One of the Museums I recommend seeing in New York is The American Art Folk Museum. If you love America, it’s safe to say you will love this museum. All of the art in this museum tell American stories and bring American memories back to life!
If you’re a patriotic person like myself, and you want to go to The American Folk Art Museum, here is all the information you need.
American Folk Art Museum
45 West 53rd Street
(between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10019-5401
T 212. 265. 1040
F 212. 265. 2350
Branch Location
2 Lincoln Square
(Columbus Avenue at 66th Street)
New York, NY 10023-6214
T 212. 595. 9533
F 212. 595. 6759
Admission Prices”
Students: $8
Seniors: $8
Members: free
Children under 12: free
Friday after 5:30 pm: free
Branch Location: free
Museum Hours:
This quilt, Freedom Quilt, is from the American Folk Art Museum. It was created in 1983 by Jessie B. Telfair in Parrott, Georgia. This is only one of many quilts like it in the museum. The majority of the museum is made up of American quilts with messages like this.
Telfair stitched a lot of quilts like this one. She started stitching them in the 1960′s when she had lost her job because she tried to register to vote.
It makes a lot of sense that she would create quilts like “Freedom Quilt.” She wanted freedom just like the rest of the women in the 1960′s who were being denied it.
What stumps me though is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was implemented in 1964 along with the civil rights that were added to Article 14th of The Constitution. However, Telfair stitched this quilt in 1983, which was almost 20 years later. So this quilt represents how long the civil rights really took to impact America positively. In 1983, women were still looked down upon. Most men and even a lot of women still felt that women were inferior to men. I think that is what this quilt represents. I think this quilt probably influenced a lot of men and women both to go beyond the non discrimination requirements.I think this quilt is so influential because it has the word “freedom” stitched on it seven times. In school and on many other occasions, I was taught that if you repeated something seven times, it would stick in your head. Seven was the magic number. She is using the magic number to manipulate the thoughts of her audience. If they see “freedom” posted seven times, they will remember freedom and would hopefully never forget it and act accordingly.
This painting entitled, Girl in Red Dress with Cat and Dog, is from the American Folk Art Museum. It was painted by Ammi Phillips.
This painting immediately stood out to me, because normal children do not look like that. I felt almost as though the little girl was meant to look like a women. She has the posture of a women. She is dressed like a women. She is wearing jewelery like a women would.
The child looks miserable. She is not smiling like a normal child would. She is holding a cat still in her lap and the dog is sitting by her side and the animals and her are both really calm in the picture. Normally, you would see a picture of a child playing with the cat or playing with the dog. Normally children can’t sit still, and since they normally can’t even sit still themselves, it seems a bit odd to me that this child can sit still and can get the animals to sit still with her. That shows real maturity.
All that would be ok if the child wasn’t so young. The child should be enjoying their childhood, not force to grow up faster than she is ready. The child should be allowed to dress like a child, act like a child, and smile like a child. The child should be allowed to be a child. And what i see here, is a child being deprived of that.
This piece is called James Mair Salisbury. I had similar thoughts about this piece as I did about the previous one. It shows a child growing up too fast.
This piece is called Waterfalls by Miecieslaw Bogun. He created this in 1971. I don’t know if you can tell, but the painting is 3-D, and the water, grass, and rocks pop out of the painting. I thought it was so cool! (and the lady who snuck into the picture at the last second matches it, and I thought that was cool too)
