Folk Art
Pieces of Freedom
The history of racism in America is also the history of ordinary Black Americans who accomplished extraordinary things in their pursuit of freedom. Faced with oppression throughout their journey, they ...
Rugs, Guitars, and Fiddling
What do exotic area rugs, handcrafted steel-string guitars, and fiddling have in common today? Many contemporary tradition bearers embrace complexity in form and content. They construct objects and performances ...
The Nightcrawler King
While growing up in rural Indiana during World War II, William Fagaly began his first venture—collecting and selling earthworms to locals—from which he was christened with a childhood moniker. The ...
Folklore Recycled
Folklore Recycled: Old Traditions in New Contexts starts from the proposition that folklore—usually thought of in its historical social context as “oral tradition”—is easily appropriated and recycled ...
Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster
O. W. “Pappy” Kitchens (1901–1986) was born in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and began painting at age sixty-seven. His self-taught, narrative, visual art springs directly from the oral tradition ...
The Island of Lace
Nicknamed the “Island of Lace,” the Caribbean island of Saba is the smallest special municipality in the Netherlands. Folklorist Eric A. Eliason, at the behest of the president of the Saba Lace Ladies’ ...
Riding with Death
On the southern end of the Grand Rue, a major thoroughfare that runs through the center of Port-au-Prince, waits the Haitian capital's automobile repair district. This veritable junkyard of steel and ...
New York State Folklife Reader
New York and its folklore scholars hold an important place in the history of the discipline. In New York dialogue between folklore researchers in the academy and those working in the public arena has ...
Curatorial Conversations
Contributions by Robert Baron, Betty Belanus, Olivia Cadaval, James I. Deutsch, C. Kurt Dewhurst, James Early, Amy Horowitz, Marjorie Hunt, Richard Kennedy, Sojin Kim, Marsha MacDowell, Diana Baird N'Diaye, ...
Outsider Art
Outsider art has exploded onto the international art scene, gaining widespread attention for its startling originality and visual power. As an expression of raw creativity, outsider art remains associated ...