a celebrated studio practice, and he showed with Institute 193 and at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York. He died in May 2017.

The work

Large patchwork structures sewn and knotted from grocery bags, bread bags, bin liners, fabric samples, old clothing and twine, worked by feel across a big studio table until they reached room scale. Through gesture and sign he told interpreters that the pieces were shelters. His work is held by Institute 193 in Lexington and appears in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum.

Why we love them

He never saw the clashing logos and colours he stitched together, and it does not matter. This is architecture for the hands, made by their greatest reader.

Go deeper

• Jessie Dunahoo at the Outsider Art Fair
• Institute 193
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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