Thunder Sky digs up underground artists

Raymond Thunder-Sky was an outsider – an intensely quiet, solitary man who sported a clown suit in his ramblings about town and haunted Cincinnati construction sites with drawing supplies in hand. Always a character, he was also a gifted artist and, for years, no one knew.  

Now, with a Northside gallery devoted to his memory and an exhibit opening next month in Denmark, this solitary and strange man who died in 2004 is celebrated posthumously as a talented “outsider,” a gifted but unconventional artist. His friends, social workers Bill Ross and Keith Banner, opened Thunder-Sky, Inc., to showcase his work and create a space for other unconventional, outsider artists and their creations.  

The term “outsider” is no longer new to the art world.  As Banner explains, it is “raw art, made by people not normally thought of as artists…outside the circuit." Today, with actual outsider art museums and galleries and outsiders accepted by conventional artistic communities, “it’s like a contradiction in terms.”

Still, Banner hopes that this gallery can keep that unconventional spirit, most vividly seen in Thunder-Sky’s own work, alive by reaching out to those “under the radar” artists who might never have the chance to exhibit their creativity to a larger audience than just one.

Thunder-Sky, Inc.’s newest exhibit is a collection with the enticing name of “Small Potatoes.” More than 20 artists and their drawings, sculptures and paintings fall together into a theme of domestic “smallness,” as if the gallery were a curio cabinet filled with diminutive treasures. As potatoes grow underground all summer, hiding their bounty under a few leafy vines, so this art and these artists have been hidden until this gallery called for the harvest.

Do Good:  

Visit: Thunder-Sky, Inc. to witness the works of those “outsiders” in the city’s artistic community. The gallery is located at 4573 Hamilton Ave. in Northside.

Connect: With Thunder-Sky, Inc. on Facebook, where you can see images and get the latest gallery news.

Read: About the gallery on the organization's blog.

By Becky Johnson