Antique Folk Art Sculpture Standing Figure Northwest 19th Century Inuit (?)

Antique Folk Art Sculpture Standing Figure Northwest 19th Century Inuit (?) 
Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Sculpture Water Wheel Whirligig Articulated Figure

Folk Art Sculpture Water Wheel Whirligig Articulated Figure No Date circa 1930 
Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND $5.99 Ebooks by Jim Linderman available for preview or purchase HERE

Clay Head Folk Art Sculpture

Clay Head Folk Art Sculpture circa 1940 collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN HERE

Folk Art Nude (Split Woman's Torso Sculpure) Collection Jim Linderman

Anonymous Circa 1950 Folk Art Nude Carving Sculpture North Carolina Collection Jim Linderman

Books and Ebooks by the author available HERE

Antique Folk Art Jesus Sculpture

Antique Folk Art Jesus Sculpture 11" Tall collection Jim Linderman
(Also posted on old time religion the blog)

Antique Folk Art African-American Puppet Doll Head Sculpture

Antique Folk Art African-American Puppet Doll Head Sculpture  Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Sculpture Carving for a HOT DAY collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Sculpture Carving 

It IS a hot day here.  The Soda Jerk is doing big business.

Good Luck Carved Horseshoe with folks sipping and sitting in the shade.
Circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman

Tramp Art Folk Art Relief Carved Religious Sculpture Dated 1904 collection Jim Linderman

A very good piece of Tramp Art, and one dated on the bottom 1904.  It is uncommon to find dated tramp art, though through old cigar box labels and notes, it is often possible to estimate.  This piece is for more complicated than most as it is covered with figural relief carvings AND has a little church scene carved on the inside!  "This is the church, this is the steeple, open the door, see all the people."  Nearly 20 inches tall.

Tramp Art Relief Carved Folk Art Sculpture 1904 Collection Jim Linderman
Books and $5.99 ebooks by Jim Linderman are available HERE

Folk Art Nude Sculpture (Abandoned)

 

Looks to me like a carver wore out...certainly that CAN'T be her hair?  Actually, what happened, I believe, is while carving the right arm,  a tool slipped, an arm was cracked and a project was abandoned. 

Large folk art carved nude woman circa 1940?  Collection Jim Linderman

Swiveling Nude Man on a Ball in a Cage Sculpture American Folk Art collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art from one piece of wood.  Swiveling man, ball in a cage, wittled with a knife and patience.

Folk Art Whimsey, circa 1920?  Collection Jim Linderman

Books for iPad by Jim Linderman available HERE

A Leggy Pin Up of Wood Folk Art Collection Jim Linderman

Folk art carved long-legged sculpture circa 1940.  Collection Jim Linderman

Retro Modern Mid Century Design Cat FOLK ART ?

Retro Modern Mid Century Cat FOLK ART ?

Retro Modern Mid Century meets a whittler or amateur woodworker in this pair of folk art cats.  Hilarious.  The form is as familiar as an Eames chair, but these folky felines were apparently made in the basement.   Abstracted American Caticus.

The American Pet Products Association say there are 86.4 million cats in the United States. As you can see from the quick screen grab below, there may be that many sculptures as well.

Pair of handmade (signed) abstracted cat carvings of pine,  circa 1950  Collection Jim Linderman

Big Folk Art Wood Carved Head Sculpture

Carved and painted bust.  Life Size!  Collection Jim Linderman 

Slave Made African American Folk Art Figure ? Civil War Jekyll Island Georgia Collection Jim Linderman

A little Civil War man from Jekyll Island, Georgia.  Circa 1865, made as a whimsey from lead, I believe, and I assume the same lead used to make bullets.  That is a guess.  When I obtained the little fellow, he was in two parts, which is not surprising as lead is soft and he was buried a long time.  I have rejoined him temporarily for the photo.  You can see what he was found with below…relics.  Relics of a war we have still not come to grips with. How can we?  African American Slave Made Folk Art Figure? Or Mere Whimsey.

When I purchased this fellow, I had not mere whimsey in mind.  I was thinking of the famous slave-made iron figure also unearthed, but from a blacksmith's shop and slave quarters in Virginia, not a Civil War resting place.  The figure which has been written about by scholar John Michael Vlach is frequently used to illustrate African craft, sculptural traditions and skills which were transmitted across the Atlantic…setting the stage for a war fought over freedom and commerce just before the industrial revolution.

The similar stance, diminutive size and presence was evident immediately.  Were there slaves (or African-American freedmen) around the campfire in Jekyll Island when this fellow was melted in a spoon and shaped in the sand?  Or was this simply a way for a bored soldier, of either side, to spend some time.

Jekyll Island is called "an affordable Georgia Beach family vacation spot" today.  As with much of the low-country along Georgia and South Carolina, what was once plantation is now golf course.  Fifty years AFTER the importation of slaves to the United States became illegal, they were still coming to Jekyll Island.  The second to last shipment of slaves imported to the states arrived there in 1858…some 450 men torn from their homes and made to work.  I do not know how many men were on the boat when it left Africa, but one source says the ship Wanderer arrived with 409 slaves.  The mortality rate for passage was 12 percent, so that would be about right.

The people who arranged the illegal shipment knew what they were doing and knew the rewards.  They choose to profit. 

The Union Army arrived on St. Jekyll Island in 1862.  By that time the plantation was deserted, but after the war the man who owned the island returned and split it up among his sons.

So is my mere whimsey a more profound object now?  It is to me.  Did it just happen to be found during the same dig, but made earlier by an African-American man who lost his home but retained his esthetics?


"Relic" man  Metal (lead?) circa 1860  Height 4"  Collection Jim Linderman

Browse and Purchase Jim Linderman Art Books and Ebooks HERE

World's Most Strange Totem Pole Folk Art

Location Unknown (then AND now)  A tip of the hat to Joey Lin and Erin Waters.

Curious Folk Art "totem pole" thing.  Snapshot no date.  Collection Jim Linderman

A Worried Man with a Worried Mind Folk Art Sewer Tile Clay End of Day?

End of Day Sewer Tile Whimsy Folk Art Pottery Clay Head.  A worried man with a worried (clay) mind.   Collection Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman and Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebooks for iPad are available HERE

Ladies and Gentlemen The New Book I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads

I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection is the newest book from Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

Real Photo Postcards, Snapshots, Polaroids and more!  Amateurs and professionals, anonymous and not, the story here is the figure.  Vents!

78 pages and available as a paperback ($21.95) or Ebook for ipad ($5.99) only from Blurb.com.

FREE PREVIEW and ORDERING IS HERE!