A carrot for a nose

Most streets and highways offer any number of folk figures to anyone who cares to see them. A few-like snowmen or scarecrows are ephemeral; but most of these folk forms have a longer life expectancy, and some like weathervanes or trade signs are older than the nation. Their makers seldom thought of themselves as artists, but when you compare such familiar forms as a pavement lid, a gravestone, or a neon sign with other of the same kind, you can readily see that one is better than another, and that the best are very good art indeed. The succinct text for A Carrot For A Nose and the exceptional illustrations have been brought together by a specialist on American folk art in a manner that invites you to see and judge for yourself the folk forms that are all around you. Working with photographs by some America's great photographers and with drawings from the celebrated index of American design, he explores why and how some of these forms came to be, and he considers their variety as expression of their maker's artistry. As he puts it-you can start out thinking about why a snowman has a carrot for a nose and end up with an aesthetic experience.