Paulina Peavy

Name at birth: Pauline Ellen White

Paulina Peavy was a 20th century American artist cast into the realm of "outsider art" because her mind-bending paintings were, according to her, messages from a supernatural spirit named Lacamo. Trained as an artist at Oregon State College (now Oregon State University) and at what is now the California Institute of Technology, Peavy began her career in the 1920s. She left an abusive husband and tried to raise two children on her own, working as an art teacher and exhibiting paintings in southern California and then New York City. Peavy claimed she channelled Lacamo -- a "UFO spirit" who controlled her paintbrush and taught her universal truths. Peavy believed mankind was heading toward an androgynous, sexless society in the future, and she wrote about it as well painted. Peavy also wore multi-media masks that she constructed herself, and in the 1980s she became involved making short films. Several years after her death, Peavy's unusual paintings resurfaced in galleries and her story gained new fans.