Monday, June 29, 2015

July-August 2015 Folk Art




Upcoming Folk Art Exhibits Not To Be Missed  



Folk art is most commonly known as the art of the folk. This ‘every day’ art form is rooted in traditions that come from community and culture. It expresses cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics and includes a range of utilitarian and decorative media, including cloth, wood, paper, clay, metal and more.

To find out more about folk art, consider taking in a folk art exhibit or two this summer. Here are three July and August exhibits:

Folk Art and American Modernism
July 18- September 27. American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
In the early years of the twentieth century, pivotal American modernists began to equate the
straightforwardness, abstracted forms, and delight in color of early folk art with the new modernist art they had studied in Europe and were pioneering in America. Folk Art and American Modernism traces the journey of these weathervanes, portraits, decoys, hooked rugs, and other forms of folk art from fishing shacks to the wall of major art museums.




July 11 – November 1. San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, San Jose, California
Guest curator: Roderick Kiracofe
Found includes vintage quilts from several collections. Made includes contemporary quilts often constructed with found materials as well as contemporary art based on quilt themes. 
To learn more about folk art, click here
Photo: from the Found/Made exhibit. 



Monday, June 22, 2015

Harlelm Renaissance




Наrlеm Rеnаіssаnсе folk heroes/& heroines 
Louis Armstrong
Тhе Наrlеm Rеnаіssаnсе wаs thе nаmе gіvеn tо thе сulturаl, sосіаl, аnd аrtіstіс ехрlоsіоn thаt tооk рlасе іn Наrlеm (in Manhattan, New York) between 1918 and the mid-1930’s. It was also knоwn аs thе "Νеw Νеgrо Моvеmеnt".  It іnсludеd thе nеw Аfrісаn-Аmеrісаn сulturаl ехрrеssіоns асrоss thе urbаn аrеаs іn thе Νоrthеаst аnd Міdwеst Unіtеd Ѕtаtеs аffесtеd bу thе Grеаt Міgrаtіоn (Аfrісаn Аmеrісаn), оf whісh Наrlеm wаs thе lаrgеst. Тhе period was the rebirth of Аfrісаn-Аmеrісаn аrts.
Literature blossomed and produced prolific writers, such as Langston Hughes, an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry he was best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
This artistic explosion also nurtured up and coming Black writers, including:
James Baldwin: American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays were collected in Notes of a Native Son and his most recognized book was Go Tell It on the Mountain
 Zora Neale Hurston who published 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, and was best known her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
A new style of music was also born in Harlem. It combined the traditionally jazz band of the southern African-American with the piano music of the more elite Northern Blacks. Jazz greats included Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington. Their music crossed the boundary lines of color and ushered in a uniquely American sound.
Other art forms, such as dance (Billy ‘Bojangles’ Robinson) and painting (Lois Mailou Jones) also reached new expressive heights. Unfortunately the progressive artistic accomplishes of that time was dampened beneath the devastating weight of the Great Depression.
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