Folk is not a dying art.

Only the artists and their cultures seem to be disappearing.

Becky Stein/Special (ENLARGE)

The Slotin Auction has become the market-setting event for folk art in the U.S. The auction will feature the majority of the collection of Ruth West, of Atlanta.(BECKY STEIN/Special)

Becky Stein/Special (ENLARGE)

The Slotin Art Auction will feature the majority of the collection of Ruth West, of Atlanta. From the collection: Item #216 is a Howard Finster deluxe glass panel box dated June '85 and est. $5,000-$8,000. (BECKY STEIN/Special)

The interest in the works of self-taught artists remains on the rise, as will be demonstrated Saturday at the Slotin Auction. In this twice-yearly event, a former grocery store beside the railroad tracks in downtown Buford becomes a commercial focal point of the folk art world.

The featured works among the more than 800 items to be put up for bid include a 5-inch-tall face jug made by an anonymous slave (expected to bring more than $20,000); a birdbath carved from recycled limestone ($30,000); a pencil-and-crayon abstraction titled "The Masked Man" painted by a German mental patient ($10,000); and a painting of a 1920s football player on a scrap of tin ($8,000).

In recent years, the auctions have brought in $1.5 million or more in total sales for the day, according to Steve Slotin, the Buford art dealer who stages the sales events.

Authentic self-taught folk artists are nearly an extinct breed, Slotin said. In the 1980s, when collectors' interest in these artists began to escalte dramatically, many of the artists, though elderly, were still accessible.

"But in the past 20 years, we've lost almost every one of them," Slotin said.

Moreover, the isolated rural settings where most of these artists lived and worked are also being lost, he added.

"Now, everybody has access to education, television and the outside world," Slotin said.

Folk artists became more prized, as collectors searched for art that was "raw, different, and new," he said.

That quest has led to a spike in interest in a related art form — what Slotin referred to as "Art Brut", or "Insane Art." Like some of the most popular folk art, the drawings of patients of mental institutions sometimes exhibits a similar unschooled, pure form of expression, he said.

The work of Adolf Wolfli, a deceased mental patient from Germany, is the cover art for the catalog for Saturday's auction.

About half of the works to be auctioned come from the collection of Ruth West, a retired Atlanta attorney.

West, who now lives in Rabun County, said the sale day will be a difficult one for her. Having spent about 20 years assembling the collection, she's not sure whether she'll attend the auction.

"I can hardly even look at the catalog; it's so hard," West said.

She was able to meet some of the artists whose works she collected. Howard Finster, the North Georgia lay preacher who became world famous for his religious folk art, was among her friends. West was also acquainted with Mose Tolliver, the Alabama folk artist who died this past week. More than a dozen of his works, mostly housepaint on pieces of board, will be included in the auction.

In the early years of her folk art collecting, West said, fine art experts tended to look down at those who produced and dealt in folk art. "They'd say you can't spend $50 on something and call it art," she said.

Now though, many museums, including Atlanta's High Museum of Art, have special collections of folk art.

West said she still can't explain the impact of folk art, except in terms of the emotional impact it has had for her.

"I"ve always had a gut reaction to it," West said.