The artists in this exhibit may have never used the term "art brut"; the words "outsider art" may not mean a thing. In fact, some of the artists cannot even speak. Yet, in France, this group of developmently challenged artists is making paintings that speak loud and clear to a growing audience of art lovers. Selected to participate in this years' House of Lanvin's Fashion Exhibit in Paris, these young artists are discovering new ways to connect with themselves and the world.

Hampden Gallery is fortunate to have been introduced to this lively world of visual communication through Jeanine Young Mason, facilitator of the exhibition and Co-Director of the Community Arts Health and Healing Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The gallery is delighted to showcase the new works of these promising young artists in their North American debut.

Many recognize the French toll-collector Henri Rousseau as the first pioneer in the field of European self-taught art. Self taught artists may pursue goals shaped by the traditional academic genres, but lack of formal training frees them to develop ad-hoc methods that spawn fresh visions and new palettes. Such exploration was not confined to the continent, however, and the practice found its form in American art as "outsider art." Call it what you will; these works persist in leading us into Other Ways of Seeing.

The Community Arts Health and Healing Project (CAHH) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst intending is to serve the communities of the region and state through unique cultural and educational ideas and programs developed at the University. Young-Mason's work on the development of the concept of compassion has been published in the nursing literature and other scholarly periodicals. Her primary sources for this thematic research are art, literature, and life accounts of psychiatric and somatic illness.

Other Ways of Seeing is on exhibit at Hampden Gallery Sept. 19 through Sept. 30 with an opening reception September 19 from 4-6 PM. For more information on this or any other exhibit, call Hampden Gallery at 545-0680.