Why Contemporary Folk Art? - an artist statement

After Anna Daven's questions in my last post Australian Spirit regarding Contemporary Folk Art. I thought I would post my response here as well - modified and expanded.

Anna asks, "Does contemporary folk art have to reference the past?"

I personally have defined Contemporary Folk Art as the beautiful expression of a people or nation. I did this because I wanted to create an art that was not responsible to the domain of International Contemporary post-Post Modern Conceptual Art which to me often seems like a space station that is gradually drifting further out of Earth's orbit.

Folk art itself is, I believe, in its academic sense an art primarily by people without a formal training in the Fine Arts and Art Theory. Folk Art by nature and from an art historical or museum view point is about the character of a nation - an art grown from the soil, or broad culture of a country. It becomes a vessel of the nation's soul because it is relatively unrestrained by the formal aesthetics of western art culture. I could not, therefore, call myself a Folk artist because I'm not insensible to the art historical reading of art and understand my stance or artistic desires as being generated with the assistance of formal academic training in Art History and Art Theory.

I can not presume to remove my knowledge and the influence training has on my work, however I can consciously make the choice that addresses my need to create work, that is, to cherish the soil of my country as the tender dream that lifts us to the glad day of a life of grace. It may take many forms but is a genuine product of today rather than a cosmetic quaintness and anachronism. It might be helpful then to consider my use of term Contemporary Folk Art more loosely as an art movement like for example The Fauves were.

In short, I hope to be able to offer, in my small way and in all manifestations of my work, a door through which the people of my own home culture might walk. Our myths are not yet complete as we are barely conscious of them. It is still a time for artists to dream and give life a shape: perhaps we Australian's, still young within the consciousness of Western tradition, act as a reminder for a generation of artists that Creation is still possible - aren't we a nation of rule breakers?

Image: Glad Day (or "The Dance of Albion"), William Blake, 1795, 10 1/4" x 8", British Museum, London.

Tags: art, artist statement, Australian myth, Contemporary Folk Art, folk art, art theory, windbagandthunder, Windbag and Thunder, Florence Forrest

Australian Spirit

Australian folk art has not had much attention payed to it probably because our history has been so short, the need to focus on the professional arts has been paramount to establish some sort of fine art culture in the far flung colony. There is in Australia an unfortunate and persistent myth that only elitists like art, and that to enjoy and participate in it is to be some how un-Australian?! I find this to be one of the saddest aspects of our culture as it is simply not true.

The painting above is a beautiful and lovingly Australian painting by the folk art painter, Irvine Homer, called The Birthday Party (1970, 55cm x 61 cm, oil on board). The father comes home, in through the old gate to be surprised by a big family party with games in the yard and dancing on the veranda decorated with balloons. While we only see the back of his hat his all-embracing arms express gladness and love. He seems to be embracing the whole landscape before him. I feel it expresses Irvine's love for the country he traveled over during his very difficult but rich life. After having been a drover, a shearer, a hole digger, a swagman during the Great Depression, worked on the railways, worked a little bush sawmill, been in the rodeo....etc he took to painting when illness struck him and he was no longer able to stand at the age of 35.

This is his description of his painting Summer by the Hawkesbury, "I used a magnifying glass when I painted the little fences around every house. The poultry farm, the oyster leases, all had something to do with me. Sometimes I'd get a job cracking and bagging oysters. In summer there was always a bushfire burning somewhere in the distance, so I put that in too. There's a petrol station with a shop in one corner, where I always bought my tobacco. I thought of how I'd put them together and make them into a real place. Not a real place. In my memory it's a real place, the mighty Hawkesbury (River) in all its glory. Brooklyn. And the poultry farm. I swiped one of his chooks (chickens)."

That doesn't sound un-Australian to me! :) He loved painting and he loved to study the works of other Australian painters too. His poetic nature seems very Australian to me, so I hope that Australians will joyfully embrace the lyrical nature that runs through our blood, and openly embrace the arts as that storehouse of the generational spirit of our nation.

I came across Irvine Homer and many other wonderful Australian folk art painters in a book I found from the last Life-Line Bookfair, called Australian Primitive Painters (Geoffrey Lehman, University of Queensland Press, 1977). I've had the painting above open in my studio for some months now, and I've been waiting for just the right time to share it with you.

On a recent visit to shibori artist Margaret Barnett's house I was struck by a piece of shibori she had made ready for future textile work (see the fabric above). It reminded me vividly of The Birthday Party in its character. Margaret explained to me how she had used rusted railway spikes she had collected from her travels to the Outback to dye with, leaving rich rust foxing over the antique handkerchief linen that had also been dyed with indigo. My mind was already dreaming away as I clutched the delicate cloth. She saw how overwhelmed I was with it and she generously gave me the only piece she had! I told her of the painting I was thinking of and how it was speaking to me to make some sort of doll, connected with the painting and this cloth....I just didn't know what it would be.


Looking around at all the treasures she had collected from amazing trips around the world, I saw a doll from Peru that had been roughly made with scraps of fabric over a base of bound grass. It must have struck me as when I went home, with a huge bag of textile goodies from Margaret, I made up a doll using mainly materials that Margaret had given me. Blending the primitive style of the Peruvian doll with the image of The Birthday Party had a very unusual result as you can see from the doll above. I've called it a spirit doll, and this one an Australian Spirit Doll. It will be a gift for Margaret to thank her for all the wonderful goodies she brings me...but shhh! don't tell her, it's going to be a surprise ;)

This week I want to leave you with a quote by William Blake who wrote, "Poetry Fettered, Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destoy'd or Florish in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting and Music are Destoy'd or Florish! The Primeval State of Man was Wisdom, Art, and Science." Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, 1804.

Tags: folk art, art, primitive art, Australia, Australian spirit, shibori, Margaret Barnett, Peurivan doll, Irvine Homer, The Birthday Party, doll, primitive doll, Windbag and Thunder, windbagandthunder, Florence Forrest

Inuit Intuit - Eskimo Art and Song

"I soon became melancholy. I would sometimes fall to weeping and feel unhappy without knowing why. Then for no reason all would suddenly be changed, and I felt a great, inexplicable joy, a joy so powerful that I could not restrain it, but had to break into song, a mighty song, with room for only one word: joy, joy! And I had to use the full strength of my voice. And then in the midst of such a fit of mysterious and overwhelming delight I became a shaman, not knowing myself how it came about. But I was a shaman. I could see and hear in a totally different way. I had gained my enlightenment, the shaman's light of brain and body, and this in such a manner that it was not only I who could see through the darkness of life, but the same bright light also shone out from me, imperceptible to human beings but visible to all spirits of earth and sky and sea, and these now came to me to become my helping spirits (Rasmussen, 1929, p. 119)." Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism, I. M.Lewis; Routledge, 2003 (1)


Thus the Inuit shaman, Aua, describes his transformation out on a lonely vigil in the wilderness. I came across this quote twice in the last month. The first was in a lovely book called Songs are Thoughts: Poems of the Inuit edited by Neil Philip and delightfully illustrated by Maryclare Foa (Orchard Books, New York, 1995)(2). I found it while thrifting and was ever so pleased with it when I got home. I dug out a small book on Inuit art I had (a strange little treasure found at the Lifeline Book Fair one year) and as I sat with them both I discovered that the book of Inuit art had some very interesting pictures and songs towards the back, some of which were in the book I had just found. With all these coincidences, I thought I might share some of these lovely poems and pictures with you.

Anerca is the Inuit word for both "breath" and "poetry". Songs are composed and sung as an integral part of community life. They convey deep feelings, observations about life and offer the opportunity to openly release personal grievances in a acceptable way. Knud Rusmussen, the Danish explorer, described the experience, "Words, music and dancing mingled into one great wave of feeling... The singer stands in the middle of the floor, with knees slightly bent, the upper part of the body bowed slightly forward, swaying from the hips, and rising and sinking from the knees with a rhythmic movement, keeping time throughout with his own beating of the drum. Then he begins to sing, keeping his eyes shut all the time; for a singer and a poet must always look inward in thought, concentrating on his own emotion." (2)


While the song might be a public expression, Inuit carving seems to be a more intimate art. These tiny stone or bone carvings are often kept wrapped up rather than displayed and are only shown if one where to visit your friend and ask if they had made any new cravings. Shyly brought forth, the artist would customarily be very self effacing about their work. They are, however, very beautiful; much modern sculpture could only hope to have both its minimal lines, intensity of expression and poetry of spirit. The image at the top of this post is so peculiar as it is a carving of trees based only upon descriptions of them, as the artist had never seen a tree in his life - a concept in itself we would have trouble imagining. It has a ghostly quality that seems to me to fit the visionary world of the shaman upon the ice. (Images and information from "Canadian Eskimo Art", Queen's Printer of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, 1965)(3)

Maryclare Foa's illustrations are roughly worked but spare and heartfelt. They make a wonderful accompaniment with the songs of the Inuit. She spent several months living in a tent with an Inuit family on the banks of the Northwest passage and from her interpretations must have, in that time, shared something of their spiritual world. The one above faces a poem by Aua (the same shaman as mentioned previously):

Morning Prayer

I rise up from rest,
Moving swiftly as the raven's wing
I rise up to meet the day -
Wa-wa.

My face is turning from the dark of night
My gaze towards the dawn,
Towards the whitening dawn.

I'll leave you with these thoughts by another Inuit shaman, Orpingalik and another illustration by Maryclare Foa:

"Songs are thoughts, sung out with the breath when people are moved by great forces and ordinary speech no longer suffices. Man is moved just like the ice floe sailing here and there out in the current. His thoughts are driven by a flowing force when he feels joy, when he feels fear, when he feels sorrow. Thoughts can wash over him like a flood, making his breath come in gasps and his heart throb. Something like an abatement in the weather will keep him thawed up. And then it will happen that we, who think we are small, will feel still smaller. And we will fear to use words. When the words we want to use shoot up of themselves - we get a new song." (2)

Tags: Inuit, Eskimo, art, carving, sculpture, illustration, poetry, song, Canada, shaman, folk art, Windbag and Thunder, windbagandthunder, Florence Forrest

The Paintings of Katy Horan

After much anticipation I finally received my Painting "Owl #2" by Katy Horan from her Life and Death series. I discovered her work last year on Flickr and ever since I have coveted every one of her painting in her contemporary Folk Art style. I managed to put a down payment on "owl #2" before it went to be exhibitioned at Paperboat Boutique in Milwaukee and waited for its return to her in New York before it was sent to me. It was worth the wait as it is beautifully crafted. Painted on Masonite with plywood cradle, the whole piece is painted and there is a delicate white lace detailing around the cradle edge that finishes the piece off as an object. I was even more impressed with it in real life than I was with the digital image.

The painting above is one of her new works as yet untitled but it portrays a shaman (witch) charging her sacred knife from a stronghold of power (my description). I love this as I have a penchant for telecommunication towers, antennae, broadcast towers and electrical towers etc. I wonder if she does lay-buy?

I would love to have writen about her work in more detail, but I'm currently on a time-out to recharge my batteries (a bit like the second painting) . I think you will see, however, that her reduction of forms in an illustration style does not etiolate their symbolic power (as can happen) but rather points to older traditions of folk art and carving. I'm looking forward to seeing how her work develops and understanding more of the background of her inspiration.

Katy Horan's Live Journal blog is The K-Bear

Tags: art, folk art, contemporary folk art, Katy Horan, painting, Windbag and Thunder, windbagandthunder, Florence Forrest

Imperfection by design and Arachne's Legacy

In my last post Why I like Folk Art - part 1 there was some discussion in the comments on the use of imperfection in craft by design and not by fault. Jude introduced us to the Christian folk custom of using imperfection in work as a form of devotion; that perfection belongs only to God - "Only God can make a tree." I also mentioned Chinese art theory introducing the notion of the circulation of qi (I'll be doing a whole post on this soon). But today, as I was ferrying miniature Lilli&Tom to Mt Ommaney library for their December sojourn, I remembered the Ancient Greek myth of Arachne.

Arachne was a young girl from the town of Lydia, her weaving skills were of such quality that her work was renowned throughout the country and beyond. Soon words praising her skill reached the ears of Athena herself, the Goddess who invented the spindle. The Goddess, affronted by this praise for a mere mortal, came down from Olympus and challenged Arachne to a contest in weaving skill.

Arachne wove a tapestry of incredible depth of colour, with details showing the troubled and scandalous lives of the Gods. The people marvelled at the work, the like of which had never been seen before. However, Athena was not to be out done, and standing her giant spindle on a mountain top she took the golden clouds of morning onto her staff, then she wove into the cloth the silver of starlight and brought forth scenes of the world's creation. The people fell down and worshiped her. Arachne in despair killed herself but Athena took pity on her and instead transformed her into a spider - a weaver of considerable skill but of humble disposition.


It can be noticed from the myth that high praise has attracted the "evil eye" in this case from the powerful Goddess Athena whose reputation Arachne's perfection had threatened. Shelia Paine, in her book "Amulets: A Secret World of Powers, Charms and Magic", records that in many cultures both ancient and extant, the evil eye is alerted by perfection and words of praise, placing the subject in danger of misfortune (due most likely to the machinations of envy and jealousy). To avert this danger, charms are used during the process of weaving and elements are made imperfect. The picture above illustrates a triangle charm use for this very purpose. The devise of imperfection in the crafts as magical protection is quite wide spread.

Image 1: Detail from the two fold screen "Weavers and Dyers". From the first half of the 17th century, Edo period. Pigment on gold leaf over paper. height 151.3 cm x width 170.9 cm. From the collection of MOA Museum of Art, Japan.

Image 2: Triangle amulet protecting a loom in Northern Turkmenistan. From the book, "Amulets: A world of Secret Powers, Charms and Magic", Shelia Paine, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004. ISBN 0-500-28510-1

Arachne myth adapted from "Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology", Bernard Evslin, Scholastic Book Services, 1975.

Tags: Arachne, art, craft, folk art, folk tales, myth, story telling, windbagandthunder, Florence Forrest

Why I like Folk Art - part 1

"(folk art)...owe their timeless appeal in part to their simplicity and familiarity and in part to the manner in which they were interpreted. The accomplished folk artist, often far removed from sophisticated centres of culture, captured intentionally or not the intrinsic beauty of everyday objects and freely adapted traditional symbols.


"In the personal touches - the oddly placed Z on the alphabet quilt, a mermaid holding a bow and arrow - we are reminded of the endless resoursefulness of the individual spirit in imparting to ordinary images an extraordinary vitality."


Quote from the book, "From A to Z: A Folk Art Alphabet" by Karen M. Jones, A Main Street Press Book, Mayflower Books, New York City, 1978. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 78-61870

Image 1: Merimaid, by Mary Ann Wilson, 1800-1820, ink and watercolour on paper, 13 x 16 inches. New York Historical Association, USA.

Image 2: Alphabet Quilt, c. 1875, found in Berks County, Pennsylvania, USA. Cotton, 801/2 x 80 inches, Pivate Collection.

Tags: Folk Art, Alphabet, quilt, mermaid, WindBag and Thunder, Florence Forrest, artist, storyteller

Papercuts of the World - Folkart

I have a fascination with folkart, perhaps because the best of it contains just enough perfection and just enough humanity.

Let me show you some beautiful examples of the folkart of papercutting. Papercutting originated in China (paper was invented in China). Instances of papercutting in China can be traced to the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (A.D. 386-581). Later, in the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-906) references to papercuts can found in a poem by the poet Ts'ui Tao-yung. Other sources from this period describe papercuts being worn as hair ornaments by ladies in form of flowers and butterflies.

Above is an example of a Chinese paper cut using red paper. Chinese papercuts can also be white paper that has been coloured with ink to create full colour effects. This image is from wikipedia's Chinese papercut page which has lots of good information about the Chinese paper cutting tradition.



Japan uses the art of papercutting not as festive decoration but as a method used in dying fabric. These papercuts are often extremely elaborate and the pieces are reinforced with hair or thread fine enough not to be seen once the printing has occurred. The picture below has been decorated using this method known as Bingata; these colourful cloths originated in the warmer climate of Okinawa in the 14th century.



These pictures have come from the books: Japanese Floral Stencil Designs and Dyeing Originated in Okinawa: Bingata (Japanese Designs and patterns, Mitsumura Suiko Shoin, ISBN 483810104x.



Scherenschnitte (pronounced shear-n-SNIT- a) is the Swiss name for papercutting and they have a rich tradition of their own. While mainly know for its black paper silhouette many fine examples of Swiss scherenschnitte exists that use coloured papers in layers as well. Above is a heavily worked piece capturing aspects of village life and symbols of love by Johann-Jakob Hauswirth (1808-1871). The image above comes from the book: Paper Cuts by Jakob Hauswirth and Louis-David Saugy, Charles Apotheloz, Thames and Hudson, 1980 ISBN 0500271704.



Polish paper cutting is called wycinanki (pronounced vee-chee-non-kee) and has two types: the bold, black symmetrical style called Kurpie (coor-pye) originating in the Kurpie district of Poland; and the layered paper style that features animals and people from the Lowicz (wo-vitz) district which is shown above. For a quick look at some more examples of Lowicz papercut designs click here, and for a neat little article on the history of Wycinanki: Then and Now from University at Buffalo State University of New York is quite good. The image above comes from the book: Traditional Papercutting: The Art of Scherenschnitte



The distinctive designs of Hawaiian quilts (example above) are based upon papercuts of the lush sub-tropical Hawaiian flora. This quilt was designed by Kathy Nakajima and was appliqued and quilted by Studio K , 2000 (dimensions 109" x 84"). I loved the way Kathy Nakajima describes her inspiration for the quilt:

"The Queen Emma Summer Palace is my favourite place to visit when I'm one the island of O'ahu. Near the entrance, I always see Hawaiian flowers blossoming in a vase. From the windows comes the cool, soothing wind that always takes me, momentarily, to another world. The colours of this quilt are the colours of the wind at the palace. And the pattern is the flowers that are blossoming in the vase."

The applique technique using papercuts for designing can also be seen in the American Baltimore quilt style. The quilt and quotation above comes from the book: Hawaiian Quilts: Tradition and Transition, Reiko Mochinaga Brandon and Loretta G. H. Woodard, University of Hawaii Press, 2005, ISBN 082482928x, page 125.



Papercutting was recently taken up by some British artists; this website of Mister Rob Ryan was passed along to me by Rebecca the Wrecker. Above is an example of his very fine work called "Rise Above It", 2004.

This is hardly a comprehesive look at papercuts but if I do find some good images of the Mexican Papeles Picado and white lace-cutwork I'll do Papercuts of The World - Part 2.

Tags: papercuts, paper cutting, folkart, folk art, scherenschnitte, wycinanki, Kurpie papercuts, Lowicz papercuts, Hawaiian quilts, Bingata, Japanese papercuts, Mister Rob Ryan, WindBag and Thunder, art, craft, Florence Forrest, artist, storyteller