American Folk Art for Kids (eBook)

Introduction What is Folk Art? An old man goes into his workshop every morning and works until noon making wind toys. He saws and carves wood into cars, trains, and airplanes, then paints and assembles the parts to make these whirligigs, as they are called. For a couple of hours after lunch, he sits at his roadside stand selling these wind toys to passing motorists. To him it is just a fun hobby, a way to pass the time. The old man may not even realize it, but he is a folk artist. Every Saturday evening, the man puts out a cardboard box of his scraps for the garbage collector to take, but the garbage collector rarely gets a chance to pick them up. Every Sunday morning, a middle-aged woman from down the road rides her bicycle up to the curb. She loads her knapsack with all the scraps. Sometimes the old man sees her and waves. When the woman gets home, she glues the scraps of wood and metal together to make collages. She does not realize it either, but she is also a folk artist. Folk art is all about taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary. The old man uses some wood and his imagination to make colorful toys. The woman recycles his garbage to make more artworks. If there is one common theme that runs throughout the many different types of folk art that appear in this book, it is that of ordinary people making something out of nothing. From some ordinarily useless scraps of fabric, a woman creates a beautiful quilt. From a plain and simple chair, a folk artist makes a decorated masterpiece. From a shapeless hunk of wood, a duck decoy is carved. A folk artist takes ordinary handwriting and turns it into elegant, flowing calligraphy, takes old fence posts and creates an American flag, takes bottle caps and makes a sculpture. American folk art developed from the traditions of immigrants coming from all around the world. Folk art celebrates the colorful diversity that is inside each of us, our multicultural heritage passed down over the centuries, and our natural-born ability to create something beautiful. In this book you will read about many different types of folk art that have captured the imagination of millions of people around America and across the globe. Author's Note I have tried to organize this book into logical chapters. Because there are so many different types of folk art, it was not an easy task. First I explain the origins of folk art in chapter 1. Then I go into different categories of folk art. There is painting and drawing in chapter 2, decorative designs on furniture and other practical objects, known as the 'decorative arts,' in chapter3, textile folk art (made from fabric and yarn) in chapter 4, folk art that is carved from and chiseled into stone, metal, wood, or bone in chapter 5, folk art that is made from scraps of odds and ends, known as 'found objects,' in chapter 6, and finally, 'public' folk art, including advertising, in chapter 7. Though it was impossible to include everything in one book, I have tried to cover all the major types of folk art. When possible, I have provided exact dates of the art shown in the illustrations, but most folk art is anonymous and undated, so many of the dates given in this book are educated guesses. The word circa, which means approximately, is used to indicate that the exact date of a piece of art is not known. I hope that you enjoy your journey into the world of folk art as much as I have enjoyed writing the book. The Origins of Folk Art When the first art was made, there were no museums, no art schools, and no art supply stores. Our early ancestors created small gray stone sculptures using only basic tools.