TEEN WOLF (1985) | dir. Rod Daniel

“I was speechless. A cab driver brought me to the alley, saying there's something here you really must see. Mr. Hampton opened the door and it was like the wings of Gabriel were beating in the extremely bright light.”

James Hampton (July 9, 1936 – April 7, 2021)

No, you know what? While I'm all fired up about modern art and outsider art, let me introduce you to the works of James Hampton.

Pictured above is his monumental Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly.

With scant education and no formal art education, James Hampton made these pieces out of his intense religious fervor and his own desire to create:

In 1950, Hampton rented a garage on 7th street in northwest Washington [DC]. Over the next 14 years, Hampton built a complex work of religious art inside the garage with various scavenged materials such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape. The complete work consists of 180 objects, many of them inscribed with quotes from the Book of Revelation. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a throne, seven feet tall, built on the foundation of an old maroon-cushioned armchair with the words "Fear Not" at its crest. The throne is flanked by dozens of altars, crowns, lecterns, tablets and winged pulpits. Wall plaques on the left bear the name of apostles and those on the right list various biblical patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham and Ezekiel. The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting.

He constructed all his pieces from materials he found or scavenged himself, "such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape."

It's not clear if Hampton himself regarded himself as an artist, a visionary, a prophet, or none of the above. His work, however, is regarded as art in the same way that Michelangelo's Pieta is regarded as art: art of a religious subject or concept.

He also "kept a 108-page loose-leaf notebook titled St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation. Most of the text was written in an unknown script that remains undeciphered. ... Some of the text was accompanied by notes in English in Hampton's handwriting. In the notebook, Hampton referred to himself as St. James with the title 'Director, Special Projects for the State of Eternity' and ended each page with the word 'Revelation'."

The art was not discovered until after Hampton's death in 1964, when the owner of the garage, Meyer Wertlieb, came to find out why the rent had not been paid. He knew that Hampton had been building something in the garage. When he opened the door, he found a room filled with the artwork. Hampton had kept his project secret from most of his friends and family. His relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body. When Hampton's sister refused to take the artwork, the landlord placed an advertisement in local newspapers. Ed Kelly, a sculptor, answered the advertisement and was so astounded by the exhibit, he contacted art collector Alice Denney. Denney brought art dealers Leo Castelli and Ivan Karp, and artist Robert Rauschenberg, to see the exhibit in the garage. Harry Lowe, the assistant director of the Smithsonian Art Museum, told the Washington Post that walking into the garage "was like opening Tut's tomb."

His work is now on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The China Syndrome (1979)

"I may be wrong, but I'd say you're lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California."

In college I sang in a classical a cappella group, took a History of Choral Music class, had fun browsing scores in the school's music library, and downloaded mp3s by this guy in Tokyo (Kuni Yoshimura) who would multitrack himself singing Renaissance church music as the "Virtual Byrd Choir." The summer after college, using my new Macbook's built-in microphone and built-in Garageband software, I recorded a few experiments of my own — Renaissance stuff, pop songs, church hymns, mashups, etc. That was 16 years ago. Every few years I'll poke my head into that folder and occasionally mess around again, but never meaningfully.

But: imagine somebody who treats it like a devotional practice, multi-tracking their voice layer upon layer over a period of decades, recording a massive work like the Tallis Spem in alium or the Bach B minor mass or the Mozart Requiem or the Rachmaninoff All-night vigil, a cathedral of sound, returning on a regular basis to tweak the EQ, to overdub a better take, or to thicken the texture, until the Garageband file is a palimpsest choir of not just one person but different versions of that person harmonizing with each other across the years, across a lifetime, continually striving to make it a little closer to perfect, closer to God, building a lifetime outsider-art labor of love like James Hampton or Henry Darger or Don Justo or Leonard Knight.

That would be something.

James Hampton, Crown from The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, ca. 1950-1964, gold and silver aluminum foil, cardboard, found objects, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Margaret Kelley McHugh, Nancy Kelley Schneider and William H. Kelley, 2001.67.2

Little is known about James Hampton, despite the grandeur of his self-chosen title, ​“Director, Special Projects for the State of Eternity.” He was born in 1909 in Elloree, South Carolina, a small community of predominantly African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers. His father, a gospel singer and self-ordained Baptist minister, left his wife and four children to pursue his itinerant calling.

In 1928, when he was nineteen, Hampton moved to Washington, D.C., to live with an older brother. Drafted into the Army in 1942, he served with a segregated unit that maintained airstrips in Saipan and Guam during World War II. Hampton returned to Washington in 1945, and began working a year later as a janitor for the General Services Administration until his death in 1964. Although he expressed interest in finding ​“a holy woman,” to assist with his life’s work he never married and had few close friends.

Hampton was raised as a fundamentalist Baptist, but he disliked the concept of a denominational God and attended a variety of the city’s churches. As early as 1931, Hampton believed that he began receiving visions from God, and by 1945 it appears he had made one small, shrine-like object while stationed on Guam. This piece became part of his larger work, and is now placed in front of the center pulpit.

His work on The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly probably began in earnest around 1950, when he rented a garage in his northwest Washington neighborhood, which was also the city’s center of African-American business, religious, and night life.

Although a humble man, Hampton often referred to himself as ​“St. James.” He may have considered himself a prophet like John, the author of The Book of Revelation, the biblical writing that inspired Hampton’s belief in the Second Coming of Christ and his desire to build The Throne as a monument to the return of Christ to earth.

Hampton worked almost every day on his project, often starting his work at midnight after completing his janitorial duties. He continued his efforts until he died in 1964. The Throne was discovered and brought to the public’s attention after his death. It is most likely Hampton’s monument to his faith was never completely finished.

Smithsonian American Art Museum,

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The sensationally silly sequel ‘Teen Wolf Too’ starring Jason Bateman hit theaters this week 35 years ago. 📚🐺🥊

“𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚍𝚍𝚢?”

We've got some people here from Channel 3. They're shooting a TV news special at the plant. Listen, what the hell's goin' on down there?

Bill Gibson - The China Syndrome (1979)

7 aprile … ricordiamo …

7 aprile … ricordiamo … #semprevivineiricordi #nomidaricordare #personaggiimportanti #perfettamentechic

2021: Dilip Kumar, pseudonimo di Mohammed Yusuf Khan, attore indiano. Si sposò con Saira Banu nel 1966. (n. 1922) 2021: James Hampton, James Wade Hampton, attore statunitense. Sposò l’attrice Mary Deese. (n. 1936) 2021: Robert Downey Sr., nato Robert John Elias, attore, sceneggiatore e regista statunitense. Padre di Robert Downey Jr. Figlio di Elizabeth McLauchlen, modella e Robert Elias Sr.,…

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James Hampton, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, ca. 1950-1964

Burt Reynolds and James Hampton in Robert Aldrich’s THE LONGEST YARD (1974)

Hangar 18 | Episode 367

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Hangar 18 | Episode 367

Jim discusses a 1980 sci-fi based on a classic UFO legend – “Hangar 18,” starring Gary Collins, Darren McGavin, James Hampton, Robert Vaughn, Joseph Campanella, Pamela Bellwood and Phillip Abbott. A satellite launched by the Space Shuttle, crashes into a UFO, forcing it to land on the desert. Two astronauts are blamed for the accident and attempt to find out what the government is hiding. Find out more on this episode of MONSTER ATTACK!, The Podcast Dedicated To Old Monster Movies.