Thoughts for the Day

I've been thinking recently about this whole process of making miniatures from wood craft bits like I do, or developing them from a pawn or clothespin base form like Dale, Ken, and Stephen do, or the clay sculpture figures that Vicente does.  I have also started to think more and more about the general "crafting movement" in rpgs, in particular work on terrain by people like DM Scotty and DMG (check out their youtube videos if you haven't, they are both awesome).  I know we do it primarily out of a gaming need/desire.  But it has to be more than that. 

We are fortunate enough to live in a time when there are pretty much professionally sculpted miniatures and terrain pieces for anything you would want, and if you happen to hit on something that you can't find, I highly recommend doing a Kick Starter search before concluding that "that miniature doesn't exist," because much of the time you'll find a KS for it ... it may never get finished, but at least there is a mention of a KS for it.  So it isn't like the 1980's when we might be making miniatures because the ones we need to not exist.  We can get professionally made miniatures and terrain of whatever we want, all we need to do is paint them.  So why do we do the stuff that is covered on this blog?

I then got really reflective and thought back to the art appreciation courses I took when I was a wee lad in college and it sort of hit me.  And I came to this conclusion.  I think that one of the main reasons those of us who do this whole miniature construction and painting thing is out of individual artistic expression.  These pieces are art to us, not just purely functioning objects to use in a game.  Sure, that's part of it, but the amount of blood, sweat and tears that we put into these little fellows far exceeds any benefit provided by creating a functional gaming piece.  And again, all those gaming pieces already exist, sculpted by professionals.  All we have to do is paint them.  And yet, we continue to do this "art."

So the next obvious question is "okay, but what kind of art?"

I'm starting to think that one could classify what we are doing as "folk art."  Here is dictionary.com's definition of "folk art":

"Artistic works, as paintings, sculpture, basketry, and utensils, produced typically in cultural isolation by untrained often anonymous artists or by artisans of varying degrees of skill and marked by such attributes as highly decorative design, bright bold colors, flattened perspective, strong forms in simple arrangements, and immediacy of meaning."

Wow, that definition seems to hit on a bunch of things that appear to be true for the artistic process covered on this blog.

1.  Produced typically in cultural isolation:  Seems certainly to be true.

2.  By untrained often anonymous artists or by artisans of varying degrees of skill:  Check.

3.  Marked by such simple attributes as highly decorative design, bright colors, flattened perspective, strong forms in simple arrangements, and immediacy of meaning:  CHECK!!!

It seems to me that one could consider these little wooden warriors that we are making to be a type of folk art.  

Others agree?  Disagree?  Could care less, I just want to see more little wooden guys?