Independent artist & educator Erika Nelson discusses her two-year journey living in a vehicle and exploring Outsider Art across the United States – and creating her own.

In this episode, independent artist and educator Erika Nelson discusses the communities, places, and artworks that tell the story of her two-year journey living in a vehicle and meeting people who built Outsider Art Environments and Roadside Vernacular Architecture across the United States. 

She also discusses the development of her own traveling roadside attraction and museum, The World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things, and the inspirations behind her “Gremlin Cache” installation included the exhibition High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, which was created in partnership between Art of the Rural and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota.

Through her travels, Erika has written a graduate thesis titled Driving Around Looking at Big Things While Thinking About Spam, prepared a full meal utilizing foil and her automobile's radiator and heat manifold, stood on a sideshow performer lying on a bed of nails with a genuine Kansas Cowboy at the last functioning 10-in-1 sideshow in Coney Island, found out what The Thing is in southern Arizona, drunk free ice water at Wall Drug, eaten Rocky Mountain Oysters, bought a Genuine Walnut Bowl from somewhere along I-70, seen Rock City, and been stuck in a traffic jam in Branson in front of Yakov Smirnof.

The conversation dwells on the communities, places, and artworks that tell the story of this journey. Along the way, Erika shares a ton of wisdom on what life in a small town in Kansas can teach us about how we live, work, and create across difference.

Episode Resources

• Episode webpage
• Erika Nelson’s website, Instagram, and Facebook
• “The World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things” (1999-present)
• “Gremlin Cache” (1973-2020)

This episode was originally published in 2021 as part of the High Visibility podcast, which accompanied the exhibition of the same name. High Visibility is a partnership with Plains Art Museum and Art of the Rural. We are grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of this work.