Tramp art exhibit shows what simple materials can be

On first inspection, the enormous cheval glass in one corner of the Peebles Gallery appears to be an ornate carving with incredible texture and detail. Indeed, the piece took more than eight years for David Fox to carve from solid blocks of wood.

The mirror is one of several pieces in the museum’s Tramp Art exhibit, which is on display at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Museum through Nov. 30, 2014.

And it’s a good example of why “Tramp Art,” as the technique was named in the 20^th century, might be a bit of a misnomer. Northern European immigrants, having settled into working life in America, passed their leisure time creating Tramp Art–often from discarded shipping crates and cigar boxes—as a hobby in their living rooms or workshops. That’s a pretty far cry from itinerants, who would have to pack these pieces up and carry them around.

The notch-carved borders and stacked layers give Tramp Art its distinctive texture.

“It looks very intricate and geometric when you look at the finished project,” says Tara Chicirda, curator of the exhibit. “But they are taking small, thin pieces of wood, cutting them into geometric shapes, layering them, and chip-carving the edges.”

Fastening the layers with decorative nails also added more dimension to the finished project–usually a keepsake box or a frame, or possibly a wall pocket, a child’s toy or a piece of doll furniture.

Cigars were tremendously popular during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and discarded cigar boxes were the primary source of wood for the craft. They were often made of quality woods such as mahogany or cedrela, sometimes known as Spanish cedar.

“Legally, they couldn’t reuse cigar boxes for cigars, so cigar stores just had piles of these things,” Chicirda explains. “You could just go and take them.” Packing crates were another popular source of salvaged wood—while you can’t see the back of the mirror on exhibit, Chicirda noted that the mirror glass itself was mounted on part of a packing crate.

“This was an early form of recycling,” she says. “They would also incorporate little knobs, tacks, pieces of mirror and other things they would find around the house, and they’d use stains and paints to add color.”

And, she says, part of the appeal was in its simplicity. “All you really needed was a penknife and a hammer.”