Catskills Folk Connection: July 28 Folk Art at Catskill Art Society, Livingston Manor, NY

Tonight on WIOX 91.3 FM or www.wioxradio.org I will once again be talking about folk art in anticipation of Catskills Folk Connection's presentation on Friday at the Catskill Art Society in Livingston Manor.

The radio program will be a preview of my talk on Friday about the folk painters represented in Catskill Art Society's Rural Life Festival exhibit "Homegrown." Asking the questions "What is Art?" and "What is Folk?" we will look at the works of Don Strausser and Cheryl Kolb and compare them with Catskills artists, both fine artists and folk artists.

Last time on WIOX listeners and I dealt mostly with the "folk" question and applied it especially to traditional dance and music. We compared traditional examples of singing with revivalist examples, revealing difference not so much in style as in the singer's relationship to the cultural source of the song. Tonight we will continue the comparison with the paintings. Cheryl Kolb's paintings are illustrated below in unfortunately tiny images that cannot be enlarged. Scroll down the blog to the previous post for a one of Don Strausser's paintings and then check the Gallery for more of Don's and Nellie Bly Ballard's paintings.

I'll play some music breaks not necessarily related to tonight's theme, and if there is time I'll try to give you another sample of Luvan throat singing that I heard at the Old Songs Festival last month.

Join me if you can this Friday from 3-5 p.m. for the opening reception of "Homegrown" featuring quilts, photographs of Catskills farming, and the folk paintings. My talk will be at 3:15 p.m. and the photographer's talk will be at 3:45 p.m. The gallery is called "The Laundry King" and is at 65 Main Street, Livingston Manor, NY 12758.

-- Ginny Scheer, Folklorist and Host of Catskills Folk at 7 p.m. on WIOX.

Cheryl Kolb's landscapes near her home in Pennsylvania: