On Friday, July 28, 2023, my wife Candice & I traveled to the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, West Virginia, to see the fairly recent exhibition of the work of famed Kentucky folk artist Minnie Adkins which the museum has titled "Story Carvings". The exhibition is composed of several hundred small, painted carvings which Minnie created to illustrate several books which she produced with writer Mike Norris. The books involved were called "Sonny the Monkey", "Bright Blue Rooster", "Mommy Goose: Rhymes from the Mountain" and "Ring Around the Moon: Mommy Goose Rhymes". The muse um website states: "This collection of carvings is a seamless blend of wood and words reflecting Appalachian culture and covering an enormous range of subjects—from humor to anger, coal mining to creativity, bullying to the might of words."
I have known Minnie is a superficial way for several years and have written about her and her work on this blog most recently after attending the annual "Minnie Adkins Day" in her hometown of Sandy Hook, Kentucky, on July 15, 2023. I have a great deal of respect for Minnie and her work, especially those larger pieces which are often seen in museum collections or the homes of well funded collectors. But this exhibit is composed almost entirely of pieces which are less than 6" and were intended to be utilized in photographic tableaux for the books mentioned above. They are wonderful work and, if you know Minnie and her work, they are easily recognized as coming from her hands, paint brush, and pocket knife. Minnie is now just past her 90th birthday but still going strong as she demonstrated at the recent Minnie Adkins Day. I suspected that she might not be keeping the same heated pace she did in her earlier years but she still had a great deal of works on display for sale at that Minnie Adkins Day, still posed for photographs with every admirer who asked, and took time to speak to every person who came seeking a little of her time. I regret that I was not present at the grand opening of this exhibition to see her in her natural element holding court in a museum in front of a crowd of art loving admirers.
The museum also has a sizeable collection of American Folk Art in their permanent collection and much of it is also currently on display at this time in an adjoining gallery under the title Folk Art: Eclectic Expressions from the Collection. The museum in their description of the general folk art exhibit quotes their Senior Curator/Exhibition Designer John Farley about that exhibition in this manner: “This exhibition reminds us that living creatively and expressively is not reserved for those with specialized artistic training or academic education, Making things with our hands, our hearts, and our minds is the province of all people." "It is an excellent exhibition, especially if the viewer is one seeking an overview of American Folk Art or folk art of the Southeastern United States. The first piece most likely to catch a visitor's eye entering the gallery is a wonderful quilt of about 20 individual squares made by Minnie Adkins about 30 years ago. The top corner squares on each side are of Minnie and her late husband Garland Adkins. The remaining squares are fabric reproductions of many of Minnie's familar carvings of local animals, both domestic and feral. Another remarkable piece in that exhibition is by Howard Finster, who was arguably one of the best known of all American Folk artists. For me personally, a favorite piece and one I had never seen in person despite having represented the artist, Donny Tolson, for a time is called "Dan'l Boone Kilt A Bar".
It is a phenomenal carving of several separate pieces which have been fitted together to create a composite on a large, rounded wooden base of Daniel Boone in buckskins, knife in hand, in mortal combat with a large upright bear in a small grove of trees. One of those trees even contains a small carved squirrel spectator. The entire piece is about 2' x 12" x 16" roughly. It is masterpiece of the woodcarver's art. There are also numerous other pieces in this exhibition both of carvings and paintings. This overall collection is well worth seeing any time you are in the area of Huntington, West Virginia. The Minnie Adkins exhibition will be available until November 5, 2023. The overall folk art exhibition will close on September 24, 2023.
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