Reflections on Folk art

This post really has nothing to do with being underway, though it does have something to do with my frame of mind while at sea. So, there, I justified myself, ha!

While listening to Joni Mitchell to relax I looked my iPod to check out more songs and noticed that I was looking at an album cover that Ms. Mitchell created herself. I had forgotten how much I really liked her simplistic approach so I brought up Court and Spark, then So Far. Those albums brought up two points, 1. Album art is a lost art now (Which my friend Andy Voelker and I constantly exchange points of view on), and 2. I absolutely love Joni's folk art from the 60's and 70's, mostly consisting of single-line drawings and minimal/solid coloring.

I've never been the subject of any kind of art, and probably will never be because I've got an ugly mug these days, hah! But imagine being Graham Nash or Neil Young and being captured forever in a work of art by someone like Joni Mitchell? So, make friends with artists, you never know where they'll end up!

While growing up I was exposed to Penland School of the Arts, now let me tell you...If you were a child with an active imagination, then Penland was probably the place to be. Sculptures of every kind were (and still are!) in every nook and cranny on the wooded campus, just waiting to be discovered. It was a little dreamland for the child with his/her feet not quite on the ground. My friend Kaete and her older brother Richie seemed to have a lot of fun here during the early 80's, as both our fathers taught at the school.

This school set the mood for how I view the 70's and 80's, a crazy, wonderful world filled with a bit of cigarette haze, handmade dresses, acoustic guitar music, bare hand-carved wood, and wide open spaces.