Quick Facts
Biography
Vollis Simpson (1919 – 31 May 2013) was an American "outsider" artist known for large kinetic sculptures known as "whirligigs" made from salvaged metal. He lived and worked in Lucama, North Carolina.
Early life
Vollis Simpson was born in 1919 to a Osco and Emma Simpson of Spring Hill Township in Wilson County, North Carolina. According to one source, he had eleven siblings.
The 1940 US Census shows Simpson living at home with his parents, two sisters (Hazell, four years older, Eldnir, five years younger), and a younger brother Darvell. His occupation is listed as "Farming".
Simpson served in the US Army Air Corps during the Second World War in the Pacific Theatre. He demonstrated his intuitive engineering skills while stationed on Saipan in the Northern Marianas Islands, where he constructed a windmill out of parts from a junk B-29 Superfortress bomber to power a washing machine for his company. After the war, he founded a house-moving operation with his brothers to supplement the income from the family farm. He designed and built much of the heavy equipment they used to move houses, and ran a machine shop as well.
Art career
Simpson built a number of large whirligigs on his land in Lucama surrounding a pond across from his workshop. This was referred to by locals as "Acid Park" because of how the sculptures would reflect car headlights when people came out after dark.
1996 - commissioned to create whirligigs for the Olympics in Atlanta.
Recognitions
June 2013 - North Carolina House and Senate recognize Simpson's contributions and designate whirligigs as the official folk art of North Carolina.
The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park has been created in nearby Wilson, NC to document, conserve, and display the large sculptures that were present on Simpson's land in Lucama.
Quotes
"[I’ve been a] farmhouse mover, electric welder, carpenter, the list goes on. If you don't try something, you don't learn anything. Common sense. You come across a lot of these people that know so damn much, sometimes you find out they're dumber than I am..."