The JC Art Tour, Day 3: Other

As you will see from these pictures, I'm really into 'folk art'.

I got this cross in Costa Rica.

This stuff is in the Africasian room. And again, it's all from Target except the monkey, and it was all on clearance (except the monkey)! The monkey came from Cost Plus.

More Target clearance. Cough.

OK, finally some non-Target stuff! My sister brought me the mask on the left from Madagascar, and the zebra from Kenya. I bought the other one last year in Arizona at this big outdoor African market that they have every year in February. Unfortunately I can't remember what country it came from, I'm thinking it's either Ghana or Benin. I love masks, but I've never really found a good way to hang them on the wall so they're just lying around. I guess two of them have holes that I can run some string or yarn through and maybe hang them from that.

I bought this in Costa Rica as well. I really loved how they have so much tile artwork all over the place down there. I had these grand visions of framing this, which you can see have to this point been unrealized! Hey, it's only been 6 years. I do need to get this framed so I can hang it up!

This is a wood carving made in Oaxaca, Mexico. They have a very distinctive style there of wood carving, usually in the shape of animals, that are very brightly painted. I also like that the artist usually paints his name and village on the bottom of the carving. This link tells about the history of the carvings, and you can see some pictures of other carvings here. And er, no, mine didn't cost anywhere near as much as these!

This is a grasshopper made out of a railroad spike, a couple of nuts, and some nails. I just thought it was really creative.

This is a pirate head carved out of a coconut that I got in Florida. It's just wrong on so many levels. I think buying this was my inner 5 year old trying to express himself.