Folk Art Is People's Art

I try to describe my work to others. More than likely, that doesn't work. So I pull out a business card with photographs on it (painting on one side, assemblage/sculpture on the other). That helps the conversation continue.

Take a card...

I went to an art show recently where I am usually an exhibitor. I took this year off. Being a customer felt strange. I wanted to stand in someone's booth and write up sales.

I met a folk artist there whose work I had recently discovered. She was very friendly and forthcoming with her process. Maybe we connected because we are both folk artists. We compared notes. Both of us work in mixed media with wood as the base. We're similar but different in our style.
When discussing folk art definitions, she said you know it when you see it. That's what a folk artist would say. She can join my club. It's people's art.

Pocket Reference for Artists

Artists' pockets are useful for storage. Always an added bonus to find the newly acquired pants have 'deep pockets.' Deep thoughts can easily reside in there.

  Pockets as folk art subject  ©robinrkent

Lists of things to do, tools and screws to be returned, paper napkin drawings, loose change. I'll know what needs to be done next when I pull the winner out from my pocket. They become the saddlebag to my pack animal. Safe and secure when migrating, say from one side of the house to the other. 

But as the season gets colder, and I add layers, pockets become too much of a good thing. Too many hiding places. I've found  things I've looked for all summer in my spring/fall jacket. Like little memory scrap books they turn up reminding me of escaped thoughts. 

I always forget to look in the previous season's pockets. But I expect all will eventually come out in the wash. Those loose pennies are so hard to retrieve from there, though.

Left: 'For Your Consideration'
Acrylic on Barn Board

Time Traveler

'Time management specialist' will be added to my resume after 'artist' and 'caregiver.' As a kid, I never kept track of time. I often got 'stuck'. Friends had to break my trance for me to stay current in our fast paced childhood world. I'm paying now for all that random dreaming. Glad to have the extra hour today! Never enough time is turning into a problem.

Wall assemblage tracking time at home  ©robinrkent

Viewing problems as creative challenges can be successful and usually fun. Here's my plan for rolling one solution for time and art together:
I want to create simpler art - whether assemblage sculpture (a la Marisol) or painting (Milton Avery). Being mindful of editing and simplifying might also take less time.    Bingo!

When asked recently 'how long does it take to make my art,' I described how some works can be unruly throughout. Not a linear process; many sideroads to get to the end envisioned. They thought differently recalling how they watched a family friend/artist start a huge painting and finish it the next day. Hmmm. I know artists I admire who can do that also.

I'll give it a try. Nothing to lose but some time.

Chapter 2, Fairy Tales

I've always been attracted to eastern European and Russian illustration. Must be from the connection to fairy tale illustrations, a childhood highlight. East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Good Master, Andersen's Fairy Tales are among my favorites. And all that art originated from this locale. 

Detail from my Andersen's fairy tales cover

They were familiar but other worldly. I wanted the back story, not necessarily the fairy tale. 
When I enlarged and turned this cover illustration around, the illustrator had written:
'[Miss] Catherine Elizabeth, my darling grand daughter with love dedicate these kind and gentle fairy tales of the kind and gentle people of Denmark. Arthur Szyk N.Y. 1944' 
Interesting that 'kind and gentle' appears twice. He was born in Poland 1894, and died in Connecticut 1951, Surrounded by wars and unrest all his life, he kept painting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Szyk 

Fairy Tales and Folk Art

I'd like to do a whole theme of favorite fairy tales someday when there are no deadlines. Is that Neverland? Guess Frog Hollow's 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' show is still on my mind. (blog posts Sept. 8 and 15, 2012)

The new subject now for the Framers Market's Gallery show (November 2, '12) is 'Tweets.' Will it only be about birds?  Many ideas are flying, and I need one to land. In the meantime, I did this small painting that covers both:

'Fly By Night'   acrylic on canvas         ©robinrkent

The idea came from my memory of an Andersen's fairy tales illustration.
So convenient that my mother read while I stared at the illustrations. I looked forward to pages that displayed them.
I don't think being read to helped her goal of teaching me to read, but really helped my studio arts education.
The illustration style from those old children's books held me. They had a mystical yet ominous style I still love. Was life harder? Childhood short, and reality bleak. Maybe the candy colors of today are just illusions.

Marisol and I

Many moons ago I tagged along with a friend in the art world, and was able to show photos of my sculpture assemblage to a Gallery Director in New York City.
His comment was my work reminded him of Marisol.

Marisol Escobar's work

Marisol? I wasn't familiar with that artist. He suggested I look her up and when I did, I saw what he meant.
She immediately became my talisman. Having the same 'medium' and similar humor delights me. Since then, I've felt a connectedness to her, but at the same time, a need to declare I hadn't known her work beforehand. I had bushwacked my own way to this similar path, bumping along as I go.
Her world is multinational; multicontinental; multifamous.
Mine is small town.
But it did feel like a smaller world after finding her.

See her work by googling: Images for marisol escobar

Drawing A Blank

Sometimes a pause is good for the soul. Not actively creating art can mean the hardest work on the next piece has begun. (Or so I tell myself.) The process starts before the paintbrush. First to find a goal and mentally discern the connection. A hook that resonates within. Then, how to proceed: assemblage/sculpture or painting?

'Dog on Rug' wood/acrylic wall assemblage  ©robinrkent

Like a dog picking up a scent, once found, it's a link you are drawn to follow. With no end in sight. Entertain that thought, or spin off onto something else. You'll know when you've arrived. That's what the wait was all about.