TRAMP ART : In Fullerton, Carvings by Hobos, Gypsies and Other Migrant Workers Charm With Their Melding of Rough-Hewn Simplicity, Decorative Excess and Finicky Perseverance
On the prowl a couple of years ago for cheap vintage doodads for my newly acquired 1939 cottage, I was intrigued by a magazine article about “tramp art,” a rustic form of carving made of notched wooden pieces nailed or glued together in elaborate patterns.
Like most other forms of Americana, the frames, boxes, clocks and other objects thus made by migrant workers, hobos and others linked (by blood or affinity) to the German woodcarving tradition no longer are dirt cheap. But looking costs nothing in the lobby of the Cal State Fullerton Library, where “Whimsies in Wood: Tramp Art and Folk Craft” continues through Jan. 14.
Tramp art conjures up the picture of whittling hobos gathered around a campfire, waiting for a boxcar ride, or sitting on a flophouse bed; hired help pulling a chair up to the hearth in winter and amusing the kids with fanciful carvings; sailors killing time in cramped spaces; Gypsies crafting ingenious objects by the side of the road.
Poverty forced these folks to be creative recyclers. Putting their pen knives to work on mahogany, cedar and pine wood from such sources as (pre-cardboard era) cigar boxes and fruit and vegetable crates, they whittled multiple diamonds, hearts, stars and other shapes. Layered or interlocked, these designs grew into dense, prickly textures.
Pyramids and intricate crown-of-thorns designs regularly crop up in the designs of frames, often made to hold two, three or more portraits. The popularity of the pyramidal shapes may have been due to the ease with which they could be built up out of small stacks of wood. The crown-of- thorns motif points up the bedrock religious belief that tethered a wandering life--along with extraordinary patience: Two of the frames made in this style contain more than 3,500 identical notched pieces.
In a draft copy of the exhibit brochure (still unavailable in late December), library exhibit coordinator Veronica Chiang explains that the earliest dated pieces of tramp art were made in the 1860s, and that dated work after 1925 is hard to find--which is surprising, given the widespread nomadic habits caused by the Depression.
Other work in the show apparently was made by more settled folk artists in the United States and abroad who had access to a greater range of tools and materials. The more eccentric of these pieces include a “poor man’s grandfather clock” and a small shelf made from pieces of wood fungus.
The 25 1/2-inch-high pine clock has finials blithely carved in different sizes and other out-of-kilter decorative elements--not to mention the humorous addition of a Westclox “Ben Hur” alarm clock as the timepiece.
The shelf, which screws into the wall, consists of two pieces of wavy, toadstool-like fungus resting on a third piece balanced on one end. For some reason, the craftsman decided to paint a miniature snow scene on the uppermost piece of fungus--a typical attempt to turn one natural thing into another.
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Although a few pieces in the exhibit--such as the pair of marquetry candle holders or the small box veneered with specimen-thin slices of nutshell--are more sophisticated in design and execution, the real charm of this work lies in its melding of rough-hewn simplicity and decorative excess, and the kind of finicky perseverance that produced a 57-piece scale model flotilla from a bunch of wooden sticks.
The exhibit does roam confusingly far afield, perhaps in an attempt to include every facet of the private collection from which it was borrowed.
Objects made abroad (a Polish fruit basket, an Italian bottle stopper and so forth) are shown without any explanation of how the materials, techniques, subjects or craftsmen’s status may have differed from the American examples. And objects listed in the catalogue under the heading “whimsies in the marketplace” (a pencil in the shape of a twig, a wood puzzle, animal-shaped nutcrackers) are displayed without any reference to their vintage or their status as goods made for sale rather than private use.
But the only truly discordant note is the racist figure of a top-hatted, pop-eyed black man on a Japanese-made box used to hold dice. Although such objects have had a long history in American popular art, the piece--displayed without comment--hardly seems necessary or relevant in this context.
A joint project of Chiang and graphic design students working with Garland Kirkpatrick, an assistant professor of art, the exhibit demonstrates how style--in this case, tongue-in-cheek kitsch--can be created on a tight budget. Fake “stepping stones” lead the visitor from one case to another, and stand-up photo-blowups of tramps (similar to old-fashioned lobby advertisements in cinemas) add a nostalgic fillip.
