MONTEAGLE, Tenn. -- When Irene Bean Fulton's now 25-year-old son David was younger, he came home and remarked that all his friends lived in Hallmark houses.
Their Laguna Beach, Calif., home, with artwork and objects filling nearly every wall and adorning corners, windowsills and shelves, was hardly greeting-card traditional.
Today, Ms. Fulton's Clifftops home near Monteagle, Tenn., an area she moved to three years ago, holds a similar collection.
"I select something because it speaks to me," said Ms. Fulton, 62, an artist. "It's a magical cacophony of colors and textures and mediums."
It's not only Ms. Fulton's home that bespeaks her love of art but also the woods behind her home. Among her 5 1/2 acres is an area decorated in found objects. Pea gravel paths branch off into two seating areas she has dubbed My Sanctuary.
"It was just spontaneous," she said. "I did not have an idea what I was going to do."
Ms. Fulton said the focus for the works inside her home is outsider or self-taught art, meaning art created outside the mainstream art world.
"I enjoy supporting emerging artists, local artists," the Northport, N.Y., native said. "I know how hard it is to get recognition. The challenge is finding emerging outsider artists who appeal to me."
Among Ms. Fulton's first such works are portraits by NitA, a legally blind Georgia grandmother who paints on wooden boards, grocery bags and other mediums.
"They have a simplicity that speaks so clearly," she said.
Other pieces in Ms. Fulton's collection come from outsider artists such as Chris Clark, John David Hutson and Howard Finster. She has works by Brigette Burns, who paints on paint chips, Deborah Marchant and Kenton Nelson, among others.
Ms. Fulton estimated her collection is worth approximately $500,000 but thinks of it as more an investment, something for her three art-appreciating children to inherit and a substitute for the extras someone else might choose.
"Would I like to take the Orient Express?" she said. "Of course. But I would rather have a piece of art than take the Orient Express."
The Franklin County resident said there is "not a lot of angst" in her decorating scheme. "The key word is to be fearless. I go to a studio or gallery, and I select something that speaks to me. I never deliberate whether it will fit in my home."
In her home, Ms. Fulton said, she eyeballs placement of a piece on her wall, puts it up and places other works around it in random fashion.
"I never understood anyone who uses a decorator," she said.
Also within Ms. Fulton's decor are objects made by her children, such as an artfully folded dollar bill placed in a small cage to symbolize how money can trap people, and a science project consisting of a mannequin head and wings nicknamed "Fly Man."
"My career was my children," she said. "I had jobs (museum installer, freelance writer, artist, among others)."
The home's porches also are filled with art. The front porch is home to Copyright, Ms. Fulton's seasonally dressed mannequin, and a front door with eight welcome signs. The back porch is laden with objects from portraits to a hubcap to a sunglasses collection.
Her sanctuary, though, is her latest work of art. Hundreds of objects line the paths (such as a regular-size dress form with doll arms and legs), are tied to branches of bushes (such as metal birds and glass ornaments) and are hung on trees (some 60 clocks and a screened door which she admits could symbolize missed opportunities).
Mrs. Fulton traces her avant-garde style to her late mother, who she says was a high-functioning schizophrenic.
"She taught me by the way she lived to think outside the box," she said. "We didn't even have a box. She taught me to be fearless."
Photo Gallery
Loony Bin Comedy
The Open Mic Night session at Loony Bin Comedy Club Wednesday, May 28