Introduction to Folk Art

I was so inspired by my museum education course at TC, and especially by Olga, the professor, that I knew I needed the experience of working in museum education. It also wouldn't hurt my goal of working in the field of peace museum education or my thesis on the same. I asked Olga for some recommendations, she suggested the Museum, and here I am!

What is folk art? Before working at this museum I didn't really have an idea. To me it was something distinctly goyish (non-Jewish), something quaint and not very threatening. My ideas over the last month have completely changed. Folk art is radical, it is controversial, and it is surprisingly inclusive for an outsider art form. Whereas I used to think of mallard duck decoys as folk art, I now know it is more likely to include balls of twine with hidden objects made by a young woman with Downes Syndrome. Some of the big names are Henry Darger (a recluse whose books filled with his writing and illustrations were not found until his death) and Martin Ramirez (an institutionalized schizophrenic), not to mention the many unnamed and unknown artists.

Today was my first tour, an Introduction to Folk Art for 5th graders from Washington Heights. When they first came in I was incredibly initmidated; the kids were taller than me and I was nervous. As the kids got into groups I tried to guess who were the nice kids who would let me do my thing and who would hassle me. I ended up with a group of 11 kids, that I took up to the 5th floor.

My subtheme within Folk Art was "Identity," and I chose my pieces to reflect the individuality of each artist. I took the kids up to the top floor and had them sitdown, but not before one of the kids leaned into my first piece, the Sarah Ann Garges Appligue Bedcover. Once they were seated we went over the rules and had a brief discussion about what they thought folk art is (not many ideas). Once I introduced them to the idea that ordinary folks can make extraordinary art, we began. The kids were really into this one, they had obviously just come from math class because they kept mentioning the ideas of fractions, parallel and intersecting lines. They also liked identifying the animals, plants,a dn farm scenes. We talked about how the artist was recording scenes that she saw every day, and I asked them if they were going to make a quilt what they would put in it. They answered apartment buildings, school, and shopping.

From there I suggested we look at another very individual piece of art. I took them downstairs to the Gold Tower, one of my favorites. I had the kids stay a bit away from the piece at first and get their impression of it. They were struck by it's color, a shiny gold, and they responded about it being like a secret treasure. They were also into it's shape, comparing it to the Empire State Building. Only one kid seemed to have a little hint about it, and he said it made him think of bats or wings, but he wasn't sure why. I then let them get closer to see what it was made of. They were pretty surprised to realize it was chicken bones. Even after close examination some kids wouldn't believe it. We then discussed how folk artists don't often have access to marble or oil paints or the common materials found in other museums. In fact, the artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein had chicken dinners from KFC with his wife every night, and so his main art material were the leftover bones. When he had the money, he would paint or photograph his wife, but often he did not and he had to channel his creativity through chicken remains. The kids loved this, and when I asked what they would make art out of from things they had a lot of in their home they responded with paper and pencild or paper towel roles. One kid (Marcus) suggested dead cats, and I then learned that there is a dead cat decomposing outside of their school. Life imitating art I suppose. (The tower pictured is not the one featured at the American Folk Art Museum, I can't find that picture)

We then traveled over to Jesse B. Telfair's Freedom Quilt. This piece was especially requested by the school, and so I had assumed that they were learning about US history in class. When I asked what they knew about the quilt I was proven wrong. We talked about what the students understood from the quilt visually. Again, the math came up, and the kids enjoyed that you could read freedom diagonally. They also picked up on the American Flag irony, and suggested that the artist was talking about the racism in American and "White people being mean to Black people." I then gave a really brief history of the Civil War with my hands, and the Freedom Quilts that Northern ladies made to "prick the conscience of the slave owners." I then briefly hit on the 15th Ammendment which gave African-American the right to vote back in the 1870s but which still wasn't being enforced in 1960. We then talked about how Telfair was a part of the Civil Rights movement, and how she lost her job in Georgia after she registered to vote, and in response made this quilt. I think a lot of it went over their heads, but their teacher was happy.

Our last stop was in the special exhibit Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel. This exhibit follows the Jewish Eastern European crafts of ark carving (decalogues) and papercuts to carousel carving as those immigrants found jobs at Coney Island (if you're in NY, come visit it soon, it goes down at the end of March). My aim was to look at a number of the decalogues and understand the community symbols as well as the artists' individuality in interpreting them. I got a little too into the meaning of the symbols, next time I'll just skim the surface. Again, math came up, as I explained the name decalogue refers to the 10 Commandments on them. After going over the major symbols, I had them pair up and each go to one of the many decalogues in the exhibit and find out what was unique about the one they visited. They came back and shared as a large group and really surprised me with the excellent lookign they had done, and their creative interpretations. We finished off looking at a few of the carousel horses before wrapping up. When I asked them what they had learned about Folk Art they all had their hands up and mentioned materials, individuality, and skills.