Tag Archives: Folk art

Culture

Defoy At Heart Of Official Quebec Antique Dealer Route

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“It’s the tiny town of Defoy. Only a gravel road from the main highway, but about a half a mile down there is the wonderful “antiques dump” of Rene Boudin and his freres.” photos: P. Ross

By the winter of 1982, we had been going to the Harbourfront Antique market every Sunday for about a year, and were making a pretty good living selling things we had bought at local auctions and garage sales. Then one day, I read in the excellent and entertaining “bible” of Antique dealing “The Furniture Doctor” by George Grotz ,  that the village of Defoy, Quebec was mecca for the antique picker.

To quote “there’s a wonderful secret wholesale place up in the province of Quebec. It’s the tiny town of Defoy. Only a gravel road from the main highway, but about a half a mile down there is the wonderful “antiques dump” of Rene Boudin and his freres. And here under enormous sheds you will find literally acres of antique furniture, chests, and tables piled three to five pieces high”.

“…it wasn’t hard to find because it was near town, and his name was painted boldly on the barn.”

https://goo.gl/maps/ZhW6d7x5Z72G7buz6?coh=178572&entry=tt

The book had been out quite awhile so there was no telling if this situation still existed, so I asked the old guys at the market if they knew of such a place. I got several reports of it’s glory days, followed by “of course that was years ago and nobody goes anymore. That being said they also all encouraged me to give it a go, and gave me “leads” as to who may still be active. We gathered up our courage, our baby, and what cash we had, and set off.

That first twelve hour drive felt like an eternity. It was a tired crew who pulled in late afternoon to a tiny motel in Victoriaville, Quebec.

Our first move was to look up Marcel Gosselin in the phone book because he was one of our most promising leads. To our delight he was listed, and he answered and told us where and how to come the next morning. It wasn’t hard to find because it was near town, and his name was painted boldly on the barn. Marcel greeted us warmly and proceeded to lead us to his main barn. There, behind the red and white cross doors was the biggest pile of dining chairs I had ever seen. About thirty feet across it reached to the top of the barn.

Through the hatch work of legs I could see tantalizing glimpses of a cupboard and some chests. Then he took us upstairs where in a loft he had sorted hundreds of chairs in sets of four, six, or more. Some were painted and some varnished. It was $45cdn each for simple painted chairs, $65cdn each for nicer pressbacks and/or varnished ones. We got a couple of sets knowing we would get about $150cdn-$250cdn each for these when refinished., Next I asked him about that cupboard I had seen in the giant pile downstairs. He told me all about it including the age, condition and reasonable price of $250cdn and told me he would extricate it and have it ready for my next trip if I wanted it.

I said I did, and then he didn’t even want a deposit.

“That’s not the way we do it down here. Your word is good enough, until it isn’t” Marcel (R) Phil (L)

“That’s not the way we do it down here. Your word is good enough, until it isn’t. I liked him immediately and knew he was a man I would enjoy doing business with.

Next he took us to the garage attached to his 100 year old frame house. The downstairs was filled with every kind of “smalls” including small boxes, glassware, pottery, antique clothing, folk art, etc, etc; and the tiny, about to collapse, upstairs loft was filled with hundreds of pottery washsets. There were some beauties, and this was a hot item at the time in Toronto. Prices ranged from $45cdn-$75cdn per set. We bought 8 of the nicest sets knowing we would get between $145cdn to $375cdn back home.

This was getting truly exciting.

We spent a terrific four hours or so with Marcel that first day and pulled away from his place, with half our money spent, and half our truck full of interesting, excellent quality, and reasonably priced stuff, not to mention the overwhelming sense of warmth, excitement and wonderment of that first glimpse into a Quebec picker’s life. We were hooked, and we knew it was the first of many more trips to see Marcel.  For the Silo, Phil Ross.

Featured image courtesy of tourismecentreduquebec.com     

Art

Defining Folk Art

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Desrocher’s Whitehorse- a very nice folk art piece acquired by the author.

What is folk art? Any precise definition of art is by nature a slippery process and open to question.

“Folk art” is a term applied to diverse objects, like a highly organized Mennonite fracture drawing which expresses a collective, ethically based decorative tradition. Yet it is also applied to the more individualistic outpourings of any untrained painter, sculptor or other art practitioner.

Folk art is usually one step beyond the mundane. Not just a container to bring water to the mouth for survival (cupped hands for example), but instead a cup lovingly fashioned to bring pleasure or attract notice even when it is not being used, such as an intricately carved canoe cup.

On another level we can simply say that folk art is the art of ordinary people. It is sometimes called “primitive art” or “the people’s art” because by definition the artist has not been academically trained.

Folk art is made for one or more of three reasons: to share beliefs and traditions, to make some useful object beautiful, or to express one’s feelings.

Folk art, by definition has been produced and appreciated since cavemen and women started smearing blood and feces on cave walls, but the academic study of folk art is a relatively new thing. An English writer named William John Thomas first coined the phrase “folk lore” in 1848. At the time most anthropologists considered folklore to be worthless peasant creations. They were more interested in studying artifacts such as weapons and tools. It was through popularized folk tales by the likes of the Brothers Grimm that peasant traditions and art forms became interesting to the intellectual class.

I would argue that folk art did not show up on the radar of fine art institutions until around the turn of the century in Paris when Pablo (Picasso) and the boys flipped-out over the African art they saw for the first time, and started producing what today is called modern art. This led to a wider acceptance of all forms of art.

Folk art has become increasingly popular and more frequently studied in Canada, beginning in earnest after Expo ’67 gave us a greater appreciation of who we are as a nation.  For the Silo, Phil Ross. 

Featured image- Selections from Jim Linderman’s collection of folk art sewer pipe sculptures made by workers from leftover pipe clay. Photo: Oresti Tsonopoulos

Culture

Folk Art In Cyberspace

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It is interesting to consider how the development of the World Wide Web has affected the work of the untrained artist.  Like all artists, folk artists reflect the world they see around them, and have always been affected by the media.  An example is in the work of Ewald Rentz who liked watching Sesame Street on t.v., and so produced sculptures of many of the main characters.   But internet access does not have the same effect as watching television.  Television focuses our attention, sometimes helping to create cultural icons such as Kermit the Frog.

The internet spreads our attention, giving us access to a much wider, but therefore more unfocused body of information.   Things go “viral” and disappear within days, being replaced by the next “flash in the pan”.  But more importantly the web also provides an interested individual the possibility to easily research any given subject. It is reasonable to assume that most modern folk artists will at some point use the internet to look at the work of other folk artists.

Previously this information would have been available only to those who had access to reference books, or could travel to an exhibition or sale. Overall this means that if they are so inclined, artists are being more influenced by each other, and if their motivation is to sell more folk art, they will look at and emulate what’s selling.  This encourages fashion or trends which might be considered a negative. However, to a large extent ‘twas ever thus.  Artists have always looked at each other’s work, and if they like what they see, they will consciously or unconsciously emulate it.  The more interesting affect therefore is on the potential for an artist to develop an audience or market for his or her work from their home by creating a web site, and/ or joining a communal web site specializing in their type of work.  This has the potential to encourage and support many who would otherwise never be discovered.  A real God send to those who live in remote places.  Of course it isn’t as simple as throwing up a few pictures up and waiting for the phone to ring.

One still has to promote and be reliable in transactions, etc., but the potential is now much greater for a talented individual to  be discovered by  their audience, and thus support their output. For the Silo, Phil Ross. 

Art

Finding Value In The Folk Art Of Maud Lewis

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Occasionally I will have a Maud Lewis painting displayed for sale in my shop, and it is sometimes interesting to get people’s reactions to a $6,000 painting that at first glance looks like their 12 year old niece painted it. “My goodness will you look at that,” and some covered up snickering, pretty well expresses their complete disbelief that something so simple could possibly be worth so much money.

Sometimes I give a brief description of the circumstances of her simple Nova Scotia life, and add fuel to the fire by informing them that while she was alive she sold paintings for 12 to 15 dollars from her tiny house by the side of the road. I then suggest it is probably simplest to think in terms of supply and demand. The supply of these paintings has stopped since her death in 1970, and there are many more people wanting them than there are paintings available. This of course skirts the main issue: how could anything like this be desirable in the first place? To find the answer you have to go a lot deeper.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for some people—I include myself in this group—great value is placed on anything that manages to capture, or in some way manifest, beauty. I do not mean “pretty picture” beauty here. I mean creations that celebrate existence, or connect to a greater truth. I mean something that has energy.

This energy can be found in the works of trained and untrained artists alike. The real value in truly great works of art is in experiencing them, and in doing so being educated and transformed by them. Understanding beauty is our salvation. Money really just confuses the issue. Put in relative terms: $4 million for a Tom Thompson and $6,000 for a Maud Lewis—the Lewis is still cheap. For the Silo, Phil Ross.