Focus on Folk Art
The public is taking the work seriously, and so are scholars, museums and the show circuit
By Christopher Boyce
After graduating from Florida State University five years ago, Chrissy Morin found herself undecided on a career path. Maybe that was fate because it allowed her to stumble into a job as a secretary for the House of Blues (HOB) in Orlando where she found herself literally surrounded by the inspiration for her eventual calling.
"I immediately fell in love with the art," Morin zestfully recalls of her first impression of the folk art décor that covers almost every inch of the HOB's property. She became inspired to find out all she could about the art and artists represented. "I was only getting bits and pieces of stories from employees, ...so I started doing a lot of research and I tried to find a way to get the staff more involved and the community more familiar with folk art."
The fascination with folk art has been spreading across the nation rapidly in the past five years, and Central Florida has been especially active in promoting its merits. In very broad terms, Barry Bergey, director of folk and traditional arts at the National Endowment for the Arts, describes the folk genre as "art that is learned as part of a community whose members share a common ethnic heritage, language, religion or geographic region."
Contemporary folk artists - whose work can be either two- or three-dimensional - tend to be influenced by traditional heritages in craftsmanship, yet their creations are often rich in experimentation. The works can be primitive in approach or finely detailed, spiritual in feeling or earthly.
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