Make-Do Handmade Working Folk Art Duck Decoys with Original Paint c. 1940

A skein, a flock, a gaggle,a raft, a brace...all names for a bunch of ducks. These I call a group of make-do, handemade duck decoys. Cut by hand from tin or actually galvanized steel. Tecnically a group of folk art silhouette decoys with original paint. Make-Do Handmade Working Folk Art Duck Decoys with Original Paint c. 1940 Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb / Jim Linderman

Paper Doll Antique American Folk Art Make-Do Newspaper Doll collection Jim Linderman

One of the best "make do" folk art dolls I have seen, this is an original doll made of rolled newspapers. Dated 1947,with Phildelphia, Pennsylvania origin. Collection Jim Linderman

Antique American Folk Art Button Table Mat

A somewhat obsessive table mat with over 1,000 individually sewn buttons, circa 1940. 18" x 30" with irregular patterns. The piece is sewn over thin cardboard mailed from Sears to Maine...and an old spaghetti box! Hand-sewn folk art button collection sewn on a table mat. Circa 1940. Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Antique Bowling Game Sideshow Carnival Made by Hand Folk Art

Someone threw the ball too hard, but this is the only example I have seen.  A make-shift carnival bowling game.  Plywood with complicated workings...I am going to guess this comes from the transitional days of the sideshow, when handmade gaming objects and targets were changing from somewhat primitive contraptions to more modern.  The mechanism might have been sold from a catalog, then assembled by the recipient...who knows.  Sold with a template to cut and install the works?  Ten pins and six llights.  Seriously, who knows?  The object, good from both sides, is 21" tall and 21" across.  I'm guessing 1940ish?  

Early Carnival Bowling Game collection Jim Linderman
NOTE:  Friend and follower Harold Gaines found the answer!
Since pinball machines and the like were made in very small quantities, the old ones look pretty sketchy once you pop them open and look beyond the fancy glass and cool art to see how they were put together.  They were basically hand-made, one at a time.  However, being professionals at the coin-op compaines, they did things like countersink lightbulb recesses that even a good amateur wouldn't.  Further, although your piece is in pretty bad shape, the quality is too high for a 1940's amateur job.  They just didn't have the specialized stuff like routers to make the professional looking cutout sections, soldered ring connectors with multiple colors of wire, etc.  It looks like the wiring is a combination of cloth and plastic insulated.  Plastic insulated wire wasn't introduced until the 1950's.  Finally, the rusty marks on the back side look way too symmetrical for an amatuer (especially a carny).  It looks like it was mated almost perfectly to something metallic, which was also very precisely made.  It just looks too well made to me even in it's (very) rough condition.  The guys at link could probably take one look at your pics and tell you, though. 

Sock Doll Make-do Depression Doll

Make-do doll made long ago found today.

Sock Doll Circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

Etui Etui ??? Homemade Folk Art Needle Case

Etui   ???   Edui is another name for a needle case.  Well, sorta.  So let's just use needle case.  A handmade one, with felt, feedsack printed cotton, some trim...and a nice little tab of paper above from where this little lady once lived in a scrapbook but was torn out.  She has had a few lives.

An odd thing, as printed needle cases and needle books were literally given out free.  
SEE HERE  
Still, someone took the time to make it, the least I can do is scan it.

 

Depression Era handmade Needle Case  Collection Jim Linderman

Miniature Make-Do Folk Art Tack and Pin Box with Birds Drawn by Hand

A tiny "make-do" handmade folk art box for holding tacks and pins. Only three inches wide and two inches tall, the box is constructed from cardboard, the "handles" are small brads. I presume made by a child, possibly as a gift for the parents? Circa 1920 or so. Scarlet Tanager, Baltimore Oriole and Goldfinch.

Miniature Homemade Folk Art Box collection Jim Linderman
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Folk Art Masterpiece Pieces of RICE Folk Art Masterpiece

Folk Art Masterpiece. Four feet long and entirely made of hand-dyed rice kernels, each single piece placed by hand. I thought it was a pretty good (and pretty large) hooked rug until I got about fifteen feet away. 100% rice, whole-grain....and each tiny kernal vegetal dyed. Click to enlarge. I am inclined to run a "guess the number of kernels" contest but then I would have to count them myself.


When does a now extinct child's craft become a work of art? Well, for one thing, when it gets this big. No child made this. 4 feet x 3 feet and framed like the serious construction it is. This took longer than the hardest puzzle and I presume tweezers were involved.


Now tedious and repetitive folk art pieces like this used to be common, or at least smaller versions were. Certainly television took away much of the motivation, I suspect sleeping pills and sedatives have as well...obsessive art is far less seen than it used to be. This certainly would have won first prize at the State Fair around 1900 had it been entered, but there is no attribution other than the Midwest.


I have seen portraits of clown heads made of aquarium sand. I have seen entire buildings made out of corn-cobs. I have seen a Harley Davidson motorcycle constructed of dried beans. If there is a person bored and a wooden board, something will be made. But I could look 20 years full time and not find a piece as balanced, as big and as beautiful.



"Make-do" Applied Rice constructed "painting" circa 1900. Collection Jim Linderman

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Make-Do "Christmas Tree" Homemade Postcard

Homemade "Christmas Card" Dated 1924 (Pressed Fern) Collection Jim Linderman

Santa Puppet Made from Glove Box Cardboard

Indian Apple Glove Company Santa, Size 8. Circa 1930. Collection Jim Linderman