Folk Art and Inuit Carvings

This was the summer I fell in love with folk art. I don't mean just American folk art, but all folk art,  the folk art of other cultures as well. I can't stop looking at it online and searching for it at flea markets, etc.

I really love theorem paintings and I want to try to update that idea for some contemporary projects involving recycling old clothing that would otherwise go to waste. Old shirts can become new theorem paintings.

Here is a set of folk art carvings I felt very lucky to find. (Photos not mine.)

And I found these burl wood carvings out of Ashbery's home town of Sodus. These remind me of De Chirico so strongly! These two figures really play on my subconscious. Strong in wabi-sabi! They refuse to resolve into the beings we sense implicit in them. More than a little sci-fi. They also remind me of that art show where the Futurists displayed a (natural,unmodified) tree root figure as art. (Photos not mine.)

Here is a small lot of pyrography plaques by Bettie Vretenar. I love the gender-fluid George Washington. Pronouns: they, them. And the spaceman is dishy too. These look even better "in person." (Not my photo.)

And this guy has such an interesting and flexible sense of balance! This piece of early kinetic art can be balanced numerous ways. The artist was quite ingenious. (Not my photos.)

I've started very slowly collecting Inuit carvings. Here are two I didn't nab for my collection, but whose beauty stayed with me. 

This first one is Levi Tetpon, who is just an amazing sculptor and totally under-recognized. (Not my photos below).

And this otter is attributed to Charlie Kasudluaq (b. 1927). This one also broke my heart in several places.

 I'll close with this nonpareil folk art carving of a Southern Baptist snake-handler. This went for over five hundred dollars even with the condition issues. I agree. It's going to haunt my dreams for years. Hard not to see a direct connection to those carved women of Knossos wearing the serpent-skirts. And yet the artist who carved this in the nineteenth century probably never saw those images.