Message from the Executive Director (Fall 2024)

We miss planning and attending the annual conference of the Folk Art Society, but we happily remember the many places we have been and the good times we have had together. I remember the first conference held in 1988 in Richmond, Va., and how the Folk Art Society got started in the first place!

On August 5, 1983, Howard Finster was scheduled to be a guest on the Johnny Carson Show, and my husband, William “Boo” Oppenhimer, was a big fan of Johnny’s. He said, “If Howard is on Johnny Carson’s show, he will be famous – so I think we should go down to visit him.” A few days before Howard’s Monday date with Johnny, we made the 10-hour trip to Summerville, Ga. We fell in love with Howard, of course, had a wonderful visit, and brought home 50 pieces of his art. Our life has never been the same!

On the drive home, Boo said, “I think we should have an exhibition of Howard’s art at the University of Richmond and invite him to come and put on a festival.” I was teaching in the art department, so I was given permission to have an exhibition and a festival for Howard. Boo even gave the festival and exhibition its name – “Sermons in Paint: A Howard Finster Folk Art Festival,” and after getting a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the opening date was set for October 31, 1984.

I began contacting people who might be interested in lending pieces of Howard Finster’s art, speaking at the planned symposium, writing for the catalogue, or taking some part in the event. I heard from about 200 people. Those people became the nucleus of what eventually became the Folk Art Society.

“Sermons in Paint” was a big success, with hundreds of attendees during the week-long event. Howard was a guest in our home that week, and we became dear friends for the rest of his life. As I said – our life has never been the same.

We began collecting and lending folk art to exhibitions, as well as visiting and becoming friends with artists. In 1985, I helped Professor Ray Kass with a program at Virginia Tech where Finster came to do what he called a “work out” with the students. Ray had not planned for anyone to cook Howard’s meals or look after him, so Susan Hankla and I volunteered to do this. We spent another remarkable week with Howard, making art and just enjoying being with him.

In November 1987, we invited a group of friends to our home to discuss folk art and to make plans to perhaps form a group – the Folk Art Society of Richmond. Someone said, “How about the Folk Art Society of Virginia,” and Boo (“The Idea Man”) said, “Why not the Folk Art Society of America!” That’s how the Folk Art Society got its name and began. We got our non-profit designation, elected officers, and held our first exhibition, “The Bench and the Benchmaker: The Folk Art of Tom Gordon and Abe Criss,”(another title invented by Boo) at the University of Richmond. In 1987, we began publishing the Folk Art Messenger, a six-page, foldout brochure, with Charlotte Morgan as the editor, and we soon had at least 200 members. In 1997, John Hoar started designing the Folk Art Messenger, and it became a 40-page, full-color magazine that continues to win awards in Virginia and nationally.

In 1988, the City of Richmond planned “June Jubilee” at the 6^th Street Marketplace, which was opening downtown. There was a large empty room, and the Folk Art Society of America was invited to have an exhibition there. John Morgan, Tom Brumfield, and I drove to North Carolina to visit folk artists and to collect work for the exhibition, adding to the art we already had from Virginia and West Virginia artists. We called this show “Folk Art Jubilation.” The opening party attracted 450 people,

with food, drinks and a fiddle band. Well known collector and curator from New York,  Bert Hemphill, was visiting Baron and Ellin Gordon in Williamsburg, and we enlisted him as our speaker. We invited several artists and craftsmen to demonstrate their work during June Jubilee, and we published a brochure about this enterprise in the Folk Art Messenger.

The following year, in May 1989, we planned to hold a conference in Waverly, Va., to celebrate the birthday of the late folk artist Miles Carpenter. We had four speakers, a luncheon, and an exhibition of Carpenter’s work at his home in Waverly, now the Miles Carpenter Museum. We decided that was the second conference of the Folk Art Society because the first one, held in June 1988, had included a folk art exhibition, a grand opening reception, an important speaker, and demonstrations by artists.

This format became the way the Folk Art Society of America would hold 34 conferences during the next 36 years. For two years there were no conferences due to COVID restrictions, but annual conferences were held in Waverly, Washington (twice), Chicago (twice), Los Angeles, New Orleans, Santa Fe (three times), Atlanta (twice), Birmingham, Milwaukee, Houston, Morehead (Ky.), San Diego, Savannah, St. Louis, Oakland, Phoenix, Louisville, St. Petersburg (Fla., twice), Raleigh, Columbus, Memphis, Oaxaca (Mexico), Nova Scotia, Charleston (S.C.) and finally the last one, Richmond (four times). To go down Memory Lane and for more details, descriptions and photographs, see page 4 of this issue – “The Folk Art Society’s Story Continues.”