122 Folk Art Quotes

Following is our list of folk art quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about folk music.

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Famous Folk Art Quotes

For me, art can reflect the celebration of the simple and good things in life. This is most important to me! — Romero Britto

Because modernism has conquered art, kitsch is the savior of talent and devotion. — Odd Nerdrum

Pop art is the American Dream, optimistic, generous, and naive! — Robert Indiana

Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit. - Mark Rothko

Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit. — Mark Rothko

Art is literacy of the heart — Elliot W. Eisner

I like kids' work more than work by real artists any day. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. lt must be spread everywhere – on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Creating something that is universally beautiful. That is art. — Shu Uemura

Art is a spiritual, immaterial respite from the hardships of life. - Fernando Botero

Art is a spiritual, immaterial respite from the hardships of life. — Fernando Botero

Art is the colors and textures of your imagination. — Meghan Trainor

Fine art is knowledge made visible. — Gustave Courbet

Pop art is the inedible raised to the unspeakable. — Leonard Baskin

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself. — Claes Oldenburg

The fact that I still find so much beauty in a handicraft is because my mother taught us to see not just the craft as a product but the craft as an embodiment of human creativity and human labor. — Vandana Shiva

Art is the objectification of feeling. — Suzanne K. Langer

Short Folk Art Quotes

  • Art should be created for life, not for the museum — Jean Nouvel
  • Art is a kind of illness. — Giacomo Puccini
  • Sell the public flowers... things that they can hang on their walls without being uptight. — Robert Mapplethorpe
  • Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual... — Andrei Tarkovsky
  • I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life. — D.T. Suzuki
  • abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality. — Piet Mondrian
  • True art awakens the Extraordinary Ovation — Hafez

Folk Art Image Quotes

Folk art quote You're a work of art. Not everyone will understand you, but the ones who do, will never forget about
You're a work of art. Not everyone will understand you, but the ones who do, will never forget about you.

Folklore Quotes

A man from Iowa or Illinois will say 'I'm from the Middle West'..a Georgian or a Mississipian may admit to being merely a Southerner...but no Texan, given the opportunity, ever said otherwise than 'I'm from Texas'. — J. Frank Dobie

If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine. — Diana Wynne Jones

Expedition EVEREST adds a new dimension to our storytelling in Disney's Animal Kingdom. It's a thrilling adventure themed to the folklore of the mysterious yeti. — Joe Rohde

Folk art quote The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

When fairy tales are written in the west, they're known as folklore. In the east, fairy tales are called religions. — Paul Henderson

What I find interesting about folklore is the dialogue it gives us with storytellers from centuries past. — Terri Windling

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier. — Sarah Zettel

Folk art quote Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.
Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.

I developed some unique software to public it on the web that I call the Folklore Project. — Andy Hertzfeld

My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses. — Alan Dundes

I have a great advantage over many of my colleagues inasmuch as my students bring with them to class their own personal knowledge of national, regional, religious, ethnic, occupational, and family folklore traditions. — Alan Dundes

When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland. — Terri Windling

Folk Music Quotes

It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people — Woody Guthrie

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. - Louis Armstrong

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. — Louis Armstrong

Once over there [Balkans], I felt extremely patriotic. Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music. — Sheryl Crow

Folk art quote There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

If songs were lines in a conversation, the situation would be fine . . . — Nick Drake

Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means. — Bela Bartok

Yeah, I always listen to both classic and newer folk-influenced music. Singer-songwriter, alternative music. I also listen to more experimental dance music. — Brad Delson

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing. — Justin Townes Earle

You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture. — Sonny Terry

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. — George Gershwin

Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners. — Alan Freed

Folk Songs Quotes

The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses. — J. Frank Dobie

But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there. — Roger McGuinn

Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion? — Dick Gregory

If it was never new and it never gets old, then it's a folk song — Oscar Isaac

I always knew Gordon Lightfoot was a really great songwriter, but his stuff even sounds better and better all the time. It's just so really good to me. It's just like that's what should be in a dictionary, you know, next to a really good contempory folk song, is a Gordon Lightfoot song. — John Prine

A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be who's hungry and where their mouth is or who's out of work and where the job is or who's broke and where the money is or who's carrying a gun and where the peace is. — Woody Guthrie

I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by. — Pete Seeger

You've got to go down the road you naturally go down, and for me it was pop, folk country, just feel-good music. I suppose most of my songs are very up-tempo. — Shane Filan

It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater… it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content. — Kurt Weill

I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can. — Guy Clark

Wall Art Quotes

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly. — Banksy

Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint. — Banksy

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. - Banksy

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. — Banksy

Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place. — Banksy

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. — Michelangelo

You can create the perfect triceps by just pushing yourself off your wall. — Jean-Claude Van Damme

There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge. — Banksy

A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with. — Banksy

A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves. — Banksy

The Art Snob can be recognized in the home by the quick look he gives the pictures on your walls, quick but penetrating, as though he were undressing them. This is followed either by complete and pained silence or a comment such as 'That's really a very pleasant little water color you have there. — Russell Lynes

Abstract Art Quotes

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is. - Jackson Pollock

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is. — Jackson Pollock

The drawings don't start with 'a beautiful mark'. It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn't have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion. — William Kentridge

There is no must in art because art is free. — Wassily Kandinsky

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was. — Jackson Pollock

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential. — Wassily Kandinsky

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. — Pablo Picasso

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation. — Oliver Sacks

The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. — Jackson Pollock

Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion. — Alexander Calder

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. — Jackson Pollock

Folk Quotes

The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it - Aneurin Bevan

The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it — Aneurin Bevan

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk. — Barack Obama

When you've worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity...you do not slam it shut behind you...you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed. — Michelle Obama

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H. L. Mencken

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay small acts of kindness and love. — Peter Jackson

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. — Abraham Lincoln

The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk. — Alan Hirsch

I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: As a black man who won the heavyweight title - Who has humorous and who never looked down on those who looked up to him - A man who stood for freedom, justice and equality - And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was. — Muhammad Ali

I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns. — Woody Guthrie

Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love. — Cornel West

People Writing About Folk Art

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Odd Nerdrum

Odd Nerdrum
quotes on art, love and life

19 149
Read quotes by Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana
quotes on love, art

11 125
Read quotes by Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko
quotes on art, life and education

52 1325
Read quotes by Elliot W. Eisner

Elliot W. Eisner

26 478
Read quotes by Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat
quotes on death, art and life

40 405
Read quotes by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Vladimir Mayakovsky
quotes on life, love and education

24 420

More Folk Art Quotes

In this perilous world, if a black boy wanted to live a halfway normal life and die a natural death he had to learn early the art of how to get along with white folks. — Benjamin E. Mays

An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences. — Rafael Sabatini

One of the reasons I love using LEGO bricks is because it makes the art very relatable and accessible; folks can connect with the art almost on a different level because they have played with it or their kids have played with it. — Nathan Sawaya

I never got a pass mark in math... Just imagine - mathematicians now use my prints to illustrate their books. Funny me consorting with all these learned folks, as though I were their long lost brother. I guess they are unaware of the fact that I am ignorant about the whole thing. — M. C. Escher

Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination. — Theodor Adorno

I'm trying to inspire as many people as I can. I want the viewer to enjoy the art and I want the whole family to have something to react to. I hope that folks go home and do a bit of doodling and creating on their own. — Nathan Sawaya

Art teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things. — Walter Benjamin

Folk parapsychology, an art and science designed to enable people to make effective use of their psychic talents — Isaac Bonewits

All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. — W. E. B. Du Bois

A game may be as integral to a culture, as true an object of human aesthetic appreciation, as admirable a product of creativity as a folk art or a style of music; and, as such, it is quite as worthy of study. — Michael Dummett

The book the Ziff folks sent me as an example of their art was 'Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java,' 700 pages + CD-ROM, published February 1997. I was personally acquainted with more movie stars than people who might conceivably have wanted to buy this book or any book like it. — Philip Greenspun

Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is said that my art has some typically Nordic features: the curving lines, the convolutions, the magical masks and staring eyes that appear in myths and folk art. This may be. My interest in the dynamics of Jugend style probably also comes into it. — Asger Jorn

The secret of a successful art career is to make more art that folks think they need than pieces they just want. When a piece of art emotionally connects with a person the work becomes a need. You are then on your way to becoming successful. — Jack White

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I'll share the formula I learned while forging my way forward as a full-time painter for forty-four years. The steps all break down to one simple sentence: Make art that connects with enough folks for you to earn a splendid living. — Jack White

Jazz is part folk art, part progressive art. — Mulgrew Miller

Our appreciation of folk art will strengthen our identities, our pride in belonging to a community. People trained in the creative use of their hands soon acquire skills, excellent craftsmanship which will be the most important measure of how well we can industrialize. — F. Sionil José

When I left the theater… I was thinking that I’d seen a classic of American dance. It confers a mythic dimension on ordinary aspects of our daily lives – it’s unfaked folk art. The dancers, crashing wave upon wave into those falls, have a happy insane spirit that recalls a unique moment in American life – the time we did the school play or we were ready to drown at a swimming meet. The last time most of us were happy in that way. — Arlene Croce

Folk music is not so much a body of art as it is a process, an attitude, and a way of life; its distinguishing features lie not within the songs themselves, but in the relations of those songs to a folk culture. — Sam Hinton

A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control ... his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music. — Sam Hinton

My personal philosophy is, talk about whatever you want on a show, but it better be good. And especially if it's something that challenges folks. You don't want to be on the side of power to demean a group that is at risk. Because that's propaganda. Whenever you're on the side of power, you're not making art. Art upends power. — Cameron Esposito

I always thought the women of my age group got short shrift because the women's liberation movement came slightly after. You look at the yearbooks and you see the future homemakers of America - hurray for that - but you also see them in the engineers club. You see minority kids as student body presidents at a time when everyone was supposed to be terminally racist. Yearbooks are genres; they're also folk art, folk documentation. — Kevin Starr

Craft is not a category; it's a means. The folks running the museum [Museum of Arts and Design]are sharp, and they know this, but they are in a bind. — Jerry Saltz

In my theater pieces, I would do "Tits on the Head" - Polaroid photos for $10 on the stage. There would be a line of folks paying me $10 for their turn. It was public prostitution. I turned my whole audience into johns. But because it was in a theater context, an art context, it was socially acceptable. — Annie Sprinkle

We live in an era where each of us has a massive catalog of film and television available through the internet at the swipe of a finger. To get folks out of their homes for a piece of art or entertainment, I think you need to offer something they can't get on Netflix or Amazon. — Nick Blaemire

When I was 19 I went to art school. I had six months of teaching myself to play baritone ukulele under my belt so I was sort of a novice folkie... I was singing folk songs at that time. — Joni Mitchell

Folk art has never been much about politics; it's about action and utility. — Cass McCombs

I love Inuit art, and most anything you would find in a folk art museum, as well as children's art or children's book illustrators or illustrators in general - all the kinds of work that my paintings would draw comparisons to. — Neil Farber

To live On means not yours--be brave in silks and laces, Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for; This is to be a trickster; and to filch Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth, Life, daily bread;--quitting all scores with "friend, You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me, Is what, when done with a less dainty grace, Plain folks call "Theft. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

I love commercial music! I can dissect it and criticize it with any critic in the business. But without any thought, I just enjoy it. It's folk music. That's what I'm doing, folk music. I'm not intellectualizing it . . . and making it into a phoney art form. I'm just doing the music I enjoy. — John Lennon

And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well. — Pete Seeger

O drink is mighty! secrets it unlocks, Turns hope to fact, sets cowards on to box, Takes burdens from the careworn, finds out parts In stupid folks, and teaches unknown arts. What tongue hangs fire when quickened by the bowl? What wretch so poor but wine expands his soul? — Horace

The New York art world readily proves people wrong. Just when folks say that things stink and flibbertigibbet critics wish the worst on us all because we're not pure enough, good omens appear. — Jerry Saltz

I absolutely love American folk art, can't get enough of it. — Lara Spencer

Hey ugly folks, go get some cyanide and die. — Frank Zappa

It's taken folk a while to come around, hasn't it? Even the boys in the band weren't too sure about the whole art thing. They just wanted me to concentrate on the music. But they respect it now. — Ronnie Wood

That's the thing about a folk tale: It is always addressing incredibly key issues about how you should live and what the right thing to do is, which is really what I'm the most interested in - like the questions that religion takes on. And I think that, for those of us that aren't religious, we need, or I need, art that stimulates the same kind of thinking about what it is to be a mensch, or a good man, things like that. — Benh Zeitlin

I start thinking: How many souls hip-hop has affected? How many dead folks this art resurrected? How many nations this culture connected? Who am I to judge one's perspective? — Common

Photography is the dominant and fascinating and only authentic folk art of the twentieth century. — John Rothenstein

Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying. — Walter Kirn

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