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March/April 1998


Julia Ardery on the Ascendancy of Twentieth-Century Folk Art

Julia S. Ardery is the author of The Temptation: Edgar Tolson and the Genesis of Twentieth-Century Folk Art, to be published in April 1998 by the University of North Carolina Press. Her book explains why, since the mid-1960s, the art of poor rural people was increasingly collected by wealthy people in the U.S. Publication of this book follows quickly on the heels of the March opening of "Self-Taught Artists of the Twentieth Century: An American Anthology." The exhibition, which features Tolson's wo rk, opens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and will travel over the next two years to Atlanta, Fort Worth, Rochester, and Columbus.

Here Ardery, a journalist and sociologist, answers questions about folk art, its definition and its appeal, and about her subject, Kentucky woodcarver Edgar Tolson.



News Bytes: What is The Temptation?

Julia Ardery: The Temptation was Kentucky woodcarver Edgar Tolson's most requested and repeated theme: Adam and Eve taking the apple from the Tree of Life. I've been able to track down more than 90 versions Tolson carved between 1968 and 1984, when he die d. This subject, which many observers took as proof of Tolson's "folk" status, was actually suggested to him by an art professor at the University of Kentucky.

NB: Does your book find other temptations too?

JA: Yes--it's about how fascination with folk art grew from temptingly simple approaches to very complicated problems. At one time or another people have believed Appalachian poverty could be solved by selling local crafts; that as trained artists, critic s, and dealers, they could make names for themselves by championing folk art's "underdogs"; that they could buy art on the cheap and still consider themselves philanthropists. Art in our society presents many temptations to view others as strange and exot ic when actually they may just be poor, stubborn, or sick.

NB:What is "folk art" anyway?

JA: It depends on who's talking; in fact the book is partly about how arguments over definition made folk art more exciting and valuable. Folklorists usually look at how art symbols and skills are transmitted. If people learn to make art in the family, or within an ethnic, religious, or occupational group, what they make is more likely to be called folk art.

NB: What is "outsider art"?

JA: Outsider art is a kind of renegade cousin of folk art. It typically refers to art made by very eccentric people, not based on any discernible tradition, folk or academic. Many artists called outsiders are beset by problems: they are mentally ill, impo verished, imprisoned, or isolated somehow. My book describes how these forms of suffering and estrangement have been twisted into artistic credentials.

NB: What accounted for the upsurge in the making and collecting of folk art in the U.S. in the 1960s?

JA: Lots of things, but mainly the market for original artwork expanded as arts education expanded; folk art was good and cheap, and people were hunting for bargains. Folk art also seemed approachable and sincere as fine art had grown inscrutable, ironic, commercial. The civil rights movement and the War on Poverty focused much more attention on the cultures of poor Americans, too. Partly, contemporary folk art grew out of a spirit of liberalism in the arts--the notion that anyone could be an artist--but also it was a function of plain old curiosity.

NB: How did you come to study Edgar Tolson?

JA: I'm a Kentuckian and Tolson is the best known folk artist in this state. He was a demonstrator at three early Smithsonian Folklife festivals. He was featured in all the influential books on 20th-century folk art that appeared in the 1970s. He was amon g the first self-taught artists to be handled by the big city art galleries. Because he was acknowledged early on in this whole scene, the story of his career is a river that cuts right through the entire territory. Also, I think he was a terrific woodcar ver and a complicated, intelligent person, a man whose art and life have a lot to say.

NB: How is it that Tolson came to be seen as an artist rather than a craftsman?

JA: A group of young university-trained artists presented Tolson as a fellow sculptor. They put together one-man shows for him, offered serious interpretations of his work, photographed his pieces well, and urged collectors, gallery owners, and museums to acquire his carvings. In time they got Tolson into the Whitney Biennial and won for him a sculpture fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. They also encouraged Tolson to take on increasingly ambitious subject matter, to stretch himself.

NB: Did Tolson think of himself as an artist?

JA: It's hard to say with certainty how any person thinks of himself. But over time Tolson did begin to expound on his own works very seriously. He no longer referred to what he did as "whittling" but instead called it "a lost art." Tolson had a strong vi sual sense and enough talent to see the rarity in his own carvings. I think that in his association with the artists who admired him, he learned how artists act and adopted that role himself.

NB: What do sociology and journalism bring to the study of 20th-century folk art?

JA: Sociologists want to explain why people hold certain values and, particularly, whose definition of value comes out on top. Because you can't look at folk art without considering value and social class, sociology is an obvious and fruitful approach.

As for journalism, so many of the original and key people in the folk art and outsider art field--artists, dealers, collectors--are still alive, as are many of Tolson's family members and friends. Rather than my presuming what they thought, why they acted as they did, it seemed much more interesting just to ask them. Their answers are more exact and moving than any social theory or art historical interpretation could be. What makes my book journalism is that it relies so much on these interviews and ident ifies everyone.

NB: Did art collectors exploit Edgar Tolson and folk artists like him?

Yes and no. Most art collectors clearly bought low and sold high, but this is what art dealers and collectors have always tried to do. Tolson and other folk artists may have been at a particular disadvantage in such bargains because many of them were desp erately poor and didn't know how the art market works. Still, without the efforts of his promoters, Tolson would likely have been worse, not better, off. He also craved attention and took an active part in what some have called his "exploitation." Readers will have to pass judgment themselves. What I do argue is that folk art, despite its personal rewards, can't offer release from discrimination and poverty. These are social problems that affection and individual talent can't solve.

The Temptation ($19.95 paperback, $45 hardcover) is available at bookstores or from the University of North Carolina Press. 1-800-848-6224. Say you saw it on our website.


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