FOLK ART & MATERIAL CULTURE
ART:
decorative in form, proportion, and detail (aesthetics primary)
CRAFT:
made to serve a specific and important function -- to be used in everyday life
o
Furniture,
tools, caned chairs, quilts, pots, baskets, etc.
o
Nonetheless
decorative in form, proportion, and detail
Transformation
of Craft into
Art requires enhanced, refined ornamentation, challenging self, but same skills
EXAMPLE
#1 – Pueblo pottery in Acoma, New Mexico
Pueblo
potters attend to very old methods, techniques, materials, and even designs
Families of potters learn and practice their art together
But each Pueblo pot is unique in design, decorating, etc.
Most
successful & renowned potters today – as was likely true in the past =
fresh and original designers
They
also honor past, learn methods, and borrow techniques of previous generations (continuity)
Henry
Glassie: “In
a time dominated by industrial production, potters at Acoma and in Georgia have
determined to hold to elder techniques, digging their own clay and forming it in
their own hands, while their nimble minds direct the process of creation. This
mix of accommodation and resistance establishes a frame of adaptive revival
within which forms and techniques hold steady but functions shift" (1999
– The
Potter’s Art, p. 56)
Functional shift
Pueblo
pots were used primarily to carry water
Today’s
function has shifted
Still used in sacred ceremonial context
More often pots are made today specifically as ornaments
At
its best, all art, whether folk art or fine art, either engages a process of
"transcendence of consciousness" or leads us "into an awareness
of our position in the cosmos" (Glassie, 1999, 119).
Not the artifacts you see in the cases in museums
Art = product of process of convergence (people always significant
– community)
between
individual, willed creativity and communal life
Glassie:
Tradition "is
rooted in volition and it flowers in variation and innovation. It opposes the
alien and imposed . . ." so that the "center [of folklore] is the
merger of individual creativity and social order. Philosophically, politically,
my discipline upholds the human right to the construction of a meaningful
universe through artistic action; it stresses the interdependence of the
personal, the social, the sacred; the aesthetic, the ethical, the cosmological;
the beautiful, the good, the true. Practically, folklore is the study of human
creativity in its own context" (1993, 9).
Certain examples esp. celebrated, enjoyed, hailed (as best examples) =
especially competent, inspired, or profound
Embodies the values and visions of its makers
Allows for an expression of how culture has shaped us, even while the
artist may challenge the present and try to shape the future
Unlike most art in museums, such as paintings we are trained to consider
as art, folk art is not limited to a frame
Throughout time and space, many of our most profound arts globally were
folk arts like textiles, ceramics, and stories, which urge us to glimpses of
excellence even within our daily lives
Folklore today: urban legends, joke cycles, rap, blues, media-based
beliefs like UFO's or Bigfoot, garage bands, internet hoaxes, foodways, and yard
art
Created in community, any art (whether verbal or material)
Learned
from relatives, mentors, friends, even strangers, connects us to each other
Draws
on collective experience and wisdom
Our
sense of history is built partly from folklore
Folklore
directs us or allows us to imagine how to live
EXAMPLE
#2 (from narrative genres) – Myths (very popular and much-studied oral genre)
Have been considered as spoken versions of history
Languages like French have same word for history and story
Word myth itself (from the Greek) means story or word
Words and symbols form the basis of our communication, which
linguistically largely revolves around stories, even today
Some might describe myths as metaphorical interpretations of the past
Myth and history both help people to try to understand their tragedies
and to imagine the constraints and options of human possibility (and thus they
shift)
POLITICS OF FOLKLORE (changing/challenging culture)
Dynamic
conceptualization of folklore à
dynamic and fluid nature of all culture
Learning to appreciate the context from which art flows
~ recognizing the artistic genius in communities all around the world
Muslims
Asians
Africans
People of color
Poor people
Communities of Women
Henry
Glassie: "Wishing
truly to understand, we will not merely ask people beyond our walls for facts to
assimilate into our schemes. We will learn to engage in collegial exchange with
non-academic intellectuals, discovering in conversation new arts of discourse
and new theories of time" (1999b, p. 9)
Understanding folklore helps
Enlarge circle of those we consider worthy (academically, artistically,
historically)
Attend to the stories and art of folk artists around the world
Listens to artists in their own context (as part of a community)
Learn to appreciate others and ourselves more fully
Eliminate notion of alien or exotic “other”
because we realize the logic of
their art/community
Context helps us understand the art
The art helps us understand the humanity of the so-called others
Thus we realize our sympathies and interconnections
Realized within the context of both the individual lives & the communities crucial to its creation, folk art teaches us tolerance and understanding
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