Folk Art - Art - Investigating Walls

Hills at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

Stone walls are works of art, in and of themselves. They are examples of folk art, provided that they contain one iota of extra beauty or indiosyncratic expression, such as a particular pattern to stone placement.

BACKGROUND

The traits that characterize folk art include

• Useful Object: The object itself, or the prototype from which it was made, must be useful, for example being a fence, a boundary marker or divider for land? Examples include weather vanes, duck decoys or dishes.
• Extra Beauty: Does that weather vane really need a codfish or whale or rooster? No. But this extra beauty doesn't stop it from being a weather vane.
• Craft Processes: Is the object made by hand? The idea here is that each piece of folk art is produced individually, i.e. they are not manufactured to identical specifications. Often they are rough hewn.
• Natural Materials: Folk art is almost always made of materials that are found in a home and village environment, for example, wood, fabric, wrought iron.
• Cultural Tradition: Folk art us usually an expression of a local cultural tradition, or style of doing things.

ACTIVITY

Take your students out to a wall. Either give them a list, or ask them questions about whther or not the wall: is a useful object; has extra beauty; was made by craft processes and with natural materials; and follows a local cultural tradition. If they answer yes to each question, then it is probably a piece of folk art. Have the students justify this in a short written assignment.

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