Junkman jailed: is outsider art a crime?

• Author: Walker, Jesse
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

ALAN DAVIS, 47, says he's a political prisoner. The Florida artist spent more than a decade refusing the Seminole County authorities' demands that he clean up his yard, which until November was cluttered with airplane and auto parts, wood and metal and fiberglass, fire extinguishers and household fixtures and barrels. Davis used the materials to make his art, which includes statues, assemblages, and conceptual pieces.

Among the latter: an assortment of crappers titled Your Constitutional Rights Going Down the Toilet.

Then the sheriff's office expropriated it all to sell at auction, a jury found Davis guilty of felony littering, and Judge Gene Stephenson sentenced him to a year and a day in jail, telling him his actions have "torn at the...