who are the folk in folk art? inside and outside the cultural context

WHO ARE THE FOLK IN FOLK ART? INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CULTURAL CONTEXTAuthor(s): Joan M. BenedettiSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 6,No. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 3-8Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27947701 .

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Art Documentation, Spring 1987 3

WHO ARE THE FOLK IN FOLK ART? INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE

CULTURAL CONTEXT by Joan M. Benedetti

Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles

We live in an art world that is still divided by categories defined years ago, primarily by collectors?the so-called "connoisseurs." Although, both socially?I could say politi cally?and scientifically, many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with designations like "primitive" and "folk," these terms are still in use. They are boxes into which a wide assortment of art and artists are put with consequences which are not only embarrassing (when we are caught with our subliminal prejudices down), but counterproductive to the examination and understanding of the many types of ma terial that now come within the curatorial purview of art in stitutions. In 1962, George Kubier foresaw the situation:

Let us suppose that the idea of art can be expanded to embrace the whole range of man-made things, includ ing all tools and writing in addition to the useless, beau tiful, and poetic things of the world. By this view the universe of man-made things simply coincides with the history of art. It then becomes an urgent requirement to devise better ways of considering everything men have made.1

Those of us whose fields include culturally related art have had to contend with a litany of unfortunate terms. They range from the truly offensive to the merely limiting. The objects of our concerns are called minor, primitive, naive, decorative, applied, useful (of course, in the fine art world, to be called useful is less than complimentary), and non- : non-European, non-Western, non-academic. All are somewhat pejorative within the dominant Western context. We have heard our field described as narrow, speci?lized, and even esoteric, when we know we are dealing with, not only many more mediums (than "painting," "sculpture," and "architecture"), but also with objects of more complexity, of greater aspect; objects studied and interpreted by scholars from several dis ciplines, each of which (like the proverbial blind men and the elephant) has its own nomenclature and point of view.

Simon J. Bronner, who since 1978 has been American folk art's principal bibliographer, edited in 1984 a virtual Baedeker to American folk art scholarship {American Folk Art: A Guide to Sources, New York: Garland). For anyone with a serious concern for further study, this is the essential guide. His open ing comments are instructive:

American folk art lives at the edge of several disciplines. Folklore, art history, cultural history, anthropology, and sociology have all laid their claims. Its most central role lies in the emergent interdisciplinary study within

American Studies of "material culture." Material culture research includes approaches from the above disci plines and places human-built objects of everyday life

and ritual in a social context_If folk art is at the edge of several disciplines, then within material culture study it lies at the intersection of several approaches.2

The decision of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus editors to call "material culture" what had formerly been the area of "decorative arts" was a stroke of taxonomic and diplomatic genius, providing a face-saving way for these diverse view points to get behind the Thesaurus.

As in the case of "material culture," we have sometimes found the nomenclature of anthropologists and folklorists to be more useful than that of art historians and critics. We have

probably learned the importance of context, but we must interact with colleagues and clientele from art institutions

who may insist on the autonomous "integrity of objects" and who are sometimes careless or vague about origin, source, function, even iconography. Since most of us, through train ing, experience, or simply institutional affiliation consider our selves to be art librarians and ally ourselves with the art world, we have a unique perspective. Though we are frus trated by the disinterest the different disciplinary camps show in moving together philosophically, some of us have, through necessity, begun to build bridges within our libraries. Through our collection development and our subject cata loging, we have begun to find ways to make accessible im portant writing concerning the same material expressed in diverse disciplinary contexts.

The following pages are concerned with issues that came up in my work at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in attempting to resolve some of the confusiorvcaused by the pervasive and ill-defined use of the term "folk art." The search for this reso lution put me in touch with issues being argued, not just in scholarly symposia, or cataloging discussion groups, but also in museum galleries, in tribal councils, on Endowment panels, and in contemporary art criticism.

My principal goals are: 1) to summarize the current profes sional thinking on what is called "folk art" as expressed in the writings of those who are acknowledged leaders in this still emerging field; 2) to point out the major inconsistencies in the use of "folk art"; and 3) to present some alternative termi nology that I have been using at the CAFAM Library.

The principal confusion which I sought to resolve results from applying the term "folk" to two distinctly different types of art. They are so different that some folklorists?and some art critics?have suggested that they should not both be con sidered as folk art. One type is the product of culturally cohe sive communities. Examples of this type are Navajo rugs, Amish quilts, and Ukrainian Easter eggs. The other type is the product of a personal consciousness that is (unlike that of the mainstream gallery artist) largely self-taught, and unaware of (or unconcerned with) the contemporary art market. The



4 Art Documentation, Spring 1987

work of these latter artists is idiosyncratic, often (though not always) functioning in opposition to any community context. Examples of American artists of this type are Howard Finster, Edgar Toison, Luster Willis, Jesse Howard, Tressa Prisbrey, and Simon Rodia. They exist largely as outsiders vis ? vis their communities, all over the world.

A reader of this article in manuscript objected to my group ing of Amish quilts, Navajo blankets, and Ukrainian Easter eggs together. They are "so different from each other in in tent," said the reader, "that I cannot imagine thinking of them in the same way." Of course they are functionally and formally different. That is the point. The Navajo blanket could not be mistaken for an Amish bedcovering?or vice versa?for they are both expressive of their respective cultures. Even though there are numerous Navajo weavers working with many in digenous patterns and colors, we will, in most cases, recog nize all rugs woven by them as Navajo (if indigenous mate rials, designs, and colors are used). And this quality?of being culturally dependent?and culturally interactive?is what Navajo, Amish, and Ukrainian folk art have in common, and what distinguishes them from work in which individual vision predominates.

Art produced within a culturally defined (or ethnic) com munity reflects the values of that community in its imagery, symbols, materials, techniques, even in its colors. Usually the work is, in fact, an integral part of the community life and has religious or secular significance for the community as a

whole. Of course, when we speak of art being an expression of a cultural group, we do not imply (necessarily) that all members of the cultural group are equal producers of this art. What we mean is that the community as a whole and its traditions?which may be very ancient or relatively contem porary?contribute to the formal values expressed in the final product, which we have learned to recognize as an Acoma pot, a Hmong needlework, a Shaker box. In fact, human com munities often possess only a few highly skilled and highly respected master practitioners who produce the accoutre

ments (clothing, furniture, architecture, religious objects, tools, etc.) of that society. These people may be called artists, mas ter craftsmen, priests, shamans, etc. The objects thus pro duced will almost always possess the characteristics (the "signature")3 of the individual maker, but they will express, above these individual characteristics, the contemporary val ues of the ethnic artist's community. According to John Michael Vlach,

Folk artists, by definition, submit to or are at least very aware of the demands and needs of their audience.

They use their artworks to participate in the life of the community; they bond themselves to neighbors and kin with carvings, quilts, pots, baskets, and the like. Should they deviate markedly from the usual criteria they run the risk of rejection, that is, a social death. . . . Folk artists, to some degree, surrender their personal desires to social demand_We also see that they are compen sated for their sacrifice by the esteem granted to them as bearers of tradition.4

When applied in this cultural sense, use of the term "folk" does not in any sense refer to crude or unsophisticated work. The fact that training is oral and person-to-person through something like a master-apprentice system does not in any way detract from the quality of the final product?quite to the contrary. It is not less important or less skilled, or even, less provocative, than Western mainstream art, in which individual vision is expected to predominate?but it is a different type. Although it is often displayed on pedestals and walls in main stream art galleries and looked at in the context of Western aesthetic standards, it has a lot more than aesthetics to offer the informed viewer. As a discipline of social science, the study of this material

tradition corresponds to the oral traditions studied as folk/ore and folksong for many years. (The term folk//7e?as in the American Folk//7e Center?is now widely used to describe studies that include folk lore, song, dance, and art.) The inter ested student, whether art historian, or folk life specialist, will

want to approach it with as much cultural information as pos sible. The librarian must be aware of the sources for this documentation. And beyond that, must be aware of the lack of this information in many otherwise impressively illustrated publications. It is through the judicious selection of the best of the art-oriented publications, complemented by the contex tual documentation, that development of the folk art library collection is best served.

This is not to ignore those who insist that any material can be appreciated aesthetically without reference to contextual or other relevant information. Most of us have had the experi ence?and it can be very powerful?of being deeply moved by an object about which we know nothing except that it is foreign to our cultural experience. If this strange object is in an art museum or commercial gallery, our ignorance may or may not be disabused by the information (or lack of it) on the label. Though it is true that it is in large part because art

museums began displaying ethnic art on walls and pedestals in the first place that Westerners began to pay aesthetic atten tion to it, this does not make it ours. In most cases, the makers of this work (though they may have given us permission) did not ask us to display it there. We needed an aesthetic key to peek at what was otherwise completely shut away behind a cultural door. And we must understand that, powerful as it is, this aesthetic point of view may be a distorted view or, at best, a partial one, We must grant the right of cultures not to be misunderstood on the basis of partial information; not to be robbed of their essential material;5 not to be exploited or to have the natural acculturation process artificially stimulated to satisfy fashions in the global art market.6 And, as our expe rience in "seeing" ethnic art grows, we will acknowledge that

we see better?and are moved more?with more cultural information. At the same time, the term "folk art" (or "environmental

folk art" or, sometimes, "contemporary folk art") is applied? not just by collectors and by art museums, but also by a faction of the folklore community as well?to art which is culturally at the other extreme. This is nonutilitarian work done by self-taught individuals, often isolated in old age, and is characterized by highly personal imagery and (frequently) anti-social (or indifferent) attitudes toward the communities in

which the artists live. (Not unlike the "mainstream" contem porary artist?except that the latter tend to make work intentionally for sale?or for show in galleries or museums?

while the former more often create from a sense of mission or "vision," with little or no concern for its value to others.)

"Naive" and "primitive" are terms that were first commonly used to describe this latter type of art by collectors who be gan building their collections early in this century in a pseudo-democratic phase that romanticized "the noble sav age." It was the direct, raw quality of this work that had a special appeal for American collectors who saw in what they called folk art a celebration of the supposedly rugged individ ualism of the so-called "indigenous" [sic] American spirit. The pejorative sense of these terms causes some of us to seek alternative, more positive?and more accurate?terminol

ogy. (The Summer 1986 issue of SPACES1 lists these and many other terms such as "grass roots" and "art brut" and invites comment.) My own sense is that "folk," used to de scribe this distinctive art, has a pejorative effect also, as the net result is to segregate the art of individuals whose work rivals?and in some cases is indistinguishable from?artists (Roy DeForest, Italo Scanga, and Red Grooms come to mind)

who work inside the contemporary art marketing system. Two front-page reviews, by art critics, of an important Oak

land Museum show, "Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall: 200 Years of California Folk Painting and Sculpture," make the point that, as Rebecca Solnit says in Artweek (6-7-86), "ultimately, the distinction between fine and folk seems specious."8 And

William Wilson comments in the LA. Times (6-8-86):

. . . one inescapably notices the surreal overtones.. .or the assemblage-funk qualities.... Present conditions in the overworld art sphere tend to push folk art and gal lery art ever closer together. . . . Such gallery artists as Jim Lawrence and Viola Frey use folk style in making of




sophisticated work. Neo-expressionists' awkwardness is very close to a folk art grown evermore expressionis ts in a mad world.9

It has been said that most artists are, almost by (Western) definition, outsiders or mavericks. The contemporary interna tional art market is certainly characterized by the dominance and cultivation of personal vision, even to the point of eccen tricity. It is partly for this reason that there is a renewed inter est in the "primitive," however that term is applied. The idio syncratic folk artist is isolated, however, from the gallery art world as well?at least until he is "discovered" by it.

According to John Vlach:

The carvings of Edgar Toison cannot... be accepted as folk sculpture ... his work is unprecedented. They thus have no connection with a traditional source. His carv ings begin and end with him. . . . Since he has no local antecedents for his works and is not united to fellow artists by shared imagery, we can only call Toison a gifted, talented individual. While he has no formal art training, that is not enough to call his work "folk." Since his discovery, he has become a successful contempo rary artist following his private vision while earning the respect and admiration of a large national audience.10

All art is the product of a tension in the maker between his personal vision and the societal context in which he lives, works, and has been educated. Some societal contexts, ob viously, are more powerful over the individual than others. At the same time, some individuals express more indifference to societal constraints than others. Of course, we are speaking of a continuum. Many artists and art works fall into a large and diffuse middle ground on this cultural continuum.

In an article written for El Palacio in 1982 that deserves much wider circulation, Robert T. Teske (then serving as folk arts specialist for the N.E.A.) voiced concerns that have be come widespread, especially among folklorists:

When viewed from the perspective of contemporary folkloristics, folk art can no longer be defined emo tionally as "the art of the common man." Nor can it be defined aesthetically as that body of works that is sim ple or naive, technically unsophisticated, instinctual to the point of unselfconsciousness, and highly individual or idiosyncratic. Instead, like every other form of folk expression, folk art must be defined in terms of: first, its acceptance of and dependence upon a communal aes thetic shared by a group of artists and their audience and shaped and reshaped by them over time; second, its traditional nature, with its conservative emphasis upon perfecting old forms instead of creating entirely new ones; and third, its transmission via apparently in

formal, yet often highly structured and systematic means. In other words, it is the social context in which an artifact is created and responded to, rather than the attributes of the artifact itself or the collector's intuitive response to these attributes, that provides the firmest basis for classifying the object as folk art.

Whether the communal aesthetic is based upon famil ial, regional, tribal, occupational, or ethnic identity, in each case the roles and responsibilities of artists and audience within each community are clear and compar able. . . . The failure to distinguish between those art forms that reflect an individual aesthetic has been a serious problem in most earlier conceptions of folk art.

With regard to twentieth century materials, the works of many naives and visionaries have been assigned the designation "folk art" despite the fact that they reflect the aesthetic sensibilities of no one other than their creators.

For many, the word "traditional" connotes an approach that is frozen, unchanging, fixed over time_Certainly

folk artists do not seek innovation and change as ends in themselves in the way fine artists often do. Yet the traditional values they bring to their work do not pre clude any possibility of change.

In most instances, folk artists acquire their skills through an informal apprenticeship or association with one or more senior artists in their community. . . . Yet the lack of rigorous structure does not imply simplicity either of the skills to be acquired or the final products of the folk art. Both are sufficiently complex, culture spe cific and tradition based to make the prospect of inde pendent learning almost impossible. In other words, the self-taught artist is virtually never a folk artist [emphasis added]11

I have quoted Teske at length here as he provides an excel lent overview of the issues which have been the cause of heated controversy among those engaged in the study and exhibition of folk art. These people are primarily from two camps: the art historical, curatorial, and collecting world on the one hand; and the social scientists?the folklorists, an thropologists, and historians of popular culture on the other. Judging from the published literature, it is the art curator and the folklorist who are at the front lines, with the folklorist pursuing the attack aggressively, the art curator holding the line defensively. With the exception of some hostile outbursts at the 1977

meeting on folk art sponsored by Winterthur,12 most parties have maintained a respectful professionalism at conferences.

Writers on both sides, however, have continued to express thinly veiled outrage at each others' perspectives.

One of the more positive attempts to bring curators and folklorists together for dialogue took place under the auspices of the American Folklife Center in Washington, D.C.13 Viewed by many as an attempt to close wounds opened at the Win terthur conference, the participants at the Washington meet ing did, apparently, maintain civility and the views exchanged

were listened to. Held at the Library of Congress (where the Center is located) in December 1983, it took on many issues and the problem of terminology was among the most hotly debated. Alan Jabbour, Director of the Center, took the high road of the host and noted in his opening remarks that:

We seem to hover helplessly between thinking of folk art as a form of individual creativity, and thinking of it as a collective cultural expression. It is a good rule of thumb in all art that, the closer we are to it culturally, the more we focus on it as individual creation; and the fur ther away we stand, the more we see it as a collective cultural expression. But surely all art is both.14

At the end of the conference, Henry Glassie commented that he felt there was now more understanding between the social scientists and the collectors attending the meeting of each others' points of view, but he noted that the division now may be "between those seeking to reduce the content of what is studied and those who do not seek to reduce it."15 By this

was meant, at least in part, those who would like to remove from consideration as folk art the work of idiosyncratic artists and those who have a special interest in it. Those like the writer and collector Herbert W. Hemphill, and Robert Bishop, Director of the Museum of American Folk Art, who deal pri marily with collectors and art curators and who are outside the folklore profession tend to fall into the latter category. In the former camp, he was probably thinking of those who, like John Vlach, have argued persuasively for several years for the need for more intellectual rigor in our consideration of what we call "folk art." In a paper entitled

" 'Properly Speaking':

Plain Talk about Folk Art," he reiterated his view that "the field" is permeated with sentimentality which clouds our abil ity to understand what we see:

Thinking and reasoning are suspended, so that items as distinctly different as quilts from Alabama, cast iron stove panels from Philadelphia, samplers from young




ladies' seminaries from Massachusetts, furniture made

by Shakers in New York, yard art made by a hermit from Iowa are all called the same thing and consequently are considered to be generally equivalent to one another. The anything-goes, free-for-all approach that engenders this kind of lumping cannot be allowed to persist.16

As often happens, it is the in-fighting which is critical to the outcome of any battle. In the folk art wars, the work of the self-taught artist, especially in the twentieth century, is a chief bone of contention within the art camp as well as the folklore camp. In both disciplines are writers who would like to see the visionary, self-taught artist taken into the "fine art" fold. Recent art criticism invariably comments on similarities of this work to contemporary art, particularly that of funk artists and neo-expressionists. The following was part of a front-page Artweek review in June 1986:

The Oakland Museum's folk-art exhibit again raises the issue of a shift in contemporary esthetic values. . . .

These reflections were stirred up when after having viewed [the folk art exhibit] I walked into [the Mu seum's] installation of works by contemporary Califor nia artists. Among them were Joan Brown's bright, crude Girl Sitting, one of Deborah Butterfield's stick and mud horses, [William T.] Wiley's neo-Native American installation, a DeForest animal kingdom painting and a

George Herms junk assemblage, none of which would have looked out of place in the folk-art exhibition.17

The folk art collectors and curators will not give up this self taught work easily, however, in large part because of its ob vious popularity and the serious attention it is getting from the art critics. They dissemble with statements like that of Herbert W. Hemphill, Jr.: "It seems a waste of time to back track into semantics while the art can disappear, undocu mented or unappreciated."18 Or they assert, like Louis C. Jones, former Director of the New York State Historical Asso ciation and its famous collection at Cooperstown, that "The current appreciation of American folk art can be traced largely to the pioneering work of those early collectors, enlightened dealers, and the museums with which they worked."19 True enough, if we are speaking of its appreciation by the main stream art world, as well as, probably, the general public. After all, these artifacts had been displayed in museums of history and anthropology before, along with contextual cultural material, and had not excited special attention? certainly not aesthetic attention?until they were taken out of context and exhibited as fine art. The aesthetic attraction is the carrot enticing individuals whose attention would other

wise rarely be directed to this material. (It is still seldom taught in college art history or folklore departments.) Since this group (art curators and dealers) wields the power of the increasingly fashionable art gallery space, and they are com fortable with the term "folk art," everyone else presumably should back down.

Or, as Jules Laffal told me when he and his wife, Florence (editors of the valuable and endearing Folk Art Finder,20 a quarterly review of self-taught art) visited me: "Nobody's going to give up the term 'folk art.' It's just too juicy." Retired from a career in clinical psychology at Yale, his is probably the most realistic assessment.

Until recently, the use of "folk art" has not been an urgent problem for the art sector in the way that it is for the folklorist. To the contrary, it has provided those who consider them selves to be more "enlightened" with a social cause and sin ners (among the mainstream art crowd) to convert. Perhaps, as art critics who are not "folk art" specialists continue to examine and write about exhibitions of the self-taught and idiosyncratic folk artist and to compare them to similar main stream contemporary work, more urgency will surface among the folk art crowd as they see their "territory" threat ened. At that point, they may find themselves in the curious position of fending off the welcoming arms of the lover they originally sought.

At this point, I should admit to my bias in this affair. I would like to see mainstream art historians and critics take the idio

syncratic folk artist more seriously and I agree with John Vlach that the insistence of some folklorists on including this self-taught work as a topic in folklore studies beclouds the discipline with sentimentality. I believe, furthermore, that this latter point of view does little to advance the cause of those

who need academic and financial support to pursue research, exhibitions, and conservation of this work. A firm disciplinary home needs to be found for this stepchild that is currently shunted from one to another.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, the use of "folk" to describe both idiosyncratic and culturally related art is ex tremely confusing. Current proof that the situation regarding terminology is far from stable is in the recently launched Folklife Annual, published by the American Folklife Center. (The Center, founded by folklorists, was created by the Ameri can Folklife Preservation Act in 1976.) In an issue that includes six articles on culturally cohesive communities, such as the New Jersey Pineys and Italian-American stone carvers, are two major articles on idiosyncratic artists Simon Rodia and Howard Finster, older men working in virtual isolation from any cultural tradition. The article on Rodia21 labors convin cingly to show that Rodia's towers had their origin in festival towers he had seen as a child in his native Italian village, but surely this is not to say that Rodia's magnificent work is any less the triumph of an individual vision. Surely the fact that an artist uses folk imagery in his work doesn't make him a folk artist. (If so, then Thomas Hart Benton, Marc Chagall, and Paul Gauguin were folk artists.)

The show at the Oakland Museum called "Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall" (named after a painting in the show by Ursula Barnes), with the subtitle "200 Years of California Folk Painting and Sculpture," does not include the work of any artist working in ethnic genres. According to Harvey Jones, Senior Curator at the Oakland Museum, who curated it:

Folk artists, as we define them for this exhibition. . . do not work in an inherited ethnic tradition and are, in fact, strongly characterized by their highly individual use of materials, techniques, and subject matter. They are dis tinguished from mainstream artists by being self-taught and working outside the fine arts tradition and the fine arts community. They are often ignorant of the exis tence of that world. The artists whose work is shown here rarely go to museums or buy works of art at gal leries even when their own work has entered that

world.22

My own visit to "Cat and a Ball" (about six weeks after writing a first draft of this essay) made me realize how impor tant is the "self-taught" aspect of these artists' works. Per haps this is really what is meant by "naive," but with a more positive connotation, As indicated above, the ethnic folk artist is usually trained by a master in his community, is seldom, if ever, self-taught, and is, in any case, defined by his cultural context. The artists represented by "Cat and a Ball" are mostly defined by an eccentric or outsider viewpoint unham pered by an art-historical or art-studio education. "Naive" does also imply ignorance of (or indifference to) the main stream art market and "outsider" conveys this indifference very well, but doesn't necessarily imply anything about an artist's education.

A major problem in the analysis of the work of the self taught artist is the difficulty in seeing large amounts of it at one time. Considering how popular such shows are, it is sur prising they are not more frequent. When the controversial Corcoran show of visionary black artists' work, "Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980" travelled to the Craft & Folk Art Museum four years ago, our galleries were crowded with visi tors (including some critics we hadn't seen for a while) for the entire run. We were also blessed on the West Coast two years ago by a show called "Pioneers in Paradise: Folk and Outsider Artists of the West Coast"23 that originated at the Long Beach Museum of Art and then travelled to Seattle, Portland, and San Jose. Note that "folk" appears in the title or subtitle of all of these exhibits, though none included any ethnic folk art.

For the person motivated to examine the critical vocabul ary, the ability to compare individual works in a survey show




such as "Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall" is essential. It gave us historical examples of self-taught work over a 200-year period, some that were of lesser quality, some that were not really idiosyncratic?though arguably personal. The oppor tunity to see lesser work along with the finest assists analysis. Many mediums were represented, including pieces from en vironmental works, such as Sanford Darling's House of a Thousand Paintings and Romano Gabriel's Wooden Garden. This was a textbook exhibition, like an adjunct to an introduc tory course on the subject, showing good and bad examples and many different types, so it was possible to test one's theories, try out terms like "self-taught," "outsider," and "idiosyncratic" on a broad range of works and see how well they hang there. I don't believe it was necessary to call any of these art works "folk art."

If "folk art" continues to be used to describe any work that is produced outside of the Western, mainstream, gallery oriented art marketplace, perhaps we will have to tolerate, in the interest of clarity, some verbal compromises. Since at least 1980, I have been using the term "ethnic folk art" most frequently when I mean the art of any culturally defined group. ("Ethnic art" without the modification "ethnic folk art" is not a good compromise since "ethnic art" is also used to describe the work of art school-trained artists expressing eth nic themes, e.g., Chicano mural art.)24 I was encouraged to continue using the term "ethnic" to mean any culturally cohe sive group after reading the landmark Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Here is what the editors have to say about their sense of "ethnicity" in the Encyclopedia:

Ethnicity is an immensely complex phenomenon. All the groups treated here are characterized by [having] some of the following features [in common], although in combinations that vary considerably: 1) geographic origin; 2) migratory status; 3) race; 4) language or di alect; 5) religious faith or faiths; 6) ties that transcend kinship, neighborhood, and community boundaries; 7) shared traditions, values, and symbols; 8) literature, folklore, and music; 9) food preferences; 10) settlement and employment patterns; 11) special interests in regard to politics in the homeland and in the U.S.; 12) institu tions that specifically serve and maintain the group; 13) an internal sense of distinctiveness; 14) an external per ception of distinctiveness.25

I have been using "idiosyncratic art" or "idiosyncratic folk art" to describe the work of the "outsider" artist such as Rodia and Finster. I was encouraged to continue using the term "idiosyncratic art" when, in 1983, a book was published to accompany an exhibition of Jesse Howard's sign painting called Missouri Artist Jesse Howard with a Contemplation on Idiosyncratic Art (U. of Missouri-Columbia, 1983). The Con templation, written by Howard Marshall, is a lengthy, insight ful essay, He says in the Foreword:

This publication. . . offers me, as a student of material folk culture, a chance to think out loud about the prob lems of defining aesthetic categories and the pitfalls of calling work like Mr. Howard's "folk art". . . we should begin thinking [of them]... simply as modern American artiste?or, if the reader wants a descriptive label, idio syncratic artists.26

In these times, when funds for art in the U.S. are shrinking, folk art of all kinds continues to increase in popularity, as it continues to demonstrate a split personality. Howard Finster, one of the most unique artists of our time, has been commis sioned to paint two works for the American Folklife Center and has been lauded by Alan Jabbour, Director of the Center, as "an important folk artist." Johnny Carson interviews Finster,27 whose pictures illustrate an R.E.M. album cover. It's politically advantageous to be seen at festivals and exhibits that purport to show the art of the folk?whoever they may be. Somehow, pressing "ethnic" flesh isn't nearly so appeal ing. Of course, the reason for the general attractiveness of the

word "folk" is the same reason we librarians and researchers (who must be able to isolate information) have difficulty with

it: "folk," has a friendly, inclusive connotation?nobody doesn't want to be a "folk." Ironically, "ethnic" has an exclu

sive, foreign, outsider connotation. ("Ethnic" originally meant "heathen" or neither Christian nor Jewish. And you will still hear "ethnic" used by dealers and collectors of African art as a synonym for "tribal" or "primitive.") But surely, at some point, some of us must begin to take a stand, backed by some rationale other than love or "juiciness." A letter from folklorist Archie Green (for ten years the prin

cipal lobbyist for the establishment of the American Folklife Center?and a former librarian) reminds me that "scholars do not play definition games for amusement. At best, we hurry to catch matters of category in flight. We lag behind change in modern society. . . [we] chase after tribes, regional dwellers, religious minorities, and cultural groups mainly be cause these communities are intrinsically vital in understand ing the human condition. ... as we define the differences.. .

we impose some order on chaos."28 At the Craft & Folk Art Museum, we are concerned with

both types of "folk" art and much more besides. We have always shown contemporary crafts, which often include non functional or sculptural objects in "craft" media?e.g., fiber, glass, clay, etc.?and now we are exhibiting products of in dustrial design more regularly. You can see that very careful subject cataloging would be important in my library. For many in the art world?collectors, gallery owners, and even curators working in the fields of crafts and folk art?these issues of terminology are annoying. I have even heard them called boring. (These comments seldom come from re searchers, though Robert Teske describes them accurately, I think, as "nagging and wearisome.")29 For those of us who must catalog and index in these areas?and for those who must use these catalogs and indexes?indeed, for anyone dependent on words as tools in discovering or elucidating this perplexing?and fascinating?material, these issues will con tinue to have urgency.

NOTES George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 1. 2Simon J. Bronner, p. 1. His Introduction provides an excellent overview of interest in folk art from the social scientist's perspective. 3See also Charlene Cerny, 'Thoughts on Anonymity and Signature in Folk Art," El Palacio (Spring 1984): 34-37. 4John Michael Vlach, "American Folk Art: Questions and Quandaries," Winterthur Portfolio 15, no. 4 (Winter 1980): 346. 5See statement by Grand Council of the Houdenosaunee, the Six Nations Iro quois Confederacy, "Policy Statement on Medicine Masks," Turtle, Native Amer ican Center for the Living Arts Quarterly (Fall 1980): 8. 6See "Introduction: Arts of the Fourth World," in: Ethnic and Tourist Arts: Cultural Expressions from the Fourth World, ed. Nelson H. H. Graburn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). See also "Art by Fiat and Other Dilemmas of Cross Cultural Collecting," by Suzi Jones in: Folk Art and Art Worlds (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986), pp. 243-266. TThe SPACES Newsletter (1804 N. Van Ness St., Los Angeles, CA 90028) is published three times a year by an organization called Saving and Preserving Art and Cultural Environments, which is devoted to the preservation and docu mentation of idiosyncratic folk art environments such as the Watts Towers. See also In Celebration of Ourselves, a book of photographs of idiosyncratic folk art in California (San Francisco: California Living Books, 1979), written by SPACES' founder, Seymour Rosen. sRebecca Solnit, "Issues of Definition and Inspiration," Artweek 7 (June 1986): 1. 9"A Just Plain Amazing Show of Folk Styles," LA. Times/Calendar, 8 June 1986: 3. ^Vlach, op. cit., p. 353. ""What is Folk Art? An Opinion on the Controversy," El Palacio (Winter 1982-83): 34-38. 12An adjunct to the 1977 Winterthur conference was an exhibition called

Beyond Necessity: Art in the Folk Tradition. A book of the same title, which served as the catalog, was written by Kenneth Ames, head of the Ofice of Advanced Research at Winterthur. Though Ames is himself an art historian, he has been a vocal opponent of much art museum rhetoric. Most conference participants had just read Beyond Necessity (W. W. Norton, 1977) and came loaded for bear. All of this is described in Scott T. Swank's Introduction to

Perspectives on American Folk Art, ed. Ian M. G. Quimby and Scott T. Swank, N.Y: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980. This collection of selected papers from the conference is an excellent survey of scholarly thinking on folk art, It includes the most thorough history yet published of American folk art collecting and exhibiting as fine art by Beatrix T. Rumford. !3The Washington Meeting was summarized in the Folklife Center News (Jan/

Mar 1984): 2-5; and also in the Ohio Antiques Review (January 1986): 10-12. A selection of the papers presented was published in 1986. See citation for Folk Art and Art Worlds in note 6, above. The quality of all the essays is very high. Of particular interest is a revisionist history of folk art exhibiting by Eugene W. Metcalf that takes into account political attitudes. Cf. Beatrix Rumford's history in Perspectives on American Folk Art (cited in note 12).




^Folkl'rfe Center News (Jan/Mar 1984): 2. isibid, p. 13. 16This particular quote is taken from the issue of the Folkl'rfe Center News cited above (p. 5). It is revised somewhat in the version published in Folk Art and Art Worlds (cited in note 6). 17Solnit, op. cit.

^Folkl'rfe Center News (Jan/Mar 1984): 5. i9|bid. FolkArt Finder (Gallery Press, 117 N. Main St., Essex, CT 06426).

21l. Sheldon Posen and Daniel Franklin Ward, "Watts Towers and the Giglio Tradition," in: Folkl'rfe Annual I (Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, 1985), pp. 143 - 57. 22Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall: 200 Years of California Folk Painting and Sculpture (Oakland: The Oakland Museum Art Department, 1986), p. 10. 23See note 22, above, for Cat and a Ball citation. Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980, by Jane Livingston, was published for the Corcoran by the Univer sity Press of Mississippi, Jackson, and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture in 1982. For a lengthy analytical review of this exhibit which questions the appropriateness of the term "folk art" as applied to the work in this show, see "Black Art, Folk Art, and Social Control," by Eugene W. Metcalf, in Winterthur Portfolio 18 (Fall 1983): 271-289. Pioneers in Paradise: Folk and Out sider Artists of the West Coast was published by the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1984. 24A note on a first draft of this manuscript from Susan Auerbach, Coordinator of the City of Los Angeles Folk Arts Program, concurs: "I agree that there should be separate terms for the idiosyncratic works of individuals and the "ethnic" works of those within a culture. My problem with "ethnic [art]" is that it is too broad; it would have to include contemporary painting, sculpture, and crafts and assemblage which may use ethnic themes or imagery but rely on mainstream form and technique. Thus, I personally prefer the term "ethnic folk art" or "ethnic traditional art." [This would avoid confusion] with . . . e.g., theatre about Japanese internment, paintings of the Black struggle, etc." 25Stephan Thernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard U. Press, 1980), p. vi. 26Marshall, op. cit., p. 8. As this ms. goes to press, I find myself using the term "self-taught" more frequently than "idiosyncratic," as the former serves to describe almost all of the non-ethnic folk art, not just the most eccentric. 2777?e Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (Los Angeles: National Broadcast ing Co., August 5, 1983). According to Ann Frederick Oppenheimer, who organized the Howard Finster Folk Art Festival and exhibit at the University of Richmond in 1985, "the local Summerville [Georgia] populace was late in re cognizing Finster's special magic. . . . After he made his appearance on The Tonight Show, however, he commanded a little more respect. didn't know it was such a big thing until the people in the barbershop told me they saw my name in TV Guide/ he laughed." (Sermons in Paint [Richmond, VA.: University of Richmond, 1985], p. 7.) 28Letter to author from Green, 12 October 1986. 29Teske, op. cit., p. 34.

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