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   The Crafts Movement in 20th Century America   Tramp-art.com

    In the waning years of the 19th century - economic, technological, cultural, educational, international and aesthetic forces were creating new movements in the visual arts. One movement encouraged the rejection of artists' conformity to traditional academic and artistic rules.  In this "rewriting" of the rules "Modern Art" was born.

    Another movement was a rejection of industrialization and commercialism, a movement that put a high value on handiwork and artisan based economies for social change.  As rural America witnessed its decline, as workers sought city jobs and lifestyles, as urbanization was on the rise, a return to aesthetics of NATURE and an appreciation of folk art and crafts found adherents in the intelligentsia and among the common man.  This "Crafts Movement" crossed economic lines and among many became a shared value.  The Crafts Movement's  roots were in England and the movement spread to Europe and the United States / Canada.   As an international movement the various countries shared common values, yet uniquely nationalistic traits appeared in the "art popular" of the early 1900s.    

    Consider Electra Havemeyer Webb a philanthropist, who as a member of America's "aristocracy", as teenager, in 1908 purchased a cigar store Indian for $25.00.  Her folk art collection grew into The Shelburn Museum.  Consider the missionary work of, Frances Goodrich in rural North Carolina, who in the 1890s created a craft guild.   This guild movement  survives to this day, founded on the belief in the redemptive possibilities of handiwork and crafts.  Consider Thomas Durant (and latter the Vanderbilt family) who began construction in 1895 of a rustic summer retreat, a great camp, in the Adirondacks called the Sagamore .  America is scattered with these great camps, the summer retreats of the privileged, and these testify to the appeal of the nature aesthetic, a rustic revival in architecture, interior design and furnishings.  Consider  Arsene Coll an immigrant textile worker who crafted tramp art items during a union strike.    Coll  "just happens" to be remembered for his craft yet there survives in the antique market place, a huge body of work, by anonymous, "blue collar" crafters.  This Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century became an American value.  AND - by "Arts and crafts movement" we mean something much larger and inclusive than the aesthetics of the Mission Style and the associated practitioners such as Stickley and Roycroft.  It is unfortunate that "arts and crafts" in today's popular culture has come to define a rather narrow slice of a much larger and richer pie.  With this caution in mind and for the sake of clarity we shall refer to this shared value of early 20th century Americans as simply the CRAFTS MOVEMENT.  And, this crafts movement, despite the radio and then television and now the internet- remains alive to this day. 

00-112 vintage photograph of a folk art picture frame

A new technology helps to  popularize several crafts The invention of photography blossomed in the late 1800s and early 1900s into "big business" and also became a form of recreation, i.e. collecting photographs, going to get your picture taken and later -  taking you own pictures. The demand for photographs created a demand for picture frames which turn of the century crafters helped to meet. Picture frames were often made for a crafter’s personal keepsake photographs or to give as gifts (love tokens). This need for picture frames helped to popularize a great variety of crafts including  tramp art, pyrography chip carving, , crown of thorns, prison art, folk marquetry, match stick, fretwork, memory, rustic and even as illustrated in this photograph- tin can art!  A great variety of these folk art frames survive in today's antique market.

     Concurrent with the the crafts movement was the Manuel Arts Movement in public education. This movement brought a variety of domestic and occupation skills into the public school classroom and curriculum.  The theory being that the ABCs and math were insufficient in an industrialized economy.  In varying degrees the following were introduced to America's classrooms. The graphic arts – drawing and picture making.  The mechanic arts – woodworking and metalworking.  The plastic arts – modeling and pottery.  The textile arts – weaving, braiding, sewing and garment making.  The booking arts – paper and cardboard work, lettering , bookbinding and leather tooling.  This was more than a "how to" education, as an emphasis was put on problem solving and creativity.  The coexistence of the Crafts Movement and the Manuel Arts Movement, reinforced and strengthened one another.  All variety of helpful books were published by the Manuel Arts Press covering the vast scope of this curriculum and example being   "The Art Of Whittling" by Walter I. Faurot

Folk Art?  I know it when I see it  -  the ordinary turned extraordinary

 American crafts & folk art of the early 20th century - definitions & terminology 

      When do crafts become folk art? The answer has as much to do with scholarship as personal preference.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some eyes are perhaps better "trained" then others.  Not every handmade craft exemplifies the characteristics of folk art.

      Defining folk art has been the subject of a lot of academic discussions.  What most definitions  have in common is making an aesthetic judgment upon the objects we make and live with, i.e. our  material culture. Unfortunately  folk art can be construed as a value like "beauty" or "ugly."  All definitions tend to be somewhat vague and change over time. Decades ago "folk art" was used to describe decorated items crafted by pre-industrial cultures, the hand decorated household items of the Pennsylvania Germans, for example.   Today,  folk art  is used indiscriminately to describe a much larger body of works.

"folk art" has been used describe objects that:

• are decorated and handmade.  The decorated objects often being "every day" household items such as clock cases, shelves, ditty boxes, furniture and other items of utility.
• the decorations can be described as being "bold", "open", as having "strong design" and "uncomplicated meaning".
• The materials used to fashion folk art items are often what is on hand or can be harvested, recycled or scrounged from the waste stream.

• are anonymous,  untrained amateurs.
• work within  family and cultural traditions (ethnic, religious,  national,  occupational,  fraternal, etc.)  The craft becomes generational, passed from older to younger, a continuum of skill, practice and often design.  This sentiment can be described as "traditional arts."  The crafter works in a culture of like minded people.

    The problems with definitions are that - there are exceptions to every rule.  Consider folk art "weather vanes" produced in quantities, produced by skilled craftsman / metalworkers, multiple copies made of a single design, possibly fabricated by more than one artisan's hand and are identified to a particular manufacturing business. Is this folk art?  Yes, such a work might be folk art.  The same scenario could apply to cast iron wind mill weights or shooting gallery targets, so understanding folk art can be vague and problematic!

    Luckily there exists a language that surrounds folk art that helps one zero in on the attributes of  a decorated item or the characteristics of the item's maker.  These terms too, can be "vague" and "problematic," but the following terms are useful  and make for a more meaningful discussion of folk art.

• Obsessive Art is often seen in works that "glory" in repetitive tasks of construction and works that disregard design conventions of the times.  The crafter is seen as separated from society, fashioning junk, waste, and items on-hand, through diligence and free expression into items that the crafter tends to keep for personal enjoyment or to give as gifts.  The repetitive nature of the construction techniques can lend themselves to a kind of personal meditation for the crafter and results in items requiring hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of handiwork. 

03-062 recycled materials of all varieties are the basic ingredients of this folk art creation

folk art plaque; New Mexico State Seal "The late Mr. S L Smith found this historical and ingenious masterpiece in an attic in Santa Fe and moved it to Clines Corners where you'll find it at the cashiers stand.  The hardware firm which fashioned this seal, circa 1912 when New Mexico was admitted to the Union, made it a unique display by utilizing the following items from their stores:  Spoons, knives, thumb tacks, staples, blank keys, hook latches, old fashioned pen points, and a blacksnake whip patterned on a background of black velvet.  See this seal on your next trip through Clines Corners"  information on postcard

• Naive Art is often seen in works that are outside of traditional design styles and the similar arts of the period.  The crafter is not just untrained but more importantly unschooled, uninformed or uninhibited, fashioning items that are very individualistic and items  likely considered bizarre by the crafter's contemporaries.  
• Outsider Art is a designation that at one time said more about the creator then the creation. If 'folk art can be considered "main stream," then "outsider" is out of the stream altogether!  The creations are naive and possibly obsessive. Outsider art  challenges the concept of "utility" or "decorated household items" that once seemed to be a characteristic of "folk art" as outsiders are likely to decorate any and every thing.   In this instance the crafter's art becomes consuming, to the crafter creativity becomes an outlet for some "mental demons."  Perhaps the crafter is inspired by a consuming religious missionary zeal, a profound sense of isolation or dejection or other physic malady.  The outsider often crafts a living space or home environment that is totally decorated and devoted to this passion. The concept of Visionary or Intuitive is aptly applied to outsider art as these terms speak to personal obsession.  Today, outsider art  has become a more "art market" driven term, used by galleries and artists to sell contemporary naive art / folk art.
• Folk Crafts is a very useful concept to invoke when "folk art" becomes restrictive, for example in; I know it is hand decorated but is it folk art?   From our vantage point of the 21st century, we might allow that these antique wood burn items created from "kits" sold by the Flemish Art Company qualify as folk craft but not as folk art.  Such wood burning kits once enjoyed a huge popularity and their craft projects have become a collectable in today's antique market.  Folk craft is so inclusive that anything "folk art" is automatically included .