It is odd to read your review of the work of Martin Ramirez (1895-1963), an outsider artist of renown, under the banner of “American folk art” (“Spit and Crayons,” November 8, 2008). Coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in the 1970s, the term “outsider art” is perhaps not well known, but it refers primarily to the art by insane asylum inmates, such as Ramirez, who suffered from schizophrenia, and who spent most of his adult life institutionalized. Although their work eschews straightforward classification, most of it shows a number of common characteristics, such as an obsessive repetition of ornamental patterns, which is also characteristic of Ramirez. Anyhow, the term “folk art” refers primarily to craft traditions of various ethnic groups, and it is entirely inappropriate in this case. He migrated from Mexico to the United States at the age of thirty, but his work displays hardly any characteristics of Mexican folk art.