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Nancy Bauer

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Time flies when you're having fun. Suddenly I was made aware that two exhibitions I wanted to see were going to be taken down soon: folk art at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and Catherine Hale's at Ingrid Mueller Art Concepts. There are always so many exhibitions, so many concerts, so many literary events to attend in Fredericton. How do people in Toronto or Montreal choose when even in our small city choosing is so difficult?

Some years ago while we were passing a yard with whirligigs for sale, I told my husband and daughter that I had always wanted one. They were surprised, but they took the hint and bought me a present, a fisherman. I put it out front in the garden where it was promptly stolen. What is there about folk art that is so appealing? I could use the word charming. The curator, Bernard Riordon, writes in his catalogue essay that these artists embellish mundane objects and so transform them "into items with personality, character, and charm." I wondered how the French would translate charm, but I wasn't enlightened because only "un petit quelque chose de plus" is used for the three nouns.

At the opening of the exhibit, the collector, Susan Murray, announced that she was donating 50 pieces to the gallery to celebrate its 50th anniversary. So even if you haven't seen the exhibition you will be able to see some of the work later on. In her introduction to the catalogue, Murray writes about her passion for collecting: "Folk art is full of energy, joy, love of life, colour, and often a rich sense of place and a dash of humour."

Folk art differs from other art in that you expect that humour. Droll is a good word for it. The colours are indeed frequently bright, primary colours lavishly applied. Women hook rugs. Men carve and put scraps of wood together. The pieces are all from east of Ontario, many of them from Nova Scotia, none from New Brunswick. I was surprised to see that many in the collection were of recent vintage - the '80s and '90s.

I had already seen Susan Vida Judah's stunning exhibit of 13 chairs. As a complete work of art it is an original concept, and yet it owes something to folk art. The two exhibitions played off each other. Judah has woven tapestry seat covers for 13 Victorian chairs. (Saint Johners can see the exhibit this summer at the New Brunswick Museum.) The colours are subtle, the workmanship perfect, the designs intricate and lovely: a miracle. In his catalogue essay, Peter Larocque writes that she has focused on something so familiar that it is often overlooked: the chair. In the folk art exhibit was a painted table and a huge chair - which certainly couldn't be overlooked. The Judah catalogue is itself a work of art.

Catherine Hale's work, at least in my mind, also played off the folk art exhibit. Folk artists sometimes put together found objects: scrap pieces of wood and metal. This is how Hale works. I would know one of her pieces if I met it in Timbuktu. Her last exhibit had some of her exquisite cloth works. This exhibit was dominated by her found objects of wood and metal connected only by her creative imagination, her sure eye, and matte black paint.

The work of both Hale and Judah is sophisticated. Their colours are subtle, the workmanship exact, refined. As Riordon writes, folk art is often naïve.

Over the years, my husband and two sons have had great fun making what might be called folk art. Bill hooked three rugs of his own design and created furniture out of castoffs. John paints extravagantly, carves wood and makes twig furniture. Their pleasure in the making is faithfully reflected in the joie de vivre of the objects they create. Making obviously scratches some itch, compels them to concentrate in this pleasurable activity.

If I could make things, I would need to capture that spirit. It is not that folk artists are jolly people. If a Van Gogh painting were included anonymously in the exhibition, it would not be out of place. His work is bright, full of life and there is a kind of naiveté about it. But we know that Van Gogh wasn't a happy man.

The three exhibitions all have the quality I call hands-on-ness. I know I am communing with the artists, with their imaginations, learning something about them that I could only discern in this way. I have known Hale and Judah for many years, but we are not intimate friends. And yet figuring out their art, I get to know them in a way I wouldn't be able to even if we had coffee together every morning.

Nancy Bauer is an arts columnist who lives in Fredericton. She can be reached at wbauer@nbnet.nb.ca.