close
close

Different versions of ‘home’ residence at the American Folk Art Museum

Different versions of ‘home’ residence at the American Folk Art Museum

NEW YORK (AP) — What does “home” mean? Something different for all of us, of course.

A place of love for some. One full of problems, for others. An elusive concept for many.

“Home is not always a place of comfort. It is also not always a location or a place. Home can be a state of mind,” says Brooke Wyatt, curator of an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum called “Somewhere to Roost.”

The collection of 60 pieces explores artists’ conceptions of home in paintings, illustrations, folk art objects, collages, blanket chests, quilts and family photographs.

Home like a nest…

The exhibition’s title piece, Thornton Dial Sr.’s “Birds Gotta Have Somewhere to Roost,” is a collage of weathered wood, burlap, carpet, and tin. At first glance it is a jumble of discarded leftovers. But think of the title and you imagine something else: birds gathering the pieces to make a nest. Dial’s work, including many such assemblages of found materials, is in museum collections across the US

Birds are depicted in a pen and ink drawing made in the 19th century by V. H. Furnier, an artist and handwriting teacher in Indiana, Pennsylvania. It features the words ‘Home Sweet Home’ and above it a pair of birds, one of which carries a twig with the words ‘Spare the Birds’.

New Englander Joseph E. Clapp’s beautiful birdcage is another highlight. Made from Peruvian mahogany and whalebone with tiny brass pins, it is a marvel of construction. Clapp was a master mariner who worked on whaling boats in the 1850s. When he retired, he founded a bird sanctuary in Peru. He eventually returned to Nantucket, where he often strolled the streets with his pets in their cages.

…or as a prison

A drawing called ‘Devil House’ shows what it means when home is a literal prison cell. Locked up in a prison in Huntsville, Alabama, Frank Albert Jones began drawing with the red and blue pencil stubs thrown away by the inmate’s bookkeepers. A recurring theme is enclosed chambers surrounded by pointed, thread-like barbs that he called “devil horns,” with grinning ghosts. He often takes a clock with him; For years, his cell faced the prison’s bell tower.

Jones’ signature on “Devil House” includes his neatly printed prison number, 11451.

A place to create

Clementine Hunter grew up on the Louisiana plantation and became an acclaimed self-taught artist. From the age of fifty, she created a visual history of everyday life there – from laundry days to weekend parties – as she remembered it in the early 20th century. Two of her untitled works are featured in the exhibition; one shows people gathering at an outdoor funeral, while the other shows a courtroom scene.

Another painting in the exhibition is by Roberta Flack, by the Jamaican artist Kapo, whose given name was Mallica Reynolds. Flack and Reynolds had become close in the 1970s after she saw his works on display at a hotel in Jamaica, and Flack set up a foundation for the artist so he could focus on his work without worrying about the finance.

When Kapo’s house burned down, it was Flack who helped him rebuild, and her support allowed him to stay in his hometown and continue his art. It was one of many obstacles he overcame, said his daughter Christine Reynolds, who came to see the exhibit.

“Seeing his painting in ‘Somewhere to Roost’ is another signal that his work has survived,” she said. “I feel pride, vindication and joy, and I only wish I had him next to me in the museum. that I could see his reaction when I saw it.

A vulnerable toe support

A photo by Margaret Morton entitled “Mr. Lee’s Home depicts a makeshift home that was part of a homeless camp in Lower Manhattan in the 1980s and early 1990s. It and several other shelters were destroyed by an arsonist in 1992; resident Yi-Po Lee died in the fire.

Morton captured the camp’s residents in her series ‘Fragile Dwelling’.

“These impoverished habitats are as diverse as the people who built them, and they speak to the profound human need to create a sense of place, no matter how extreme the conditions,” she wrote.

Domestic tranquility

In one painting, a young boy wears snazzy red slippers and a blue romper. He has a large book in one hand and an even larger hat in the other. You get the impression that he only stopped for a moment before running off to play in his room.

“Portrait of Frederick A. Gale” was painted by Ammi Phillips in 1815 and is one of museum director Jason Busch’s favorite pieces in the collection. It stands out, he says, ‘because it is representative of an art genre that until then belonged to the upper layer of society.

“But around this time, more middle-class families were financially able to have portraits done.”

Frederick wears a big smile and clothes that are less fussy and more childlike than those of children in more traditional portraits.

Made up of bottle caps

Clarence and Grace Woolsey of Reinbeck, Iowa, had fun making things out of the boxes of bottle caps everyone had in the 1960s, before recycling programs became widespread. They tied dozens of caps together with press wire and shaped them into animals, objects and structures. The Museum owns one of the small houses from the collection; the red-painted, tightly packed caps with wavy edges resemble clapboards, and the homey atmosphere epitomizes found-object craftsmanship at its best.

—-

“Somewhere to Roost” runs through May 25, 2025 at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.

Kim Cook, The Associated Press