A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana - (Page 424)

document, conserve, and present the folk cultural resources of the state, has played an integral role in promoting traditional craft idioms. Their Folklife Apprenticeship Program paired master artists with younger apprentices to perpetuate endangered art forms. It is hoped that a renewed commitment to such activities from state legislators and the general public alike will ensure that Louisiana’s folk crafts will remain living traditions, not mere cultural artifacts. FOLK ART Hailing from both rural and urban areas like their craft artisan counterparts, many Louisiana folk artists, also described as self-taught artists, have gained recognition far beyond their immediate communities and even the state itself. With two important exhibitions in the late twentieth century, several such individuals gained national exposure, making their pieces highly sought after by private collectors and institutions alike. Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980, a seminal show mounted in 1982 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., presented the work of twenty artists, including two from Louisiana: David Butler and Sister Gertrude Morgan. A little more than a decade later, the artists were featured in Passionate Visions of the American South, Self-Taught Artist from 1940 to the Present. Organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art, the show brought the work of nearly eighty self-taught artists from the South to museums nationwide. Artists from Louisiana included not only Butler and Morgan but also Willie White, J.P. Scott, Herbert Singleton, “Prophet” Royal Robertson, and Clementine Hunter. Self-taught artists generally come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, but in Louisiana, as in much of the Deep South, the individuals receiving the greatest critical acclaim have historically been African American. Esteemed scholars such as Robert Farris Thompson have compellingly argued for aesthetic continuities between black folk art in the Americas and African visual culture, and the creations by some of Louisiana’s self-taught artists appear to support this claim. More often, however, the artists’ subject matter, materials, and visual idioms speak to highly individualized life experiences, whether on the streets of New Orleans, along the waterways of bayou country, among the cotton fields of the Delta parishes, or in vibrant worlds of the imagination. Collectively, the works reveal a shrewd resourcefulness, greatly influenced by the artists’ limited 424 FOLK CRAFT AND FOLK ART ELISSA “LIZ” JOHN (Coushatta) Lidded Basket Jar Pine needles, raffia; 8 x 10 in. New Orleans Museum of Art Promised gift of Mercedes Whitecloud  http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=1377 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=1388 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=1129 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=1341 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=446 http://knowla.org/entry.php?rec=1221 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=993

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana

A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana

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