Art is one of the most evasive terms that I have encountered. It seems, on the one hand, to be a highly particularized and evaluated process, which is scrutinized both in public and in private. On the other hand, I have found that it can be a purely subjective kind of term, which relates to almost any kind of skillful activity and/or the product of that activity. The focus of my research paper will therefore be directed upon a close evaluation, from the perspective of various disciplines, of art for the purpose of determining what in fact it really is; what can be considered art or artful, what cannot be considered as such and why.

To many people, particularly the lay person, the term folklore, if not entirely meaningless, is an all-encompassing word for fables, tall tales and old wives tales. While these things are all part of folklore, the whole is far more than any one or two of its parts. In 1971, folklorist Dan Ben-Amos developed a striking definition of this widely misunderstood term: he held that folklore is "artistic communication in small groups (Shoemaker, 3). Artistic communication, in the context of this definition basically refers to anything that people say, make and do. Everything that a person (or group of people) does has meaning, from the way that s/he holds his/her coffee-cup, right down to the fact that s/he is drinking coffee instead of goat's milk - human beings are expressive creatures.

We, as social beings, communicate our ideas and beliefs in various ways and through many different types of media . . . even if we do nothing, we are saying something about ourselves. The focus of this paper is directed towards a branch of folklore, which is known as material culture. Material culture envelopes the second of the three examples of artistic communication which Ben-Amos came up with, namely, things that people make; the arguments, which I will present in the following pages, urge the importance of material culture as folk art.

Robert E. Walls describes folk art as "the manipulation of the material environment for the purpose of making an expressive or artistic statement, usually within the boundaries of the aesthetic conventions of a specific group of people" (Walls, 108). In addition, he also defines folk craft as "the manipulation of the material environment for the purpose of creating an item that has significant practical use in the activities of everyday life" (Walls, 108). The difference between these seems to be one of functionality . . . indeed, these definitions seem to be universal as Henry Glassie writes : "If a pleasure-giving function predominates, the artifact is called art; if a practical function predominates, it is called craft" (Glassie, 253). I hold, as we shall see shortly, that the line separating art and craft, as well as art and Art is far more fuzzy than scholars indicate.

Folklorists (people who study folklore) work, along with socialists, anthropologists, philosophers, etc. to try and explain the human condition . . . for despite our great advances of technology and knowledge, we are at a loss to explain ourselves. The objects that we create are important to this search for human identity because they are expressions of who we are. Therefore, the study of material culture is nothing to be taken lightly, as it examines those tangible things in our lives through which we express, in some way or another, something about ourselves . . . they "tell things about people" (Pocius, September 14th). In point of fact, material culture has been formally described as "the transformation of natural resources to cultural artifacts [things] . . . those tangible creations that are based upon and incorporate human needs, ideas, values and beliefs" (Walls, 107). Walls goes on to explain that folklorists not only look at material culture as something that has a functional value, but something which communicates ideas that are otherwise difficult to express. But which artifacts are expressive? I hold that every object created by human hands (or mind) is a form of art; whether it be a grave stone, a painting, a car, or a pair of socks, each and every artifact of human creation is artistic . . . "there is no artifact totally lacking in art" (Glassie, 270).

In addition to artifacts -- the things in our daily lives -- I argue that everything, tangible or intangible alike, which has been created or manipulated by human intervention is a form of artistic expression. A song, a chair, the way that my mother sets her table for supper, even the way that I dress to go to school - all of these are expressive of some idea, and therefore artistic . . . "Any medium, affecting any sense, can be the conveyer of an aesthetic, and art, therefore, can be either gestural or verbal or material" (Glassie, 266). This is not to say that anyone can just go around claiming to be an artist. . . for there are distinctions which separate artists from other people. According to most scholars and critics, to be classified an artist requires formal training and intense knowledge of colour, shade, geometry and semiotics. The kind of art that I am focusing on here is folk art. The difference between folk art and regular or high art has, I believe, less to do with the artifact itself than it does with the person(s) who created it. Often critics dismissed folk art as "bad art executed by untrained artists who sought an easy road to status" (McKendry, 12). This is an elitist attitude, which, in many ways, still exists today, but which is also still very wrong. It is wrong because folk artists, by definition as outsider artists, create their work without notion of fame or fortune (at least most of them); their art is communicative - expressive of some message which the artist wants to deliver to either someone or no-one in particular . . . "The purpose of art is to communicate ideas and emotions" (Bohannan, 201).

I stated above that folk artists were outsider artists and made reference to a definition of such . . . there is no clear cut definition of outsider art, just as there is no clear definition of folk art, self taught art, vernacular art, naïve art and primitive art. The following will serve as a working definition, with the caveat that there are some inherent problems (such as elitism) to any such definition (hence the ongoing debates in academic circles):

Works of art - paintings, drawings, sculptures, assemblages, and idiosyncratic gardens and other outdoor constructions -- produced by people who have had little or no formal training in art and who produce (or at least began by producing) art without regard to the mainstream art world's recognition or marketplace (Internet Source #1).

As the author of this definition points out, the problems inherent to this definition have been the subject of many books, lectures and essays, but as I stated above, this definition will do, for lack of a better one. The key of this definition is, like the term itself, the fact that the artwork of folk artists is the product of untrained men and women (in a formal context anyway) who create art without regard to the mainstream art world. The old man in Garden Cove, Newfoundland who litters his front and back gardens with figures and my Uncle Gord Penney's amusing plywood cut-out of a black-bear, even the way my brother decorates his car, all of these people are folk artists.

There are many arguments, which hold that not everyone who creates something is an artist. "not every work . . . done by an unsophisticated eye or untrained hand does or should qualify as folk art" (Bishop, 02). I would argue for the exact opposite; if the purpose of art, whether high or folk art, is communication - the very soul of what it means to be human - then why would we exclude anyone who tries to convey meaning through external media (cf. Glassie, 266). This is what I was referring to in class when I said that my understanding of art was communication of Idea. I made reference to Plato because his philosophy held that there was a world of perfect forms which corresponded to our world and that when we see a chair (even though there are no two exactly the same) we understand that it is a chair and not a bench, a stool or a table or a cat, etc. The way that we can distinguish the form of something is rooted in the fact that we have an Idea of it - we know it. Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher held Plato's Idea to be at the foundation of artistic meaning . . . he argued that true art was the result of an artist's conception of a pure form - an Idea - which s/he then felt compelled to translate into the physical world. I apply this concept with great seriousness to even the most trivial of effort, if meaning is involved. Therefore, as I stated above, the lines which separate folk art from other forms of expression (craft included) are not as clearly defined as scholars would like to make us believe.

The central notion here is communication. Communication of what? - of meaning. When one looks at Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the meaning of the work is beyond the scope of the ordinary person . . . only a trained eye can examine the creation of a trained hand. Certainly, the painting "speaks" to different people in different ways, but was this the artist's intent? Or did Picasso want his message of the "aggressive, savage ature of the ladies from a brothel on Avignon Street in Barcelona" (Mckendry, 12) to reach everyone? Is the intent of the artist important anyway? Some argue that it is not; I however, hold that intent is three parts of the game . . . let us not forget the operative word: communication. If the meaning that an artist intends to communicate is not understood, what is the purpose of creating the work???

Take, for example, a poem. When a writer creates a poem, s/he wants to say something - s/he is very careful in his/her choice of words (Dylan Thomas, one of my favourite poets, was known to write the same line hundreds of times before he was happy with it) because his/her medium (the written word) limits the forms of expression s/he can use. A writer cannot depend on the subtle tones of his/her voice, because the audience will not hear the poem but read it (and if it is heard, it will most likely not be in the voice of the poet). We are taught in University that the meaning of a poem rests in the interpretation, despite whether the poet meant what you interpret or not. This is precisely what is wrong with scholarly interpretation of art - how can there be communication if there is no message? Therefore, the intent of the artist is all-important to meaningful communication through an artifact. In addition, the only differences between a creator of high art and one of outsider art are 1.A matter of formal training and more importantly, 2. A matter of academic classification. That is, they are the same kind of human activity - the dispersion of meaning. But where does the meaning come from?

We saw above that folk art is the manipulation of the environment for aesthetic purposes. We also saw that art is communication and that everything we do, even when we do nothing, we are saying something about ourselves. Therefore, if we look at all of this together, the notion of art is one which refers to the skillful communication of meaning. I say skillful here because it is important to note that even though I want to say something, if the meaning is not received and interpreted by the audience (i.e. you), then I lack the skill to present it artfully, hence it is not art. Nor can I blame the failure on the audience because in communication, the onus is on the performer to translate his/her Idea to the audience, not vise-versa. I would not attempt to write this paper in German because you probably would not understand the language - I could not blame you for this, because the onus is on me to communicate my meaning through a common language - there must be a dialogue. Indeed, this is a good example, because there is a definite art or skill involved in writing a paper (a fact that I'm sure you know all too well).

I must be careful here, because whereas the onus is on the performer to communicate meaning meaningfully, as it were, just because most people cannot understand the work of Picasso does not mean that Picasso is a bad artist. The difference rests, again, in the artist's intent - just as Picasso did not paint his art for me, I am not writing this paper for my illiterate neighbour. An artist creates his/her work with the audience in mind; I write this paper in Standard English using the rules of grammar and syntax, writing in complete sentences consisting of subject and predicates, etc. All of this would be useless if you could not read (obviously, this paper is intended only for those who can). Therefore, the meaning of art comes from the artist's skill of communicating his/her message to a specific audience, whether it be a unique creation like Picasso's painting or a specific ordering of objects, such as my mother's dinner table that says welcome, please sit and enjoy the food I have prepared just for you. The fact that my mother places the objects of the meal in a particular order on the table tells me that she has taken the time to make this meal special; likewise to the fact that the dining room table is set and that we are eating steak rather than Kraft Dinner, etc.

Beyond that, just as the amount of effort communicates meaning, so does lack thereof. Take abstract art for example . . . the random tossing of different coloured paint onto a wall of poster-paper can serve to convey the feeling of disorder that the artist holds towards the world. Likewise with my mother's cooking; if the meal were Kraft Dinner, but the dining room table was still set carefully, there would be a slightly different meaning (probably that she was working late before I got home and did not have enough time to prepare steak). The important fact here is that there was a meaning and I received it - the same kind of idea goes for all kinds of art.

I do not pretend to be an expert in the area of art, nor do I intend to take away from the work of other scholars who have studied art. I do claim to be an artist myself and I do hold very strong claims and beliefs regarding art, and for the purposes of this paper, I believe that I have successfully achieved what I set out to do: 1. Define art; 2. Show to what extent something can be considered as such and 3. Prove that the successfulness of art rests on the communication of meaning. There is quite a lot more which could (and ought to be) said about this subject, hence the countless books on the topic, but that rests beyond the scope of this paper.