Folk Art Environments of Alabama and Mississippi

Kathy Bailey - Project Director
Andrew Goetz - Project Coordinator and Photographer

>> see the exhibition photographs

The desire to alter and adorn one's surroundings and to invest them with meaning is universal. In Mississippi and Alabama, as in other parts of the world, many structures exist which were created by people without the benefit of formal training in art or architecture and without any familiarity with contemporary academic art practices. Unique personal places, which vary in materials, configuration and size, these structures fall into the broad category of folk art environments. This category, according to Willem Volkersz, includes sculpture gardens like those of Charlie Lucas and W.C. Rice. Also included are indoor or outdoor accumulations of objects so great we are forced to take notice, like those of Lucille House in Gordo, Alabama and L.V. Hull in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Alternatively Folk Art Environments are the interior or exterior of a house, which has decorated surfaces throughout such as the home and bus of Reverend C. A. Dennis in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Finally folk art environments are also part performance art as evidenced by a visit to Graceland Too in Holly Springs, Mississippi

Usually built without formal plans, these largely immobile and monumental spaces represent the artist’s unique imagination, heritage and personal experience. Frequently contained in the artist’s home or business, these sites are often built with found objects discarded by the larger society. Yet as John Beardsley reminds us, these places also "reveal numerous links to their social contexts; they also suggest connections—some deliberate—some unconscious –to numerous historical antecedents".

In a survey of these environments, Andrew Goetz and Kathy Bailey traveled throughout Alabama and Mississippi documenting through photography and oral history, a selection of these places and the people who made them. Their study of Folk Art Environments is an ongoing project. The images at this site are just a part of the photographs taken for this study. Meeting the people who created the environments and looking at their creations, Bailey and Goetz discovered that no matter how we choose to define them, folk art environments make us conscious of the creativity that is present in all people, regardless of race , class or gender.