William A. Hall
(1943–2019)
Place bornLos Angeles, California, United States
BiographyHall composed most of his drawings on the steering wheel of his car, in which helived for most of the last nineteen years, after he was forced to move out of his mother’s house when she passed away in 1997. Although sculpture was his first medium, living in the streets imposed a different materiality. Hall regularly conceived his drawings in series, building ongoing visual narratives that developed intuitively on separate pages (not necessarily sequentially) of scrapbooks, with the potential to expand at any time. The panels, ranging from two to twenty, were only laid out and assembled after the fact. On their backs, Hall regularly inscribed the dates and times of their execution, which shows that some drawings have been done over a period of a few days, others months and years. In addition, we read definitions of words that he took out of his large dictionary (Hall once said, “Words are like curious critters that I’m interested in. Words can lead me into a drawing. They are like food for the cranium.”). They are intermingled with diary observations and other real-world happenings: information related to his ever-changing locations from one Los Angeles neighborhood to another, temperature of the day, conversation with cops, people offering food, or the passage of animals, like the mentions registered on the back of his multi-part drawing described (not titled) as the Pumpkinwall Castle series: “Sun 09-29-13 <12:15 PM a monarch butterfly appeared South North windshield visual>” or “Thurs 09-26-13 .” These notes stand as time markers—distractions and interruptions in his intensive working flow coming from the outside—but also as recordings of thoughts and events worthy of note occurring simultaneously to his drawing activity.1 Aby Warburg wrote that “it is precisely what the day brings of non-remarkable that forms the organic function of our creative memory.”In 2011, Hall initiated a novel titled Protége, which mainly describes the adventures of the giant Xenos. Dr. Victor Frankenstein—the personal physician of King George at the Castle—created a giant from different cadaver body parts sewn together. As it turned out, Xenos’s brain originated from King George’s older brother, a Duke of the Hardwood Forest. When King George passed away, his son started visiting the giant, who was secretly kept in a dungeon below the family residence, and they became friends. “The giant Xenos became Protége Masterfield after meeting a blind man named Lord Byron Masterfield in the Hardwood Forest.” Protége protected Lord Byron “from the cruel predatorily humanoids … who have been a problem for many centuries. … Protége will stalk and capture head chieftains … and put them in pillories at a hidden underground location.”
The cars and trains finely executed by William A. Hall transcend their original function, becoming all-powerful engines, reinforced with curvilinear shockproof armatures and safety features, which he began to design in 1984, after his niece was killed in a traffic accident. His vehicles are transplanted into the hearts of post-apocalyptic, unpopulated scenes and out-of-time Lilliputian landscapes that are inhabited with giant twisted trees, waterfalls, rocks, or wood machines of his own invention. Highly detailed, with the touch of a skilled draftsman, these graphite and colored pencil drawings are theaters for the sublime, with an atmosphere of hyperrealistic futuristic illustrations and the thematic obsessions reminiscent of Charles A. A. Dellschau.
(From CC notes 3-8-2021)
Hall composed most of his drawings on the steering wheel of his car, in which he has lived for most of the last nineteen years, after he was forced to move out of his mother’s house when she passed away. Although sculpture was his first medium, living in the streets imposed a different materiality. Hall regularly conceived his drawings in series, building ongoing visual narratives that developed intuitively on separate pages (not necessarily sequentially) of scrapbooks, with the potential to expand at any time. The panels, ranging from two to twenty, were only laid out and assembled after the fact. On their backs, Hall regularly inscribed the dates and times of their execution, which shows that some drawings have been done over a period of a few days, others months and years. In addition, we read definitions of words that he took out of his large dictionary. (Hall once said, “Words can lead me into a drawing. They are like food for the cranium.”) They are intermingled with diary observations: information related to his ever-changing locations from one Los Angeles neighborhood to another, temperature of the day, conversation with cops, or the passage of animals, like this mention registered on the back of his multi-part drawing described as the Pumpkinwall Castle series: “Sun 09-29-13 <12:15 PM a monarch butterfly appeared South North windshield visual>.” These notes stand as time markers—distractions and interruptions in his intensive working flow coming from the outside.
Hall’s drawings repeatedly tackle the interconnected themes of survival and safety. Set within a parallel universe made of ever-expanding scenes, they transcend the circumstances of an enduring homelessness with an unparalleled optimism.
Valérie Rousseau, “William A. Hall. An Ever-expanding Parallel Universe Intermingled with Time Markers,” in Vestiges & Verse: Notes from the Newfangled Epic, ed. Valérie Rousseau (New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2018).