The 16th annual Folk Fest unfolds this weekend at the North Atlanta Trade Center, and the event is, fittingly, like a Sweet 16 party — careening between maturity and immaturity, big fun and some aspects best forgotten.
Folk Fest, which features 100 galleries, dealers and artists from around the country running booths filled with all stripes of folk art, has seemed increasingly all over the map in recent years. Last year’s event, for instance, felt more craftsy than any previous edition, which is fine if one believes a flavor of the Decatur Arts Festival or Indie Craft Experience enhances the mix.
Not that there’s ever been any real consensus among scholars or buyers and sellers about the genre’s definition. But the early years of Folk Fest were at least easier to get a handle on, dominated by what might be considered the Greatest Generation of Southeastern folk artists, including the Rev. Howard Finster and R.A. Miller of Georgia and Alabamans Jimmie Lee Sudduth and Mose Tolliver.
These inspired artists, who produced prolifically in relative geographic isolation, have all passed on, and their works that sold for under $100 just 16 years ago now go for hundreds and often thousands at twice-yearly Slotin Folk Art auctions staged by Folk Fest organizers Steve and Amy Slotin.
Those price tags have made works by the small group of well-regarded mid-career folk artists who will show at Folk Fest this weekend that much more coveted, and encouraged a raft of younger artists, some contenders and some pretenders.
Notable among the midcareer group is Mary Proctor, a Tallahassee, Fla., painter who’s never met a household item or found object that couldn’t fit into one of her spirited and often spiritual pieces. Alabaman Woodie Long continues to turn out memory paintings from his youth as a sharecropper’s son as well as images of flowers and music making. Then there’s Ruby C. Williams, whose vibrantly hued work evolved out of the roadside signs she paints for her produce stand in Bealsville, Fla.
But with each passing year, Folk Fest is becoming more dominated by an emerging generation of creative spirits. Increasingly prominent among them are John “Cornbread” Anderson, who celebrates country livin’ by capturing on boards the guinea hens, beavers and other critters he grew up around near Dahlonega, and Michael Banks, an African-American artist from Albertville, Ala., who paints often edgy, distorted, high-gloss portraits that seem to owe more to contemporary art than folk.
Behind them, the marketplace is still sorting out a huge group that includes Ken “Blacktop” Gentle, David Tinsley and Kimberly Clayton. Last year, Clayton, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., sold out her booth of what organizer Amy Slotin calls “girl-power paintings.”
Jeanne Krosnoble, owner of Main Street Gallery in Clayton, a Folk Fest fixture from the beginning, believes the event reflects folk art at a crossroads. Because of the genre’s growing popularity, spurred by eBay and gallery and artist Web sites, there are more self-proclaimed folk artists popping up than ever — including some who either aren’t self-taught or who have yet to develop distinct talent.
“So many of us are chasing so few artists these days that it’s gotten harder to find quality things,” Krosnoble acknowledges. “There will always be this sort of art. It’s just a matter of finding [the true folk artists]. They’re out there.”
Folk Fest 2009
Show opening with many artists in attendance, 5-10 tonight. $15 (includes T-shirt and weekend readmission). 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. $7 each day. Children 16 and under, free. North Atlanta Trade Center, 1700 Jeurgens Court, Norcross (follow signs off I-85 at Indian Trail Road/exit 101). 770-532-1115, www.slotinfolkart.com.
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