Research and Coincidence Leads to Folk Art Find

Two weeks ago I visited the daughter of Mr. Fred Bailey near Shawville. She had been in touch with me after seeing one of her father's carving in my recent interview with Joel Haslam of CTV News. 

I had earlier sent Joel a copy of my book and when he received it, called me right away for the interview. Joel is also a collector of Canadian antiques and folk art so he was quick to pick up on my suggestion about an interview on folk art. I had also included a photograph of one of Mr. Bailey's carving in my book Folk Art in the Attic. Here's the photo from the book of a piece titled "Haying 1920's".

I spent a pleasant hour with Mr. Bailey's daughter chatting and looking at the carvings she has in her possession. In total she estimated her father produced only 80 carvings in a ten to fifteen year period. The majority of them featured horses which he loved his entire life.  His daughter told me a sad and touching story about how her father lost the 198 acre family farm in the Eastern Townships during the township. Down but not out, Mr. Bailey and his wife left and travelled to her home town of Shawville, Quebec north west of Ottawa where they hoped to make a new start. Mr. Bailey's spirit was tested again when en route his horse was injured and had to be destroyed. Undeterred, Mr. Bailey and his wife travelled on to Shawville and successfully restarted their lives. He worked a number of jobs and finally settled on carpentry as his main occupation, one he was to pursue for the rest of his working life.

While she had several examples of his work there that day, his daughter was not interested in selling any of them. I wasn't surprised at that. If I was in her position, I wouldn't sell them either. So I had to satisfy myself with taking photographs.

A few weeks later I was casually looking at FaceBook and you can imagine my surprise when this terrific wood carving by Mr. Bailey turned up at the Elora Antique Show. Reacting quickly, I messaged a friend who was exhibiting at the show and he purchased the piece on my behalf. Another dealer friend who was exhibiting at the show brought it back to me in Ottawa.
Mr. Bailey mounted all of his pieces on short wood planks. On the edges of the plank he typically would engrave a title, his name and the year he created the work. This particular piece is dated 1974.
Mr. Bailey's work exhibits the characteristics of excellent folk art: inspired carving, memories of days gone by, naive yet charming execution, a strong sense of purpose and confidence. It's not surprising that horses are featured in so many of his carvings. Horses were obviously a very important part of his life and community. 
The work of folk artists typically reflect the community in which they lived and their traditions. Mr. Bailey's work is no exception. 
If and when you decide to collect a particular folk artist, you'll want to do your research. Learn about the artist and their life and how it is reflected in their work. Talk to their family and relatives. Knowing the details of their lives enriches the collecting experience and your collection.  
It so happened that Mr. Bailey's daughter had a similar piece to the one I purchased in her collection. That was important information and enabled me to act quickly when I saw the piece on line. The carving is called The Race and features a standardbred horse race with four colourful participants. It is dated 1974 and signed by Mr. Bailey.

It is said that the work of folk artists reflect the personality of the artist. An excellent piece of folk art should inform the observer about the artists' way of life and their feelings toward the environment that surrounded them. Clearly, Fred Bailey accomplishes this in his wood carvings.
It was a thrill and a happy coincidence to acquire the new piece by Fred Bailey. Hopefully, I can add another one to the collection in the not too distant future.

The Media and Your Small Business

For many years now, I have made a living from helping mostly small business owners and entrepreneurs understand how the legacy media operates so that they can, from time to time, gain editorial type coverage for their enterprises. Over that time, 16 years, I have successfully engineered a many pieces of coverage for clients.  


The process is straightforward: identify an interesting story within your business or past-time and take the story idea to a relevant reporter or editor. Frequently, more than one editor or reporter will be interested in the story and more coverage results. Sounds pretty simple right? It is. 

And yet the vast majority of small business and entrepreneurs do not take advantage of this situation; one that can have a profound and positive impact on the market awareness of their business.

From time to time, to prove to that this theory about media relations still works, I try it myself. 

Let me give you an example. Recently I decided to write an editorial column for our community newspaper. It was my view on real estate development in the area. The editor accepted it and ran it in the paper a week or two later. In our email correspondence I took the opportunity to raise the point that if the paper was ever interested in a feature or column on antiques and folk art, I would be willing to write one.  A few weeks passed and one day recently, the editor and I met for coffee to discuss the idea. 

We hatched the idea of a column, on a trial basis, that I would write along with evaluations, again by me, of readers' antiques or folk art pieces. The editor asked if I could have the first column written for the following Saturday which was two or three days hence. I went home wrote a column. She sent me a piece of folk art she owned as the first item to be evaluated. This week, the first installment of Collectable Treasures ran in the Kitchissippi Times.

The subject of the original letter to the editor doesn't matter in the scheme of things. The point is that I created a piece of content and got if front of the relevant editor. That did two things. One, it gave me access to a media channel through which my content was published and two, it effectively created the start of a working relationship between myself and a newspaper editor. From a business perspective, those are good relationships to have.  

That's not to say, that an editor is going to accept your articles and stories simply because you are now acquainted with that person. Whatever you submit is still going to have to meet or exceed their standards. And, that's just how it should be. The point is that you now have an editor who is willing to look at your stories and evaluate them for publication. That's important.

I should also mention that the first published column accomplished a few other important facts. It established my credibility, to some extent, as an evaluator of antiques and folk art. Secondly, the by-line had a nice reference to a book I published, Folk Art in the Attic and that exposure may lead more people to buy the book.

So, all in all, this is pretty positive experience and one, as I said at the beginning, of which more small businesses and individuals should take advantage. The results can be very rewarding.

Thoughts on the Bowmanville Show 2015

The Bowmanville Antique and Folk Art Show is like an ocean liner in an era of high powered, fast moving “cigarette” boats.

The venerable show, now in it’s 42^nd year, plies the Canadian sea of antiques and collectables steadily and gracefully all the while buffeted by new trends, new events, an aging demographic, a paucity of younger enthusiasts constantly being pulled away by the tide into other areas of collecting.

In spite of the high winds of market change, this grand dame event keeps doing her thing, annually offering an impressive array of museum quality Canadian antiques and folk art albeit to a fickle public and a core of die hard yet arguably aging collectors.

The market for antiques, as witnessed in the past two decades or so, keeps getting further refined and targeted as event promoters and dealers struggle to keep pace with a changing market and demographic; serving up more and more options designed to attract the antique collector’s dollar. 

Time was when country furniture and folk art held a spot at centre stage and other categories, such as they were, had only bit parts or walk on parts to play. Now, the next generation of events has matured. 

Impressive open dish dresser in paint.

 Country furniture and folk art must compete head on with categories like advertising nostalgia, mid century modern, mission / arts and crafts, repurposed industrial, art decorative and 50’s kitch. And if that’s not enough of a distraction, full colour interior design magazines editorialize and publish photo essays on a regular basis about the merits of pickled or distressed paint finishes on mismatched $2 hardwood chairs and $10 tables that were manufactured in the millions between the two great wars.

Museum quality country furniture also competes for mind share with media outlets promoting repurposed objects found at flea markets. It’s enough to make a grown up antique dealer lock his or herself in their truck and weep.

The last major antique event held in my city a month ago didn’t even have the word “antique” in the title! It was called a “Market”. Is that what we’ve come to? Is the word “antique” seen to be actually pushing people away, not attracting them? 

Very pleasing folk art carving by Seton Tompkins.

 Perhaps, as the name "market" suggests, collectors have simply become customers and what they want is to only go shopping for interesting things that have little or nothing to do with antiquity. It's just stuff available in quantity and, most often, for less money than a genuine antique.

On the plus side of the ledger, the Bowmanville Show is lean. Only 23 dealers in a single room. You can walk the entire show in a matter of minutes. Or, as many people do, take hours to inspect it. And, come back the following morning and do it again. It's not often that pieces like this are on display and sale.

The strength of the show is the dealers that participate. The backbone of the show is a core of veteran dealers who design and occupy 20 by 10 foot booths. They know how to stage and interesting and impactful display of country furniture, folk art and accessories. All of their items on display are in original or old surface with excellent form and provenance. 

These veterans are backed up by dealers who are somewhat newer to the show and work extremely hard to find the best quality items that they can offer. Occasionally, a collector turns "dealer" and stages a booth at Bowmanville. Such was the case this year and at least one long time collector had an impressive offering of country furniture, textiles and folk art.

Superb blanket chest in original paint with a selection of quality accessories.

Unlike any other Canadian show I know, Bowmanville is a "vetted" event. A team of knowledgeable collectors /dealers go through the show before it opens and examine every item ensuring that it is properly dated, priced and its origin noted. 

This year the Friday night crowd was keen and interested. When the doors opened sharply at six, the aisles were filled almost to capacity and stayed that way for the entire evening. The atmosphere was pleasant and cordial even if not ready for the "tunes" emanating from from one young dealer's booth. He was apparently asked to turn down the volume. Perhaps jazz or folk would have been more appropriate.

Nicely painted folk art horse.

Curiously, the Bowmanville Show is held Good Friday evening and all day Saturday of the Easter Weekend. That timing doesn't sit well with some people who obviously have other priorities on this particular weekend. However, the Show and Easter weekend are a tradition going back for  years and not something that's likely to change. 

So, until further notice, start planning for next year and book your "seats" on Canada's best country antique and folk art show. Believe me it's worth the ride!

Many thanks to the dealers who permitted photographs of their antiques including Peter and Helen Vernon, Clay and Carol Benson and Peter Baker.

Majestic Folk Art Carving Returned to Family - 85 Years Later

The Internet and Facebook in particular are amazing communication tools. I have promoted my book, Folk Art in the Attic, through Facebook with considerable success. Recently, a great grandson of Charles Vollrath, a fabulous wood carver from Chalk River, ON, read the book and was quick to notice the description of this great grandfather I had included therein. He got in touch with me via FB message to ask if I had any carvings by Charles as he wanted to give one to his father. I had none and, as I told him, I hadn't even seen a Vollrath carving in years. After all, Charles was carving actively in the 1940's and earlier. That's 75 years ago! 

In any event, I told him I would keep my eyes open. About a month later I was trolling the antique shops in Ottawa and was standing talking to a shop owner when just at that moment an elderly man walked in. He was holding a shopping bag in his hand and sticking out were the antlers of a large wooden moose carving. I half jokingly asked if it was a carving by Charles Vollrath. You can imagine my surprise when the old lad turned to me and said, yes, it was! 

After I had recovered from the shock, he went on tell us that his wife was from Chalk River, where Charles Vollrath lived and worked. The carving had been in he and his wife's possession for many years but the time had come to scale down. So, it was off to the antique shop with some of their objects. 

After a fair bit of discussion, I was able to buy the carving from the dealer and took it home. Later that day, I sent a photo to the great grandson and quickly made arrangements to sell the carving to him so he could give it to his father. 

He met me the next day at an auction in Napanee and I turned over the carving to him. It was a happy day all around when he gave it to his father who in turn sent me photos and a big thank you via FB. 

Great antiques and folk art always have an equally great story associated with them. That's why I am so keen on them. The Charles Vollrath carving was no exception and provided me with another terrific story!

Taking Your Book to the Media – What I’ve Done and Learned (So Far) 

I’ve made a living for many years from media relations consulting; helping businesses and organizations with their news releases and generating profile in the media for their products and services. I knew from the get-go that once Folk Art in the Attic  (FAITA) was finished and in print, I could take on the job of doing media relations for it. This role is usually the responsibility of the publisher, and while my publisher, Sonderho Press, had responsibility for design and printing coordination, the job of media relations fell to me. 

While you may not plan on writing a book, as an antique dealer or collector you may at some point decide to contact the editor of one of your local media outlets in an effort to generate some publicity for your antique business. Perhaps you are a show or antique event promoter who could use exposure from the media. Or, you may be an auctioneer. My media experience with FAITA may be helpful to you.

Fortunately for me, the process of media relations is essentially the same regardless of whether you’re promoting a book or some other product or service. However, one has to keep in mind that with the exception of the trade media, few if any editors of general media outlets have experience with antiques and with the collecting of antiques. It’s all baby steps with them.

If a major newspaper outlet has regular coverage of antiques, and most of them don’t, it’s typically a “what is it”, “what’s it worth” feature where readers send in photos of their antiques and a resident expert comments on them. This type of feature focuses largely on the “money” which is not surprising since most media outlets place a priority on quantifying a story. Numbers in a story help to give a sense of scale for the reader. How much money was made, lost, won? How many people were on the bus? What is the fastest time, the slowest time? You get the idea.

After skimming through the book, one editor who controls about 20 community weekly newspapers here effectively shut the door on my PR efforts by saying: “But the antiques in the book aren’t all from this area.”  That’s like saying I won’t cover a Margaret Atwood novel because it’s not set in my hometown.

Regardless of the logic, this editor missed the key point, or rather I didn’t make the point with her, that while collectors are certainly interested in objects that come from their immediate area, they are also interested in objects that come from anywhere else in Canada or North American for that matter – if they meet their criteria.  It’s easy to understand why she missed the point.  Her experience is with her readership and geographic area and not with antiques. In her mind, the stories that get into the paper have to be “local”.

Myself up front with the host of CBC's In Town and Out, Giacomo Panico

I had more success with the editor of the community paper in the area in which I live because I could pitch the book as being written by a local resident. I didn’t have that advantage when dealing with local editors in other parts of the city and region.

The key with many editors is to find an angle that will appeal to their journalistic sense. That can be difficult.

I dropped off a copy of the book for another editor of a magazine, which precipitated a lengthy exchange of emails in which we struggled to find an angle that appealed to her. Of course I thought it would be easy: “decorating with folk art”, for example. But I don’t think this individual even knew the term “folk art” or what it meant. Not exactly a strong foundation from which to start a PR discussion.

We went back and forth for month or two until finally in my last email I suggested a story about “finding folk art” or more accurately “where to find folk art”. In the editor’s mind, that phrase conjured up the possibility of “day trip” type article where I would write about where to find folk art in the antique shops, markets and auctions in the area. That’s the article on which we’ve settled. I think she may ask me to write it – and maybe she’ll pay for it, which is an added bonus.

 

A review of Folk Art in the Attic in an Ottawa community newspaper.

Another home related publication happened to have a “books” feature and they ran a positive review of the book with a photo of the front cover. However, I read a couple of back issues of the magazine so I knew in advance of sending the email that they did cover books. One should always know, at least a little bit, about the editorial content of any media outlet, before you contact them.  I’ve stayed in touch with the editor and raised the notion of at least one feature article about antiques and folk art. She’s interested.

I struck out completely, oddly enough, with a another magazine targeted at my age demographic.: boomers. One of the issues I read before sending a book to the editor, featured a cover story about a collector / dealer of vinyl records. On the strength of that, I thought it would be an easy pitch. Boy, was I wrong. Despite dropping off a book to the editor’s home and sending two or three emails, I never heard back from him one way or the other. I suspected it would be a stretch for a publication covering hunting, motorcycles and vintage cars to embrace antiques and folk art and judging from the results, it was. It’s tough to have a dialogue about a story when an editor won’t even answer their emails.

On the broadcast front, I’ve had good success. CBC Radio had me in to do a nice long interview on a local show. And CFRA Radio’s morning show has a Book of the Week feature and Shelley MacLean, their terrific morning host, accepted my book and that led to an interview, which aired in January.

 

Review of FAITA in Canadian Antiques & Vintage magazine

The next stage of my media effort is to approach editors and reporters further afield. Notwithstanding that I possess an excellent face for radio, I am also going to try and line up some television appearances. Let’s hope my nerves can stand the bright lights and make-up.

I originally wrote FAITA to have some sort of account of the many years I've spent finding and collecting antiques and folk art. I wanted something too that my grandchildren could one day pick up and read. Perhaps the book might inspire them to collect or study this country's material history. Now that the book is in print, I've achieved that goal. But FAITA has brought me more dividends including meeting many new friends right across the country. I don't know if I have a second book is in me or not. I'll think about that at a later date. Right now I am enjoying the fruits of this one. 

Presentation for Book Clubs, Historical Societies

If your book club, service club or historical society would like me to attend a meeting to give a presentation or have a discussion about Canadian folk art and antiques (with an emphasis on my book Folk Art in the Attic) I would be happy to do so. To make arrangements simply send me an email: shaunmarkey@rogers.com

A review of my book in the Way Back Times...

With over 30 years of collecting, picking, dealing and researching Canadian antiques, folk art and collectibles, Ottawa-born Shaun Markey has assembled a fascinating collection of stories. Canadiana, from cupboards and harvest tables to paintings, carvings, pottery, toys and collectibles, come to life in the 184 pages.
Shaun takes us from adventure to adventure, sharing insights and lessons learned along the way. His passion for regional history and detail add depth to his stories. One can feel his excitement, his triumphs and his disappointments. You want to keep reading. Historical facts and geographical details help the reader put the stories into context. Shaun, who has been buying and selling at shows in Ottawa, Bowmanville and LaChute etc., says his interest in antiques was sparked by a grainy, early 1900s black and white photo of his paternal grandmother's family's log homestead in Throoptown, Ontario.
Shaun shares what he has learned over the decades, including practical tips and cautions. Folk Art in the Attic is illustrated with excellent quality photos of the items and people in the stories. This fascinating insight into the world of Canadian antiques, folk art and collectibles would make an ideal gift for anyone with similar interests. A great read.
The author/journalist can be reached through his Facebook page below.
Paperback, 184 pages, $19.99, published in 2014 by Sonderho Press. Available at Chapters Indigo, Amazon.ca and Facebook at facebook.com/shaunmarkeyantiques
Reviewed by Margaret McAulay