Paranoia now too, glueman?

Folk arts include folk dancing, folk music, folk song, folk crafts and other plastic folk arts. Trade Union banners once were a splendid example of a folk art. The common features are that they are not driven to be "high art" (so the songs do not contain expressions like your words "palimpsest of geography and psychogeography") nor are they the product of consumerism (a "top down" process of manipulation of artificially created consumption). This correlates quite closely to the 1954 definition, and it is the antithesis of elitism.

It is unlikely to be true that folk arts have become dominated by the middle and upper classes. Even if that were true, it does not mean that the aspirational and judgmental qualities of elitism are present.

Leveller, the fact that people are protective of their possessions does not make those people elitist, nor does it make them middle class. If you were to go say to smokingtyrez.com you can imagine the reprisals if yoof were to start kicking footballs around near and potentially at those cars - and those cars are the badges of working class assertiveness (even perhaps rebelliousness), not middle class.


Competitive Xmas decoration, however (to take an example) is consumerism in display, and therefore not a folk art. I would accept competitive leek growing as a folk form, but I'm not sure it is an art. Coarse fishing is in an interesting cleft stick. Roaching for example was long a primarily working class pursuit, but now it is the market place for very expensive technical products - carbon-fibre rods, etc. I don't think that means it has lost its claim to be a folk pursuit.

Is earthenware pottery a folk art? I am undecided.