"Contemporary American Folk Artists" by Elinor Lander Horwitz

I have made two earlier posts either about or prompted by the books of Elinor Lander Horwitz who published several books on the subjects of Appalachian Folk Art and/or American Folk Art. Elinor Lander Horwitz, who wrote numerous books on several topics, spent a great deal of time in the 1970's traveling across the United States with her two sons who were both highly skilled photographers meeting, interviewing, and photographing American Folk Artists and their works. I assume also that based on the depth and breadth of her interest in and knowledge about folk art Elinor Lander Horwitz must have owned a large collection of folk art. The book which is the subject of this blog post has individual chapters about 10 folk painters, 6 folk wood carvers, and 6 individuals whom she described as "total environmentalists". A blogger named Jim Linderman has also blogged about Horwitz and this book. The amount of work, time, travel, and expenditures which went into the creation of Horwitz's books about American and Appalachian Folk Art was very extensive and no doubt expensive. The book has 143 pages, 22 chapters each of which profiles a single folk artist. Every one of these people was a unique creator in a greater world of folk art which is also quite unique in both the singular and plural manifestations. Due to the period in which the book was researched, written, and published,the 1970's, I suspect that all, or nearly all of the artists profiled are now dead. I will briefly describe what this book has taught me about a few of them whom I consider the most interesting although I have to admit that I would have loved to have known them all. One or two, maybe less than a handful of the artists, may well have been deceased before Horwitz wrote the book. Sister Gertrude Morgan was an African American Folk Artist and street preacher in New Orleans. Clementine Hunter was also an African American Folk artist who spent her life as a servant on Melrose Plantation in central Louisiana. At the plantation, this illiterate African American cook was exposed to the French painter Francois Mignon and his work, and stated she thought she could "mark a painting" too. After seeing one or more of her unique works of African American life in the early twentieth century, Mignon began to mentor her and provide her with paints and other materials. It is possible today that she is now more famous than her mentor. Hattie Bruner was a Caucasian antique dealer in Pennsylvania Dutch country who grew up poor and only became a painter in her late sixties. She painted wonderful pictures of life in the country side around where she had grown up in an older, more quaint time. Miles Carpenter in Western Virginia was a seller of watermelons and other produce who bacan carving and selling wooden copies of his melons and then branched out to other subject matter for the rest of his life. Edward Ambrose was a Virginia carpenter who developed a sideline of carving small objects of all kinds and then creating much larger tableau of them such as country stores, blacksmith shops, and a duck decoy maker's workshop. In Yorktown, Virginia, Walter Flax was a socially isolated African American man who had desired to go to sea but lived his entire life without ever seeing the ocean and spent years decorating the property on which he lived with his ships made of whatever salvaged materials he could find in the area around his two room shack. Perhaps the most unique of these folk artists was Creek Charlie, Charlie Fields, who lived in a house which he covered with multicolored polka dots and filled with numerous polka dot painted objects in every inch of his residence. On Sundays, he welcomed anyone who wished to visit him to come to his home for conversation and friendship. His little polka dotted farm house is the cover photo of Horwitz's book. Jim Colclough was a Californian whose home was taken by the highway department under eminent domain which caused him to begin to protest the government via his folk art constructions of often animated figures carved from wood and equipped with cranks or other devices to cause them to move in unique ways. His probable favorite of these constructions was of two men, one of whom represented the government of California, and the other who represented others such as Colclough who had been adversely affected by government actions. When the crank is turned to animate the piece the representation of the state of California holding the representation of the victims of the state shakes that figure up and down to shake him loose from his money and/or property. The title of that piece is "Helping Man Decide Sell Home for Highway". I have to say that Colclough is probably my favorite of all the artists who are subjects of the book. This is a wonderful book to read and learn about more than 20 of the prominent American Folk Artists of the early to middle twentieth century. It can usually be found on most internet based used book websites. You will enjoy getting to know these unique and uniquely productive Americans.

Appalachian Folk Art and Mental Illness: Is There Any Correlation?

"An Appalachian Eulogy" by B. Camp

The author of this book is actually Dr. Dennis Campbell, M. D. who chose to publish under a pen name despite having also chosen, at some point, to make no secret of his real identity. Dr. Campbell and I worked together in both our previous careers. He is a retired psychiatrist and I am a retired mental health and addictions therapist. We worked together for about 3/12 years in a community mental health facility in a small county in Eastern Kentucky. We also grew up in the same equally small county about fifty miles from where we actually met at work. We have remained as friends ever since working together. Dr. Campbell has now written and published somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen fiction books in several different categories and all are available on Amazon under the pen name B. Camp. I have previously written on this blog about two of his other books, "Tales From The Red River Gorge" which he cowrote with his wife who writes under the pen name Maribeth Wagner, and "Aaron Subject Number Seven". "An Appalachian Eulogy" is the most purely Appalachian book of the three in my opinion, although both of the others have settings and some characters who are Appalachian. "An Appalachian Eulogy" begins about 1825 and ends about 1975. It tells a story of a blended family in which the parents Able and Elizabeth Horn who have one biological daughter, Emily. As the book begins, their nephew Zeke is in East Tennessee living with an unrelated family who have taken him in after his parents and only brother have died of a plague. This family has written a letter who the Horns who are the brother and sister-in-law of Zeke's father. Able travels to East Tennessee in the late winter to early spring and brings Zeke back to his home which is a hillside farm on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky which happens to be the creek on which I grew up. While some of the place names in the book are fictitious, most of them are actual place names still in use today in the area of the novel. The place on Beaver Creek where the Horn farm is located is about 3 or 4 miles from where I grew up. On their way to Beaver Creek from East Tennessee, they stop in a town in Tennessee for more supplies for their horseback trip and Zeke is allowed to spend some time alone seeing the sights of the town. He strays into a scene in which a group of boys are harrassing a young homeless orphan girl and rescues her from their attack. Able agrees to take the girl, Emma, along with them to his home if the local authorities agree to it. He finds the Tennessee sheriff who allows him to do just that. The three then complete the trip to Beaver Creek where both Zeke and Emma become members of the Horn family. Emma who can't remember the last name of her parents assumes the Horn name which, as odd as it might sound in today's world, was not an uncommon event in the early 19th century in the Appalachian Mountains. It was fairly common at that time for kindly, or soemetimes unkindly, non-relatives to informally adopt orphans and raise them under the family name. The three children, one biological and two informally adopted, quickly become known simply as a family, the Horn family. They live a lifestyle which was common on hillside farms in Eastern Kentucky in that time frame and learn all the chores and requirements of living a self sufficient life in the mountains. Zeke grows up to be a bright, ambitious young man and attends Alice Lloyds, Caney Creek Community Center until he graduates from high school. He then matriculates to Caney Junior College on the same campus and now known as Alice Lloyd College. Eventually, the adopted daughter Emily leaves home to marry a coal miner and live an itinerant life with her growing family in a number of mountain coal camp towns. She dies young and leaves a letter in a family Bible directing her daughter to keep it unopened until she locates another member of the Horn family from whom she has become lost due to her multiple moves from coal camp to coal camp. I won't spoil the ending. You can find the book on Amazon. If you are a fan of Appalachian fiction, the book is worth reading.

"The Temptation: Edgar Tolson And The Genesis Of Twentieth Century Folk Art" by Julia S. Ardery

Rarely, if ever, have I seen a book which is so meticulously researched, documented, and written. This book by Julia S. Ardery is a masterpiece and one of the most important books in the field of Appalachian Folk Art. The only potential negative in the book is the fact that it is so well written that it can become a bit pedantic at times. But if one chooses to read books written by a potential pedant, this is the book to read. It is based on the well justified premise that Campton, Kentucky, folk artist Edgar Tolson was largely responsible for the popularity of Appalachian Folk Art and, in some ways, the increased popularity of American Folk Art in general. It is also fascinating that the book was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1998 more than 22 years after the death of the author. That fact is a clear indicator that it must have been preserved in manuscript form by her son Major General Phillip P. Ardery who was her sole surviving child at the time the book was published. Julia Ardery was also the editor of another book, "Welcome The Traveler Home" which is the memoir of Jim Garland, a career union organizer. That book was also published after the death of Julia Ardery by the University of Kentucky Press. Edgar Tolson was an enigmatic, garrulous, and sometimes abrasive man whose eventual fame might not have been foreseen in a person who fluctuated between periods of preaching and excessive drinking. He is even credited with once having blown up the little church he preached in with dynamite. But he gained many supporters, promoters, and fans as he moved from a life of itinerant labor to become the premier wood carver in America in his lifetime. He was obviously well respected by Ardery who spent a vast amount of time and resources to compile this book which is sourced with numerous interviews by the author with more than 60 people other than her primary subject. She also did an excellent piece of work in detailing the lengthy relationship between Edgar Tolson and Scuptor and educator Michael D. Hall who promoted Edgar Tolson's work tirelessly, collected large numbers of his carvings, and eventually was able to sell his entire folk art collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum which has an entire wall in one room which is dedicated to Edgar Tolson's carvings of the biblical story of Adam, Eve, and their sons, Cain and Able. Ardery goes to extensive and well justified lengths to discuss how Edgar Tolson's growing popularity in the world of "real art" enabled many other folk artists, both Appalachian and American, to sell their works, gain credibility in the art world, and in some cases to actually make a living from what had previously been known more often as "whittling", "fooling around", or "wasting time". This is a truly beautiful piece of work with numerous photograpns of Edgar Tolson, his art works, his family, and others. The research for this book is some of the best I have ever seen on any topic. If you are a person who enjoys reading a well written, extensivley researched, and flawlessly documented work, this is the book for you whether or not you are already an admirer of good folk art. It is actually capable of inducing you to become another of the aforementioned admirers and collectors of folk art. The book is widely available on most used book websites and well worth reading.

"Aaron Subject Number Seven" by B. Camp & Maribeth Wagner

The authors of this book are actually Dr. Dennis Campbell, M. D., and his wife who chose to publish under pen names despite having also chosen, at some point, to make no secret of their real identities. Dr. Campbell and I worked together in both our previous careers. He is a retired psychiatrist and I am a retired mental health and addictions therapist. We worked together for about 3/12 years in a community mental health facility in a small county in Eastern Kentucky. We also grew up in the same equally small county about fifty miles from where we actually met at work. We have remained as friends ever since. Dr. Campbell has now written and published somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen fiction books in several different categories and all are available on Amazon under the pen name B. Camp. This book is actually part of a series of novels which can be bought separately or in a compilation of the lot of the them in one volume. The title character in this book is Aaron, a young boy who is one of a sizeable number of subjects in a dystopian research project by a nefarious and somewhat murkily described company known as The Conglomerate. The company has set out on a mission to genetically engineer a group of superhumans for some murky, but destructive, mission in the future. The subjects are the biological children of carefully chosen men and women whose mental and physical capabilities are well above those of the average human. But the children have also been genetically altered to increase all their physical and mental assets, raised in a deeply secretive group of corporate locations, and taught and trained in a manner to multiply their abilities. Aaron is stolen or rescued by a couple who are both employees of the company at about the age of 8 or 9, and transported to a secretive property which they own in Knott County Kentucky (the county where Dr. Campbell and I grew up). The family which has been created by this removal of Aaron from the company now go totally off the grid, and out of the easy access of the company. The father in this family is a retired Navy Seal and works to train Aaron in much the same way he would have trained a future seal. His wife is an educator and also feeds Aaron's superhuman intellect with a knowledge base which covers the length and breadth of human knowledge and experience. He progresses rapidly, almost too rapidly to be believed, and at the age of thirteen can be mistaken for a well developed adult male with the intellectual and military skills to be a formidable enemy to anyone or anything he wishes to destroy. His quasi-parents have also managed, with their exceptional computer skills, to divert and hide massive amounts of money from the company's bank accounts prior to thier disappearance with Aaron. Aaron sets out at the age of thirteen posing as an adult male to wage a well planned and effective war against the company. I won't spoil the ending for you. If you are a fan of dystopian fiction, you are likely to enjoy this book. If you ask me if I believe that such an effort could be underway in the world today, I would be forced to say that I do believe it is possible. It is even possible in more than one country, location, or setting. I do believe that the Russian or Chinese military could be doing such a thing today. I also believe that any one of a sizeable group of the ultrawealthy such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and perhaps a dozen others of those ultrarich are both financially capable of this type of attack on humanity, and several of them, especially Musk, are also morally destitute enough to try to build such a force and use it in an attempt to control the world. Megalomania is both present in some of these people, and so is their self aggrandizing psycholocal makeup such that they could be doing this very thing even as we discuss it.

"Michael Hall: Three Installations", by Michael Hall

Michael Hall is an American Sculptor who previously taught at the University of Kentucky and left that position to take up a residency at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This book is an exhibition catalogue for three major outdoor installations which he created in 1977. They were titled Brahma, Stockton, and Drifter. The catalogue is only 38 pages but contains a large assortmenf of photographs of the three installations, Hall, and one piece by Appalachian Wood Carver Edgar Tolson. My interest in Hall came about because of my major interest in Appalachian Folk Art and my extensive connection to Edgar Tolson's son Donny Tolson who was also a major Appalachian Wood Carve in his own right. But Hall's work is fascinating and worthy of attention from any lover of good art, especially large sculptural works. The book also contains essays written by Michael Hall; Frederick J. Cummings, Director of The Detroit Institute of Arts in 1977 when the installations were created; John Hallmark Neff, Curator of Modern Art at the Detroit Institute in 1977; Mary Jane Jacob, Assistant Curator of Modern Art at the Detroit Institute; Robert Pincus-Witten who was an American Art Critic, Curator, and Historian at the time. I have never seen the installations discussed in the catalogue, and honestly do not know at this time if they are still extant. Such large pieces of sculpture are often victims of urban renewal projects, industrial or housing developments, or even highway construction at times. Hall was a well respected scuptor and art educator and his work was popular among supporters of Modern American Art. If I find myself in the Detroit or Bloomfield Hills environs, I can assure you that I will seek out the full story of these three works. But my major interest in Michael Hall will always be his work in support of Appalachian Folk Art and Folk Artists, especially Edgarand Donny Tolson. Hall, during his tenure at the Univerity of Kentucky became an afficianado, collector, and major supporter of Appalachian Folk Art. His and his wife's collection of Appalachian Folk Art now resides in the Milwaukee Art Museum, and I am proud to say that I have seen those pieces from the Hall collection which are on display there including several pieces by Edgar Tolson. They are well worth seeing for any supporter of Appalachian Folk Art, American Folk Art, or simply the greater world of art in general.

"Fifty Best American Short Stories", Edited by Martha Foley

I love short stories, and I consider the short story to be the best form of all writing in literature. It has almost no room for error. Even the simplest little changes can either make a short story truly great or turn a potentially great short story into something very ordinary. I have read and studied the short story form ever since my high school days which were a mighty long time ago. I also write and have published about 20 short stories in at least 12 states in a variety of both college and university literary journals and some of the better online websites. I published my first short story in my twenties. But I don't pretend to be an expert on the short story, and I surely don't pretend to be a great short story writer. I do profess to be a good short story writer, and I believe the significant number of editors and/or editorial committees who have accepted and published my stories is some level of proof of their agreement with me about my self assessment. The best way to become a good to great short story writer is to read stories by the authors whom other people who understand the short story believe to be the best in the world. Everyone has their own opinion of what a great short story is, and there is room for some disagreement since the idea of stating what is a good to great short story is very subjective. It should also be very objective and sometimes editors are more subjective than objective. I remember one story I submitted to a book project in Texas, as I recall, and I got a handwritten rejection from the editor who had rejected it which said something to the effect that "This story really doesn't fit our project goals, but it sure is an interesting story." Did that editor mean that "interesting" was a good thing or something less. Since he bothered to send me a handwritten rejection, I assume he liked the story. You never know in a case like that. But to get to the point of this blog post, I am actually supposed to be writing about the book of stories which I recently finished by reading one stor a day from the book with my wife. This particular book, "Fifty Best American Short Stories" Edited By Martha Foley, was published in 1986 and contains stories from 1915 to 1964. It contains short stories from several of my favorite authors although the stories the editor chose are sometimes not my favorite stories by a particular author. It also contains some stories from people whom I had never read who might not make anyone's top ten or top fifty list of short story authors which speaks to that subjectivity of which I spoke earlier. But it is overall a very good book of short stories and well worth reading. The authors in this collection whom I had already placed on my list of favorites includes Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Flannery O'Connor, and Shirley Jackson. Interestingly, the editor did not include the story I consider to be each of those writers' best. She might have been bowing to copyright restrictions on what she considered their best but included another story from each of them in a bow to what she considers their overall greatness. Or maybe we just have differing opinions, hence subjectivity rears its head. If you can find a copy of this old collection, buy it, read it, and make up your own mind while trying to be totally objective about the process.