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 Paper & cardboard - cutting, folding and pasting as folk art     Tramp-art.com

    Within the antique and collectables market there survives a large body of diverse works that are crafted using paper or cardboard. Crafts made from recycled matchbooks, cigar bands, newspapers, greeting cards, wallpaper, postage stamps, candy, cigarette and gum wrappers - were cut, pasted, decoupage and folded onto (or made into) a variety of utilitarian items such as baskets, boxes, table tops, and dishes.  Then there are the paper objects such as  silhouettes, collages and cut paper pictures that are decorative art based works.  Lacking a common language to describe these items we shall use Paper crafts to reference such items produced during the American crafts movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s.  
 

photograph of a folk art - scissors art - flower
06-032 1920s scissors and folding composed of several paper layers

folk art - silhouette of a child

 "Cut-paper pictures" and scissors art .  Most every child shares the experience of folding a sheet of paper and scissoring a chain of  jointed paper dolls. This technique of folding and cutting is so "main stream" it hardly seems worth mentioning yet a lot of folk art has been made using this principle.  Another  form of picture making is achieved by removing areas within a sheet of paper in such a way that the loss and the remaining paper forms a design or picture.  This is to paper what fretwork is to wood.  There is no folding in this ancient technique just cutting.  This technique is seen in antique "cut-paper pictures" called Scherenschnitte, a popular American folk craft of the 1800s.  Several cut-out sheets might be used in a work to achieve more complexity. This craft is practiced to this day.

Silhouettes are paper cut profiles of  people and on occasions other items perhaps a pet for example.  The technique is simple - trace a shadow on a sheet of paper and trace and cut for a likeness.   Very popular before the invention of photography (1840s) the craft survives to this day.   Specialist crafters employed a complicated device called  a "Physiognotrace"  that streamlined and simplified the process. Such labor saving devices allowed for a popular commerce in silhouettes, sitting for your picture in silhouette parlors or for itinerant crafters. Several of these crafter's work have become very collectable in the antique market . Often a crafter might "pen and ink"  in various details for more decorative works. 
 

folk art - prison art - purse

 Prison Art:   In the movie classic "The Man With The Golden Arm," (1955) star Frank Sinatra, on being released from prison, presents his wife with a belt made of woven cigarette packs.  Prison art describes folk art objects made from folded and woven gum wrappers, cigarette packs (with & without the cellophane), paper bags, matchbook covers and similar recycled materials.    

     "Prison Art" can describe arts and crafts MADE BY prison inmates and includes works such as paintings drawings, sculptures or whatever.  For our purposes we use "Prison Art" to describe a paper folding craft enjoyed and practiced by the public at large. During the 1960s a popular school girl art was crafting gum wrapper chains. Prison art is often referred to as tramp art.  This website provides an argument that this is mistaken.

 

Below is a scan of a 1960s era leaflet - showing various uses for recycled gum wrappers

make a gum wrapper chain, 

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  Below is a scan of a 1960s era leaflet - showing paper folding techniques for making chains

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instructions on how to make a Prison Art picture frame can be found in the following book 

"BY HAND - 25 Beautiful Objects to Make in the American Folk Art Tradition" by Janice Eaton Kilby, Lark Books, 2001. see page 82 for instructions on crafting a "Folded Paper Bullseye Mirror Frame" (do not ask us to copy this information as this is a contemporary book and is protected by copyright - please, you find the book)
 

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# 06-028  A studio style photograph of dress made from newspapers
 

Looking to purchase folk art? -  click on the below link

 


Antique American Folk Art

 

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