THE HALL OF FAME HALL OF FAME celebrates the uniquely American phenomenon of the hall of fame—a grass roots museum that reflects the passions, concerns and beliefs of twentieth-century America.

How does it happen that a person becomes an artist, especially when there is no precedent among family members, or in the way one is raised?

Pia Farrenkopf's sad and lonely death was made notable by a fluke. In 2009 at age 49, Farrenkopf died alone in her car in the garage of her Pontiac, Michigan, tract home. With no relatives or friends, and with all her bills paid electronically, it took half a decade for her money to run out, the bank to foreclose on her house, and her mummified body to be discovered.

MARK THOMPSON has been an artist's artist in the Bay Area for three decades. By that I mean someone who has been enormously influential on other artists, is greatly respected among his peers and has created an imposing body of innovative work, but through it all has received only sporadic and inadequate curatorial and journalistic attention.