Kentuck 2011

Here's Joe Minter and his message in Rock at Kentuck  Fest 2011

"GOD LOVE" Joe Minter

Slotin Spring Auction

Slotin Spring Masterpiece Auction April 20-21, 2013

Even if you don't participate in the auctions their catalogs have crisp images of the art and make excellent indexes of all the folk art you can imagine.  I usually find one or two pieces in my price range at Slotin's Spring and Fall auctions.  Request their catalog.   dave

New Raw Vision In April

Raw Vision #77 out in April and available at Dos Folkies Gallery

You Can't Go Back

In 2003 I drove back east with my daughter Leah to visit my dad in Illinois, and to try to track down a couple artists I had discovered a few years earlier.  Those artists were Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Mose Tolliver.  The photo below is of Mose and Leah on his front porch.  We visited with him for about a half hour.  He seemed genuinely gracious when I told him he was one of my favorite artists.

Here's a cool painting by Mose that's available at Dos Folkies Gallery.  Originally from the Lynne Ingram collection.

We did get to meet Jimmy Sudduth and his cousin O.C. on the same trip.  I did not get a good photo of him then,  but I have about 2 minutes of video that I hope to share soon.  So here's a picture of Mr. Sudduth from 2004 when we traveled back with my wife Julie and son Cole.  I had my good video camera with me on that trip, but forgot the battery back at our room.  Of course.

Not the best exposure, but I did buy the painting from him and it is one of my cherished art pieces. 

Address Book Folk Art

Here's a couple pages from my mom's address book.  

These are a couple of the pages from the address book my mom, Ruth Marvedean (Forby) Russell, had for about 30 years. Instead of buying a new book she would glue a new piece of paper over the old page and start all over.  Some of the pages are as thick as six or seven layers of paper.  On the example below you can see through the paper onto the sheet beneath and make out ghostly lettering.  

 Not only are there addresses and phone numbers, but as you can see from the above page there is a recipe for 1-t salt, 1 pinch b-soda, one cup water, squirt up nose.  On another page she penned in, '..a stricken soul was singing with her heart aganst a thorn.'  I don't know if this is a verse from a hymn or something she thought up.  There is also a recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar,  the addresses and phone numbers for tele-evangelists, and  addresses for Illinois State Representatives. Unknowingly my mom created a little collage of her life in this address book.  You can look through it and feel you know something about her.  She used to tell me that she had dreams of being a fashion designer when she was a little girl.  She never did realize her dreams.  She spent her life raising her five boys and putting a meal on the table every night.  But, she was always cutting things out and gluing things down.  Her letters were decorated with pictures that she would cut out and glue down often with little captions attached.  She even decorated the envelopes. She was every bit a folk artist in her approach.  Mom passed almost 13 years ago, but she lives in my heart and her old letters and her wonderful address book/journal.   Dave

RUTH RUSSELL