“You can have art in your daily life if you want it, but you don’t. You prefer fountain-pens and motor cars.”

— Eric Gill, the creator of the Gill Sans typeface, as quoted in “Country Craftsmen” by Freda Derrick (1945)

Since the day my wife and I started work as newspaper reporters, we have collected what is called “outsider art.” The broad definition of the term is that it’s art made by people who lack formal artistic training. Usually, these people also have some sort of quirk or disability that shapes the way they see the world.

We first learned about this style of art from Mary Praytor, who runs a gallery on Main Street in Greenville, S.C. My wife and I would walk up there from the office of The Greenville News and Mary would tell us about all of the artists from her rotating stock. We…