Message from the Executive Director – Spring 2025

When I opened a copy of Folk Art Finder, the small newsletter published for many years by Jules and Flo Laffal, I was shocked to read, “This is your last issue of the Folk Art Finder.”

Well, this is not your last issue of the Folk Art Messenger, and we are planning to continue
publishing through the year 2025. There are several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that John Hoar, our talented designer of the Messenger for the past 27 years, recently announced that he was ready to retire at the end of the coming year, and that he would be able to do three more issues for us. John Hoar was selected for our designer by our stalwart friend and former board member, Tom Brumfield, who knew that John had designed for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and he highly recommended his wonderful work.

I firmly believe that the reason the Folk Art Messenger has won so many awards from the Virginia Professional Communicators and the National Federation of Press Women is the result of John’s creative and professional designing for the Messenger. I have been thinking all along: “When John stops, the Messenger stops.”

Another reason is that the Folk Art Society’s office will be closing at an undisclosed time because the Willow Lawn Shopping Center, where the office is located, has been slated for demolition in order to become a site for condos and other retail outlets. We don’t know yet when that actually will take place, but we will have to move a large library of important books, archives, video and audiotapes, which we have promised to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond. The museum has already received a large portion of the Folk Art Society’s archives when FASA was suddenly dismissed from the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts in 2016. Plans for the easy accessing of these archives are still in progress.

The other reason is the fact that Boo and I have been working on this project since 1987, for 38 years. When 2025 ends, Boo will be 94 and I will be 90. Hopefully, we will still be in good health, but one never knows. It feels good to have a cut-off date instead of infinity – as nothing can last forever.
After keeping what we will need to complete closure, plans have been made to donate any remaining funds to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, where we have pledged to donate our personal folk art collection. We hope that this museum will eventually become a national center for the research and study of folk and self-taught art.

On another topic – two members of the staff of the Folk Art Messenger, Beth Wiltshire and Catherine Venable, have joined Virginia Professional Communicators and have entered their articles in the annual contest. More on that later.

The website of the Folk Art Society, www.folkart.org, will continue to be online, with articles, calendar, and information as usual. We would like to have the back issues of the Folk Art Messenger digitized, but that will be a huge future project. In the meantime, please continue to contribute articles on artists, art exhibitions, auctions, and donations of collections to the Folk Art Messenger – as these contributions will be especially necessary and meaningful.