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My name is Tomás Cruz Custer. I am an artist or creative nerdy goofball. My father created this amazing body of work. I have most of it (100+ highly detailed pieces) since he passed in 2018. It is an impressive collection that spans years of intensive work on his part. I hope he can be remembered for these. It consumed so much of his life and it has taken me a long time to organize and catalog his work after his death. I hope you enjoy.
ACE is a 24-page philosophical and psychological text by Thomas C. Custer (RIP 2018), structured in three parts. It builds a speculative theory around a condition he calls FUII — Functionless Unaware Indifference Imitation.
It’s his theory that in modern civilized society, people unconsciously imitate a kind of blank indifference toward others — not out of malice, but without even realizing they’re doing it. He saw this as a kind of social disease, spreading invisibly.
He defined two perceptual behaviors. GPB — Ground Perceptual Behavior — is the mental act of making something unimportant, pushing it to the background. FPB — Figural Perceptual Behavior — is the opposite, making something feel real and important. These come directly from Gestalt psychology’s figure/ground concept, which he knew well as an architect.
He called his own painting practice GVB — Ground Valuing Behavior. His art was literally the antidote to FUII. By making the background beautiful and worth attention, he believed exposure to his work could quietly reduce people’s unconscious indifference. So the stippled backgrounds, the radiating rays, the dense texture — those weren’t decorative choices. They were therapeutic by design.
ACE (A 'Civilized' Evil) 2004
- This document is 24 pages, typed on typewriter with some handwritten comments
AI Summary: The argument runs roughly as follows: drawing on Gestalt Psychology's figure/ground concept, the author proposes two observable perceptual behaviors — GPB (Ground Perceptual Behavior, which makes things unimportant) and FPB (Figural Perceptual Behavior, which makes things important). In Civilization — defined as complex, largely urban, technologically advanced society — GPB-dominant behavior, called Indifference Behavior (IB), is asserted to be the dominant observable behavior. Humans, possessing a genetic need to imitate dominant behaviors (IMN), unconsciously imitate this indifference. Because the imitation itself gets rendered unimportant through a self-reinforcing loop, the person doing it cannot be aware of it. This is FUII: a covert, unmanageable, anti-survival-oriented behavior that interferes with reality formation.
Part two surveys ways civilization may have unawarely developed mechanisms to limit FUII — including art, private homes, like-minded community associations, and entertainment media. Part three is a list of 25 "objectless ills" FUII could explain: depression, anxiety, free-floating hostility, boredom, social alienation, self-esteem difficulties, meaninglessness, ADD, Alzheimer's, loneliness, and more.
Critically for this project, the text explicitly connects the GVB paintings (the Sprysky collection) to the theory. The author defines his own artwork as Ground Valuing Behavior — art that values the unimportant without making it fully figure/recognizable — and proposes it as GVBT (Ground Valuing Behavior Therapy), a form of therapy deliverable through exposure to fine art prints at wwwSPRYSKY.com. The document's handwritten closing note reads: "YES FUNCTIONLESS UNAWARE INDIFFERENCE IMITATION IS AN INTANGIBLE... BUT REMEMBER THE VALUE THAT BEEN CREATED IN THE BIOLOGICAL, PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND CIVILIZATION BY THE DISCOVERERS OF CERTAIN INTANGIBLES."
AI Summary: This is an earlier, 11-page working draft written two years before ACE, composed across several dated sessions (August 15–23, 2002). The title page describes it as "a visual artist's unsuccessful attempt to make a reasonable hypothesis" — notably more self-deprecating than ACE.
It covers much of the same conceptual ground but in a more raw, personal form. The author recounts how his years in architecture and painting gradually led him to define his work as GVB, and how that definition eventually unlocked the FUII concept. The drafts show the idea actively evolving day to day. He surveys the same indirect evidence for FUII — homes, media, art — and catalogues many of the same objectless ills, while acknowledging openly that he cannot produce a proper empirical hypothesis, only a speculative one.
Born in 1937 in Chicago, my father (Thomas C. Custer) trained as an architect before venturing into art sometime in the 1980s. Regrettably, he was diagnosed with severe dementia and passed in a memory care unit in Portland, Oregon in 2018.
He may have been a talented artist but he never sold many pieces. I can't forget his work and locking it away seems beyond foolish. I might as well burn it. Well Dad, it is now time to do something with your work.
more details and maybe some pictures someday!