Welcome to Lagniappe Art

Folk art has always been an interest of mine. After a masters’ study of how the sociological events of time influenced the literature and art of the Great Depression, I found myself drawn to seek out a deeper meaning to what folk art really was. While ensued in my investigation, I realized that the concept of folk art began the first time humans touch was used to create a picture to either tell a story or decorate something as simple as a dwelling wall. In actuality folk art began when the first human being began to use implementations of various types to adorn various surfaces however so primitive. Maybe it all started with just one little piece of a rock or the piece of an animal bone, something that was used that scratched the wall of a cave, and then progressed onward to the primitive art of body painting to celebrate or communicate an identity or an event that was relevant to that age. In my studies, I found the artwork commissioned by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) was a unique form of folk art that depicted that age and that particular generation and what ensued not only in the minds of the people of that generation, but what was happening in their world around them and how they interpreted all of that which was going on. Thus conveying the mere essence of various cultures. Today we are able to view American folk art in museums-examples of the primitive desire of someone, somewhere to make record of an event, to tell a story or display the intricate decor of an age gone by. We have tried to duplicate this “form” of art in our present day painting and decorating. However taking into consideration of the true meaning of folk art-today’s folk art should be an indication of this age and this people and the events and concepts of this life and the interpretation of such.

In short, what I like to refer to as “New Age Folk Art” is an art form that is the interpretation of this new time we are living in – a time in which we use the concepts of the past to create a new and different presentation of this rather primitive and ancient form of art to tell a story or display a sociological footprint in time.

This is where I came to realize what the word “lagniappe” meant in my work: the progression forward into a new age without forgetting that of the past, and thus giving my art, my translations of folk art “a little bit more” as the word “lagniappe” itself means: the giving of a little something extra as a gesture of goodwill.

Having the privilege to live in a new millennium, we can create a unique form of folk art, and those that follow in years to come will be able to look back and say: “that particular style of folk art, that particular interpretation was relevant in the early 21st century as a reflection of that particular time!”