Feminism and Folk Art: Case Studies in Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, and Brazil

Eli Bartra's book attempts to reveal a feminist method of analysis for folk art and to apply this method to folk arts of Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, and Brazil. The introduction provides a lens into feminizing the popular—the works of the people, of the “impoverished classes” that do not receive formal art education (p. 2). Bartra relies on Henry Glassie's definition of folk art, which does not distinguish between art and folk art. She attempts to decipher something that is uniquely “feminine” in creativity by exploring folk art and artists while defining folk arts as “the artistic production of individuals who are disadvantaged in their respective societies” (p. 3).Bartra uses various folk art objects as her starting point and then introduces us to their creators. She utilizes Kimberlé Crenshaw's feminist conceptualization of intersectionality to discover how gender is communicated through the arts the artists make. Although Bartra suggests that paying attention to gender in the art works is critical, she elaborates an essentialist view of gender in her description of women's “authentic creativity” in folk art (p. 7). She argues that this feminine creativity appears mainly in the realms of embroidery, weavings, and clay objects, and that it has close links with mothering and maternity, and often with the body. Overall, the goal is to reveal invisible and unseen female artists.For example, the first chapter, “Trees of Life,” focuses on the polychrome clay figures made in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, Mexico, which represent the cultural heritage of the State of Puebla. This chapter explores the creativity of women in the artisan community. By listening to the women and their stories, Bartra hopes to construct a female picture of the art form from 2009–2010. The town is a center for sugarcane production and is alive with memories of colonial culture. There are 12 workshops with roughly 60 artisans who live and work in this community. Bartra follows the work of several female artists in this community. Her discussion focuses on the art itself and its specific elements and style. Although she portrays some details about the past history of each woman artist, there is little about the social role of women or the specific role each woman plays in her family and community. I find it difficult to see how the focus on the objects fully reveals the gendered or embodied experience of each woman; the account we get is a surface-level description of each woman's artistic style and rendering. Bartra describes the focus on death that appears in so many of the women's pieces, yet she says nothing about the high rate of femicide that is the backdrop for these images in Puebla.The second chapter, “Art Weavers: Maori Women of Aotearoa (New Zealand),” focuses on the resurgence of maoritanga in cities where the Maori have had to migrate to make a living. This chapter is rife with issues, from the subpar quality of the photos of the weavings to the descriptions of hybridization that completely neglect contemporary theories of globalization. Bartra describes a workshop held at the University of Auckland that attracts students from around the world, but neglects to discuss the role of online platforms or commercialization in this context. The work suffers from a lack of deep understanding of the women and their experiences, artistic visions, and contemporary framework, in which hybridity and authenticity are negotiated. Although Bartra begins the chapter by acknowledging the power of colonial history and discrimination in the lives of the Maori people, she does not do justice to their expressions and the role these arts play in the contemporary creation of maoritanga identity.Chapter 3, “From the Sober to the Saturated: Japanese Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita,” co-authored with Kanae Omura, contains far more specific details about the process and history of the two art forms. Chapter 4, on the Abayomi Project in Brazil, looks in depth at the Yoruba women's collective in Rio that creates celebratory black rag dolls to assert the beauty and visibility of the Afro-Brazilian women who made them.Overall, the book reads like a museum walk-through, with each description of an artist and their art only just slightly longer than what you might find on the walls of a museum. I do not see how the nuances of gendered, cultural expression can be captured in such short studies. In contrast, the power of Glassie's work on folk art comes from his deep focus on the individuals and their culturally embedded yet distinctive expressions. For this reason, Feminism and Folk Art seems truly useful only for those researchers interested in the specific folk arts described.Chapters 3 and 4, which come from more in-depth knowledge and experience, are the two best chapters. However, there remain key issues with the feminist framing the author uses. Intersectional feminist theory is a powerful tool for exploring oppressions, but this requires using deeply engaged methods that forefront an individual and her identity—not the art objects she creates. Bartra's assertion of the existence of feminine creativity is very problematic from the position of decolonial, intersectional feminist theory that queers the notion of the feminine and does not accept a binary of “female” and “male.” It is still possible to examine responses to oppression and master narratives and not assert an essentialized version of the feminine or the category of “woman.” Hierarchies of gender exist around the binary. Even in the case of Brazil, travesti (transvestites) utilize and appropriate their own version of extravagant femininity in order to perform their gender—this is certainly an embodied form of creativity. Is Bartra arguing that only cisgender women express feminine creativity? There is a much broader social context in which any artist makes art—the context for the production of whatever is termed “the feminine” is not quite as simple as this author is attempting to describe. Perhaps the most interesting question inside this globalized context is what empowers and what disempowers artists as they produce and perform their gender and their arts.