A List
10/8/01

FOLK ART COLLECTION EXHIBITED AT SLU'S BRUSH GALLERY

CANTON - The George and Helen Spelvin Folk Art Collection, considered 
to be one of the "most insightful private collections of contemporary 
'outsider' art," will be on exhibition at the Richard F. Brush Art 
Gallery at St. Lawrence University from October 15 through December 7. 
"The Politics of Parody," a lecture by curator Beauvais Lyons, will be 
given on Monday, October 15, at 7 p.m. in Room 123 of the Griffiths Arts 
Center; at 4:30 p.m. that day, a curator's tour of the exhibition is 
offered.
	Comprised of more than 900 art objects, the collection was donated 
in 1997 to the Hokes Archives at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 
to "serve as a creative resource for research and teaching." The national 
touring exhibition was organized by Lyons, director of the Hokes Archives 
and an Ellen McClung Berry Professor of Art.
	The exhibition surveys the work of 11 artists, with examples 
including enamel painted records by Lucas Farley; Arthur Middleton's painted 
portraits of American presidents; numerous "limberjack" puppets by Lester 
Dowdey; velvet paintings of brides by Charlotte Black; flower paintings on 
book pages by Emma Whorley; and some of the best examples of "mug jugs" by 
North Carolina potter Rufus Martinez. E.B. Hazzard's "alien communication 
device," made of over 300 flattened tin cans on a modified tent-pole structure, 
and Max Pritchard's hand-printed religious tracts on cereal boxes are also 
included in the exhibition, as is the interracial rag-doll friendship chain 
by Loretta Howard, whose grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
	Over the past 25 years, when they were not busy with their jobs as 
an insurance agent and a school teacher, George and Helen Spelvin have devoted 
their energy to the study and collection of visionary folk art. While a 
small number of works have been loaned to museums, including the Smithsonian 
Institution and the Erie Museum of Art, no comprehensive public showing of 
the collection has ever been organized.  First presented at Carnegie Mellon 
University in the spring of 2001, the exhibition is currently on a national 
tour.  
	For more information, or to arrange individual or group tours, contact 
the Brush Gallery at (315) 229-5174.

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