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ABSTRACT LINES224

Chants and Prayers

WHEN ABSTRACT LINES are organized in repetition, they circumstances. In the late 19th century, Marie Lieb was a
make a visual and physical echo that touches some deep psychiatric patient in the Heidelberg Asylum, Germany. She
part of the human spirit. This takes a form in most cultures. tore cloth into strips and used these to draw patterns and
Visually, it is found in the regularity of ordered lines or a symbols on her cell floor. Opposite, an anonymous woman
pattern. In music it can be felt in the diversity of plainsong in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu makes a ritual
and African drumming, for example. These photographs drawing on the brick courtyard of her home, dipping her
document the meditative drawings of two women living fingers into a pot of rice flour. It will protect the place from
worlds apart in different countries, cultures, centuries, and evil and make a pleasing invitation to good spirits.

MARIE LIEB Torn cloth This is one of two published photographs showing Cell Floor With Torn Strips of Cloth
Marie Leib's torn cloth strips significantly placed on her cell
Little is known of this w o m a n for w h o m the act floor. Cloth is the simple instrument with which she has 1894
of drawing was essential. Lieb is one of countless conducted and ordered her universe. Compositional rightness
thousands of "Outsider" artists—diverse individuals (see pp.228-29) has been adjusted with each movement MARIE LIEB
including ordinary citizens, social outcasts, and of the rags to draw a cosmos of balance and perfection.
sufferers of psychiatric illnesses—who have always
existed, making objects and images outside of
mainstream culture.