Footsteps articles from May 2003

Footsteps archives from May 2003

From obscurity to fame.
May 1, 2003... Bessie Harvey, Bill Traylor, Minnie Evans, Thornton Dial, and William Edmondson all have something in common: They are among the most respected African American folk artists of our time. With such skilled people as Harvey and Edmondson at...

What is folk art?
May 1, 2003... Folk art comes in many forms, including objects with practical, decorative, symbolic, ceremonial, or recreational functions. Folk art also includes paintings, sculpture, and other traditional forms of art expression, with no function other...

The quiet legacy.
May 1, 2003... Quilt making is an ancient art form associated with women in all regions of the world, including China, India, and Syria. When Europeans migrated to Colonial America, they brought with them their traditional quilt patterns. Today, the...

Harriet Powers.
May 1, 2003... Born a slave in 1837, Harriet Powers became famous for her appliqued quilts (right) with African-derived motifs and symbols. Powers once explained the meaning of the images contained in her quilts. She carefully depicted the sun in various...

A tradition lives on.
May 1, 2003... Gee's Bend, Alabama, is a quiet hamlet nestled in the curve of the Alabama River as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the people who live there are descendants of slaves. For years, Gee's Bend was an isolated community. The Alabama...

The spirit in the sculpture.
May 1, 2003... Ugly jugs, tombstone people, and flying elephants--what do they have in common? All show the African spirit thriving in America. With no training as artists, African folk and their descendants picked up what was close at hand. They used...

Dave Drake: the poet-potter.
May 1, 2003... Born a slave around 1800, in Edgefield, South Carolina, Dave Drake must have had the muscles of a football line-backer. He would have had to be that strong to mold wet clay into a 40-gallon jar. Each of these jars was large enough for a...

William Edmondson: miracle worker.
May 1, 2003... In the 1930s, in Nashville, Tennessee, William Edmondson emerged as a gifted folk sculptor of tombstones. Becoming a folk sculptor came as a complete surprise to Edmondson. A son of former slaves, he had worked at several jobs and, then, for...

Ugly jugs or ingenious artwork?
May 1, 2003... Some people call them "ugly jugs." Others call them ingenious. But no one knows why these face vessels were made. They are too small to store food and too awkward to use as pitchers. Experts guess that enslaved African Americans made them for...

David Butler: the tin man.
May 1, 2003... David Butler did not become a sculptor until he was about 42 years old. In 1940, he had an accident at the Louisiana sawmill where he worked. Forced to retire early, he suddenly had a chance to do even more whittling and drawing than he had...

Two masters with the brush.
May 1, 2003... Folk art is sometimes defined as art that comes from the "common" people, the folk. During the 1930s and 1940s, folk art became rather popular in the United States. Critics and collectors called their creators "primitive" artists, largely...

Mixing it up.
May 1, 2003... A collage is an art composition of materials or objects that are usually glued or fixed to a surface. It may be created abstractly, with interesting textures, color, and patterns. African American artist Romare Bearden (1912-1988)...

Meet Winfred Rembert.
May 1, 2003... He was born in 1945, black and poor, in the rural town of Cuthbert, Georgia. Abandoned by his father and given away by his mother, who could not afford to care for him, he was adopted as an infant by his Aunt Lillian, who lovingly raised him...

Adapting to the New World.(Features)
May 1, 2003... Many of the Africans brought to the American Colonies in the early 1700s were put to work in the fields on southern plantations. Such work had not always been their trade. Some were skilled craftsmen such as boat builders, woodcarvers,...

Black Colleges to the rescue.
May 1, 2003... Aware of how widespread segregation was in the United States during the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, black and white philanthropists began to establish colleges to educate African Americans. Many of these schools, known today as...

Conserving a legacy.
May 1, 2003... The moment an artist completes a painting it slowly begins to change its visual appearance. As the liquid that was mixed with the pigments to bind the paint dries, the gloss is affected. With time, the canvas, board, or panel supports change...

The studio Museum in Harlem.(At The Museums)
May 1, 2003... The Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH) is located in the heart of Harlem, a section of New York City known for its rich, artistic, and cultural black history. Throughout the Harlem Renaissance--a literary and artistic movement during the 1920s and...

Hampton University Museum.(At The Museums)
May 1, 2003... Hampton University Museum, on the campus of the historically black college for which it is named, is the country's oldest African American museum. General Samuel Chapman Armstrong established the museum in 1868, the same year he founded the...

An artistic search.
May 1, 2003... Search the word maze below for the names of universities and artists that are listed in bold. Some words in the puzzle are backward and/or diagonal! Answers are on page 49. Clark Atlanta University North Carolina Central University...

An interview with art collector Paul R. Jones.(Reflections and Memories)
May 1, 2003... PAUL R. JONES, one of the nation's major collectors of 20th-century art, is the founder and head of Paul Jones Enterprises in Atlanta, Georgia, and of the Paul Jones Collection. For more than 20 years, his art collection has lent works for...

Books.(More About)(Discovering Ellis Ruley)(Painting Dreams: Minnie Evans, Visionary Artist)(To Conserve a Legacy)(Brief Article)(Children's Review)
May 1, 2003... Discovering Ellis Ruley by Glenn Robert Smith with Robert Kenner (Crown Publishers, 1993) tells of a little-known, self-taught artist who lived in Connecticut and died in 1959. Sixty-two of his paintings are featured in the book. ...

On the net.(More About)
May 1, 2003... by CHIP BAKER For a site with information about many different forms of African American folk art, try: www.folkart.com/~latitude/home/blackart.htm For information about Paul R. Jones and his collection, check out: ...