Opening Reception/Celebration Sunday—

Retrospective At HMA Of Paintings By The Noted Folk Artist Kathy Jakobsen

BRIDGEPORT — Kathy Jakobsen of Weston, regarded as “one of the best contemporary landscape folk painters” by The Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists, is being featured in a retrospective exhibition called “Innocence of Vision” at Housatonic Museum of Art through November 9. (The exhibit opened on September 6).

Many of the more than 90 exquisitely detailed paintings are original illustrations for her children’s books including Johnny Appleseed, My New York, Meet Me In The Magic Kingdom and This Land Is Your Land, with words and music by the late Woody Guthrie.

An opening reception and book signing by the artist on Sunday, September 9, from 1 to 3 pm, will be enlivened with a performance of traditional and contemporary folk music by Cyd Slotoroff of Branford and Stacy Phillips of New Haven. Other special exhibition events, which are also free, include a storytelling program and slide show with Kathy Jakobsen and Nora Guthrie (Woody’s daughter) on Saturday, September 29, at 1 pm, and on Monday, October 8, at 12:30, a discussion of picture books by Dr Ruth MacDonald, the academic dean of Housatonic Community College.

The genre of folk art reflects artists’ intimate views of everyday activities and scenes, whether urban or rural, relying more on personal observation than formal art training and approaches. In the exhibition catalogue Robbin Zella, the director of Housatonic Museum of Art, explains: “Interest in American folk art emerged in the 1920s and by the 1950s, culminated in the founding of museums devoted exclusively to collecting folk art. Three ground-breaking exhibitions were mounted in the 1930s by leading folk art scholar Holger Cahill … at the New Museum in New Jersey and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. These shows were the first comprehensive exhibitions devoted entirely to painting, sculpture, crafts and decorative arts, awakening a new appreciation for American hand-crafts and art created by untrained artists.”

Contemporary folk art today (work produced after 1900) splinters into a variation of styles, including Art Brut, Art Singulier, Visionary Art, Intuitive Art, Outsider Art and Naïve Art, according to Ms Zella.

“All except Naïve Art are styles that refer to a wider practice of much more personal or eccentric kind of art,” she continued. “What distinguishes the naïve artist from the other practices mentioned above is that the naïve artist is consciously trying to reach or create an audience for the work whereas the other artist is generally eschew exhibiting work publicly. Naïve art is also characterized by the highly detailed and realistic scenes of animals, people, places and events.”

Kathy Jakobsen’s vibrant and brilliantly colored images are clearly identified with the Naïve style, Ms Zella explained. “Through the use of pattern, repeating forms and rhythmic line she illustrates an idealistic vision of contemporary American life and creates a wonderful positive feeling about each place – urban, suburban or rural.”

“A sunny cheerfulness infects every inch of her canvases, making her hopefulness contagious. In fact, Kathy Jakobsen’s greatest gift may be her marvelous optimism, her amazing ability to see the world with a humble heart and an innocence of vision,” concluded the curator.

A Michigan native, Ms Jakobsen grew up on “on an acre of land with trees and animals all around us.” She credits a happy childhood and her mother — a portrait and landscape artist — with early encouragement of her artistic talents. She has turned often to that Michigan landscape for inspiration, as in the views of an ice festival and typical Victorian architecture.

She fits the untrained artist profile. After high school graduation, with a grist-to-the-mill attitude, she took on various jobs but continued painting after hours.

“I thought – I’m not going to fail. I am not going to learn about business machines, because I am not falling back on it. I deliberately chose to go right with art, no matter what, because that’s what I wanted to do,” said Ms Jakobsen.

Two important people who became influential art figures recognized Ms Jakobsen’s talents early in her life and encouraged her: Dr Robert Bishop, who later became the director of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City, and a long-time friend, Jay Johnson, who founded America’s Folk Heritage Gallery on Madison Avenue. Today her work is included in the Museum of American Folk Art, the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., and the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.

She has painted over 600 paintings since beginning her career in 1976, many of them special commissions, including “Easter at the White House,” “Absolut” and  “20th Anniversary of the New York City Marathon._ Additional commissions have been for Mr and Mrs Michael Eisner, the author Jackie Collins, Sesame Street magazine, Bloomingdales Department Store, and Smuckers Jam Company, among others.

“The appeal of her work,” wrote Jay Johnson, “lies not only in the brilliant colors and great detail, but also in the combination of activity and peace.”

As an artist/illustrator/writer, wife and mother of three children, Ms Jakobsen continues to create an astonishing body of work, sometimes spending 80 plus hours weekly painting.

“My work is very demanding,” she reveals, “you wouldn’t believe how much patience it takes to paint 2,000 bricks in a single painting,” she says. Her exquisitely detailed paintings are what she calls “food for the spirit. I want to create an uplifting, an Oh Wow! feeling in the viewer.”

In addition to the joy of her own family her most enjoyable efforts seem to be children’s books. She wrote and illustrated My New York (where she lived) from a child’s-eye romantic view of the city, prompting Frank Rich of The New York Times to say “…after you’ve seen Kathy Jakobsen’s New York, everything else is dullsville.”

She also illustrated Johnny Appleseed with text by Reeve Lindbergh. Both award-winning tiles were published by Little, Brown & Co. Mr Jakobsen’s three children served as inspiration for the drawings of both books.

Meet Me in the Magic Kingdom, published by Disney Press in 1995, contains 500 illustrations, originally created as oil paintings.

In This Land Is Your Land, she worked closely with Woody Guthrie’s children, Nora and Arlo, to faithfully record details of the life and family. Booklist said: “As the lines of the songs unfold, page by page, meticulously detailed, tiny vignettes and gorgeous expansive vistas add depth and drama to the words and introduce the beauty and diversity of America … like the song itself, this book is a treasure.

Housatonic Museum of Art is at Housatonic Community College, 900 Lafayette Boulevard in Bridgeport. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 5:30 pm; Thursday to 7 pm; Saturday, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm; and Sunday, noon to 4 pm. There is no admission charge to the galleries or for the special exhibition programs. For more information, call 203-332-5052 or visit www.hcc.commnet.edu.