Discover the romance of tramp art, folk art made made from discarded wooden cigar boxes, layer upon layer, one notch at a time, by untrained artists using simple tools and recycled materials. Tramp art crafters representing over 40 nationalities carved tramp art in America. It was also practiced throughout the world wherever cigars were smoked. These artists transformed the discarded boxes into pieces of utility and wonder. Never before has the subject been studied in such depth. Over 600 color photographs document 100s of items, ranging from picture frames and mirrors, to boxes, bureaus, and fantasy pieces. The designs and colors reflect a naive sensibility and aesthetic that is at once charming and beautiful. Here is a rich assemblage of the history of the art form and a thorough the study of the artists' lives and work. Misguided romantic mythologies long associated with tramp art are dispelled to leave an accurate picture of these noble notchers. A foreword by award-winning author and art historian Barbara Goldsmith sets the stage, and the pages that follow both celebrate the art and deepen our understanding of its roots and practitioners. This book will be treasured by folk art lovers everywhere.

The life and times of Alabama folk potter Jerry Brown, as told in his own words Born in 1942, Jerry Brown helped out in his father's pottery shop as a young boy. There he learned the methods and techniques for making pottery in a family tradition dating back to the 1830s. His responsibilities included tending the mule that drove the mill that was used to mix clay (called "mud" by traditional potters). Business suffered as demand for stoneware churns, jugs, and chamber pots waned in the postwar years, and manufacture ceased following the deaths of Brown's father and brother in the mid-1960s. Brown turned to logging for his livelihood, his skill with mules proving useful in working difficult and otherwise inaccessible terrain. In the early 1980s, he returned to the family trade and opened a new shop that relied on the same methods of production with which he had grown up, including a mule-powered mill for mixing clay and the use of a wood-fired rather than gas-fueled kiln. Folklorist Joey Brackner met Brown in 1983, and the two quickly became close friends who collaborated together on a variety of documentary and educational projects in succeeding years-efforts that led to greater exposure, commercial success, and Brown's recognition as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. For years, Brown spoke of the urge to write his life story, but he never set pen to paper. In 2015, Brackner took the initiative and interviewed Brown, recording his life story over the course of a weekend at Brown's home. Of Mules and Mud is the result of that marathon interview session, conducted one year before Brown passed away. Brackner has captured Jerry Brown's life in his own words as recounted that weekend, lightly edited and elaborated. Of Mules and Mud is illustrated with photos from all phases of Brown's life, including a color gallery of 28 photos of vessel forms made by Brown throughout his career that collectors of folk pottery will find invaluable.

A romantic view of 19th-century Canada -- a domestic complement to the work of Bartlett, Constable, and Kane.Anthony Flower (1792-1875) lived and worked in New Brunswick for most of his life. A farmer with a lifelong passion for art, he painted until his death at the age of eighty-three. His work opens a window on a time and place now gone. His paintings depict the life that he saw around him in rural New Brunswick and the events and scenes described in newspapers of the day.Anthony Flower's art was among the first in New Brunswick to depict rural New Brunswick. Through his paintings, we learn about day-to-day life, religion, how people dressed, what their interests were, and what was important to them, all important pieces to our understanding of everyday life in nineteenth-century Canada.Une vue romantique du Canada du XIXe siAcle. Un complA (c)ment domestique au travail de Bartlett, Constable et Kane.Anthony Flower (1792-1875) a vA (c)cu et travaillA (c) au Nouveau-Brunswick pendant la majeure partie de sa vie. Agriculteur passionnA (c) par l'art, il peint jusqu'A sa mort A l'Acge de quatre-vingt-trois ans. Son travail ouvre une fenAtre sur un temps et un lieu disparu. Ses peintures dA (c)peignent la vie qu'il a vue autour de lui dans les rA (c)gions rurales du Nouveau-Brunswick et les A (c)vA (c)nements et scAnes dA (c)crits dans les journaux de l'A (c)poque.L'art d'Anthony Flower a A (c)tA (c) parmi les premiers A reprA (c)senter le Nouveau-Brunswick rural. A travers ses peintures, nous apprenons la vie quotidienne, la religion, la faAon dont les gens s'habillent, quels sont leurs intA (c)rAts et ce qui est important pour eux, autant d'A (c)lA (c)ments importants pour notre comprA (c)hension de la vie quotidienne au Canada au XIXe siAcle.

The gnarled branches of a beautiful old plum tree reach toward the sky. A mushroom hunter searches for morels among rolling hills. A small boat is tossed among the tumultuous waves of an angry sea. Striding Lines, an homage to Wisconsin artist and quilter Rumi O'Brien, presents these striking images of her work and many more, accompanied by descriptions that share the stories of each piece in the artist's own words. Each quilt represents a moment, often autobiographical, crafted with whimsy, revealing an inspired talent. Bobbie Malone reaches beyond the quilts to tell O'Brien's own story, from her initial foray into the quilting world to her developed dedication to the craft. Contributions from leaders in the art, textile and quilting community, including Melanie Herzog and Marin Hanson, contextualize O'Brien's work in the greater community of quiltmakers and artists. This book celebrates the life and ingenuity of a Japanese-born American immigrant whose oeuvre is equally Japanese and Wisconsinite-and entirely distinctive.

The saddle has become an American icon. Wranglers rely on saddles every day, but discerning outsiders favor them for image enhancement and self-expression. Thus saddles turn up in paintings, films, even advertisements for cigarettes and automobiles. In the marketplace of western memorabilia they have great value.

Saddles--sometimes intricately and exquisitely carved--are no longer merely cowboy paraphernalia. At their most elaborate, they have a highly developed aesthetic. In America, saddlemaking can be regarded as one of the most complex and distinctly regional of western crafts.

One of the most famous saddlemakers is Donald L. King of Sheridan, Wyoming. His Sheridan-style saddle, one of the finest of all western saddles in craftsmanship and beauty, is commissioned regularly for championship rodeo trophies and is prized by collectors.

The son of an itinerant cowboy, King was immersed in the traditions of ranch life and crafts from an early age. Today he is acknowledged as the creator of the most influential style in western leathercraft. His intricate, hand-tooled works bear his signature emblem, the wild rose, and other floral elements. By the 1960s saddle aficionados had discovered him, and King's Saddlery became the center of a large community of saddlemakers. Within the following twenty years King had so profoundly influenced the aesthetics of his craft that he began to create saddles that were art objects for collectors, galleries, and museums.

This fascinating study of the Sheridan saddle and its creator not only highlights King's contributions but also traces the origins of the western saddle to its roots in Mexico and Spain.

Timothy H. Evans, former Wyoming state folklorist, is coauthor of "The Wyoming Folk Arts Handbook."

Although Franz Boas--one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century--is best known for his voluminous writings on cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, he is also recognized for breaking new ground in the study of so-called primitive art. His writings on art have major historical value because they embody a profound change in art history. Nineteenth-century scholars assumed that all art lay on a continuum from primitive to advanced: artworks of all nonliterate peoples were therefore examples of early stages of development. But Boas's case studies from his own fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest demonstrated different tenets: the variety of history, the influence of diffusion, the symbolic and stylistic variation in art styles found among groups and sometimes within one group, and the role of imagination and creativity on the part of the artist. This volume presents Boas's most significant writings on art (dated 1889-1916), many originally published in obscure sources now difficult to locate. The original illustrations and an extensive, combined bibliography are included. Aldona Jonaitis's careful compilation of articles and the thorough historical and theoretical framework in which she casts them in her introductory and concluding essays make this volume a valuable reference for students of art history and Northwest anthropology, and a special delight for admirers of Boas.

Mexico's love of celebration is well known, and cartoneria, a kind of papier-mache art, produces the objects that are essential to Mexican holidays and festivals, including Day of the Dead, Holy Week, and Christmas. Just about everyone knows what a pinata is, but few understand that it is part of an entire branch of traditional handcrafts. With more than 120 photos and bilingual English/Spanish text, here is the history of the craft, how it is woven through Mexican culture, and how the craft is growing and changing. Learn about the traditional objects made with the technique and their importance to Mexican culture. Look inside the studios of several artisans and consider not only the craft's strongholds in Mexico City and Celaya, Guanajuato, but also other areas in Mexico where it is expanding in creativity. A variety of artisans (more than 50 artists, museum directors, and other experts) help identify who the main drivers of this folk art are today, its relevance to modern Mexican culture, and where it is headed.

This book invites readers into a growing, dynamic conversation among scholars and critics around a vibrant community of artists from an African American South. This constellation of creative makers includes familiar figures, such as Thornton Dial Sr., Lonnie Holley, and quiltmakers Nettie Young and Mary Lee Bendolph, whose work is collected in major museum and private collections. The artists represented extend to lesser-known but equally compelling creators working across a wide range of artistic forms, themes, and geographies. The essays gathered here, accompanied by a generous selection of full-color plates, survey subjects such as the artists' engagement with enslavement and liberation, the spiritual and religious dimensions of their work, the technical aspects such as the common use of "assemblage" as an artistic medium, the links between art and biography, and the evolving status of their reception in narratives of contemporary, modern, southern, and American art. Contributors are Celeste-Marie Bernier, Laura Bickford, Michael J. Bramwell, Elijah Heyward, Sharon P. Holland, and Pamela J. Sachant.

Tramp art describes a particular type of wood carving practiced in the United States and Europe between the 1880s and 1940s in which discarded cigar boxes and fruit crates were notched and layered to make a variety of domestic objects. These were primarily boxes and frames in addition to small private altars, crosses, wall pockets, clock cases, plant stands, and even furniture. Whittling objects such as chains and ball-in-cage whimsies was a common hobby -- including among rail-riding hobos -- and for many years tramp art was believed to have been made by these itinerants as well. Although this notion has been widely dispelled, the name has stuck. In recent years efforts have been made to identify makers by name and reveal their stories. While some examples of tramp art may be attributed to itinerants, this carving style was more commonly a practice of working-class men creating functional objects for their households. The book presents over one hundred and fifty tramp art objects collected mainly from the United States and also including pieces from France, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil -- demonstrating the far reach this art form has had. It includes works by contemporary artists, thus establishing tramp art as an ongoing folk art form rather than a vestige of the past. The pieces reproduced here reveal an artistic and intricate sensibility applied to each handcrafted piece. Essays consider assumptions about tramp art related to class, quality, and the anonymity of its makers and examine this practice through the lens of home and family while tracing its relationship to the tobacco industry. The book will cultivate an appreciation of an art form that is as thought-provoking as it is enduring.