BUDDING YOUNG FOLK ARTIST

NANA'S HOUSE -- FOLK ART PAINTING BY WHITNEY

My family has  been interested in folk art for several years. Not only for its aesthetic, naive beauty but also for the stories sometimes associated with them.

Last summer my youngest daughter and twelve year old granddaughter came for a visit. Twelve year old Whitney had a light in her mind that she wanted to, "fire up." while she visited. 

She asked her mother if she could buy some acrylic paints and canvas boards at our local art store. We had no idea what she was up too. She sat at the kitchen table with her newly bought paints and tried her hand at folk art. She sat for many hours silently working on the paintings. When through she presented two paintings to me for my folk art collection. I love them.

SELF PORTRAIT BY FOLK ARTIST WHITNEY 

I thought she came up with some nice examples of folk art. Believe me, they are now displayed in a very visual part of my home. They now reside among some old Kentucky crocks on one of my vintage benches. The whole montage fits well together. 

WHITNEY

Children sometimes begin their interest in folk art from what they see parents or relatives constructing or collecting. Much folk art is imagined, made, and loved without words . . .  it will have gathered into itself something of its creator's freedom (Henry Glassie, 31).  It contains variability and tradition.

Some folk art constructions  include; woman's handwork (quilting, weaving, etc.)  sometimes passed down to daughters -- hand woven basketry often  made by parents as well as sons and daughters  --  carving skills from father's hands to hands of sons and daughters -- this is but a small sample. Folk art is a widely diverse dimension. Not always passed down through families but sometimes expressed through the spontaneous freedom of the mind.


For Whitney I hope that this is a beginning for a future interest in folk art.


SOURCE:
The Spirit of Folk Art by Henry Glassie