Florida Folklife, Traditional Arts in Contemporary Communities (review)

The exhibit Florida Folklife, Traditional Arts in Contemporary Communitiesis an introductory overview to Florida's traditional material culture. Organized at the behest of the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, the exhibition draws on new fieldwork conducted for this project and on over 20 years of research by public folklorists and anthropologists in Florida. Of particular significance has been the work of the Florida Folklife Program since 1976 and, since 1986, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. These existing collections allowed curator Stephen Stuempfle to mount an exhibition of over 180 objects and 80 individual artists in less than a year. Many of these artists have been featured in past Florida Folk Festivals or were recipients of Traditional Arts Apprenticeships and Florida Heritage Awards.

Objects are mounted on walls, on pedestals, in large free-standing cases, and in a back-to-back row of conventional cases, enlivened by colorful Cuban and Haitian kites and Filipino parols(Christmas lanterns) hanging from the ceiling. The title piece to the exhibition is a large photo mural of Greek American Nick Toth in the Tarpon Springs machine shop where he crafts sponge diving helmets out of copper, brass, and plate glass. Toth's tradition, passed on by his Kalymnian grandfather, links occupation, family, and ethnicity—an interesting choice given the importance of these themes to the exhibit.

The exhibit cases are grouped thematically according to maritime, marsh, ranching, and musical traditions. The opening occupational section is less visually striking, but no less significant to a balanced depiction of Florida material culture. Representative objects include cast nets, oyster skiffs, and lobster traps of the ocean coastlines; ingenious frog gig skiffs and dugout canoes of the Everglades; and saddles, spurs, and cow whips of Florida's cattle ranching tradition.

The final three sections reflect Florida's multiculturalism. Although the exhibition strives for ethnic and geographic balance, curator Stuempfle readily admits to major gaps due to space restrictions and the sheer size and ethnic diversity of Florida. Certainly, no exhibit of this type can be comprehensive. Anyone familiar with Florida, however, will note the careful inclusion of objects from important cultural communities such as Panhandle Creeks, St. Augustine Minorcans, Tarpon Springs Greeks, Masaryktown Czechs, and Jacksonville's Arab population.

Nearly half the objects in this final section come from the south, a decision which showcases the seminal work of Historical Museum of Southern Florida staff and other local scholars over the past 13 years. Due to this long-term, community-grounded research, the exhibition reaches beyond the more accessible decorative textile, wood, and paper arts to include more in-group ritual objects such as orish herramientas(metal implements used in the workshop of individual orishas, or deities), pakets kongo(magic charms used in Haitian voodoo), Jewish shofarot, and Seminole ceremonial rattles.

Each major thematic section features an overview text, contextual photos, and artist portraits. More fully developed artist biographies are available in looseleaf binders placed before each case. The biographies and section texts, along with overview articles by Stuempfle and Tina Bucuvalas, are included in the handsome 103-page catalog. Each site is coordinating a series of public programs that bring visitors and artists together.

This is an impressive interpretive survey of Florida material culture. Its major weaknesses lie in a perhaps unavoidable emphasis on objects rather than artists and contexts, and in a blurring of the distinctions between ethnic versus folk and traditional versus idiosyncratic forms. These academic distinctions, however, are not the point of the exhibition; rather, it tries to "communicate...