Veronica Terrillion at the Fenimore Art Museum

I usually wait a few weeks before posting anything relating to something that has already found its way onto these pages. My latest post, on Veronica Terrillion and her “Woman-Made” environment, however, provoked so many responses (mainly on my Facebook page) that I thought it would be nice to show the individual artworks of hers that we acquired in the early 1990s.

In my post I alluded to a 3D painting that was brought to my attention by a gallery in Buffalo. It’s a depiction of Veronica’s father sledding logs in the Adirondacks. Here is a couple of photographs that show the inventiveness of the work, which has a base of about 20” x 24”, from its abstracted naturalism of the landscape and horses to the mixed media dimensionality of the figure and the sled. When I put it on view I always show it on about a 30 degree slant so that viewers can appreciate the 2D and 3D aspects of the painting. This is the piece that made me want to visit Veronica’s environment in person.

The next two pieces came directly from the artist or her family. I mentioned that when Veronica graciously invited me into her home I noticed hand-made floor mats made of a layer of concrete and brightly painted. She made portable versions on wood panel of one of these, “Spring Runoff,” which she generously donated to the Fenimore Art Museum. Here it is. Again, her ability to express the vibrancy and abundance of her natural surroundings is astonishing. This piece is about 18” x 30”.

Lastly, a few years after I first met Veronica, her son Richard offered us a sculpture of hers depicting the crucifixion. I immediately bought it, as it made sense to have an example of a work reflecting her devout religious beliefs. The crucifix, seen here, is remarkable similar to the large one on her property, seen in the photo from my first post. It is, like the floor mats in her house, made of layers of concrete molded by hand and painted. It always reminds me of the great Proletarian novel, “Christ in Concrete,” by Pietro di Donato, about the sufferings of the working man.

The concrete Christ also makes me recall the first time I met Veronica, a woman in her 80s, hunched over a large bin with her hands deep into a mixture of concrete, sand, and water. Reshaping her world and emphatically asserting her place in it.

The Woman-Made Garden

One of my first posts was about those special places that represent a folk artists attempt to draw you into their world in a real, physical setting. Called Folk Environments, these places can provide an incredible experience as you inhabit a landscape of dreams and visions. Environmental folk art is a worldwide phenomenon, but you shouldn’t discount what may be in your own area. It is also largely a man-made art form, owing to the immense physical challenge of reshaping the land. But you should never assume that a woman-made environment can’t be as ambitious in design and execution as any man’s.

The best example of a female folk artist realizing her vision for an environment is Veronica Terrillion, an artist I had the pleasure of meeting in the early 1990s at her home in Indian River, New York. My first introduction to her work came from a lecture I attended by Varick Chittenden, the Executive Director of a group called Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY). The slides he showed were striking, and it was particularly interesting to me that Mrs. Terrillion made artworks of singular, individual importance in addition to creating a large environment. I was, at the time, very interested in expanding our folk art collection at the Fenimore Art Museum to include more 20th-century artists, so Mrs. Terrillion was definitely on my list of people to meet if possible.

After making some inquiries, I found a great piece of Terrillion’s artwork in a gallery in Buffalo. There were several unusual and appealing elements to the piece. It was kind of a three-dimensional painting, a painted canvas with sculptural elements, which I had never encountered before. The work was also highly personal, as it depicted the artist’s father sledding logs in the Adirondack Mountains. I bought it for the collection.

There is no way to fully appreciate this piece, however, without meeting the artist in person. That summer I took the two-hour drive up to Indian River and met Veronica Terrillion. She was amazing. Almost 85 years old and still making art. In concrete. She was very gracious (most Adirondack people are) and showed me her “woman-made” house and garden. She built the cedar log house, by the way, and dug out a big pond (renting a backhoe) as a setting for her concrete sculptures.

And what a setting it was, three acres that included a menagerie of animals and religious figures and scenes from her life (that's her family below, including a poignant detail of her holding the baby she lost in infancy). Overseeing the whole landscape was, appropriately, St. Francis of Assisi, who looked very much at home in the north woods of New York State. Veronica had been a devout Catholic her whole life, as well as a lover of nature. The house was equally amazing, especially the painted “floor mats,” actually rectangular areas coated with concrete and painted in lively, abstracted patterns. One caught my eye; it was a representation of the annual spring runoff, complete with birds and flowers and blue for the water.

Veronica noticed my reaction. She immediately pulled out a painting on wood panel of the same scene, and gave it to me for the museum. Veronica died in 2003 at the age of 95, and her family still allows people to see the environment by appointment.

Folk Art: It’s on your way to anywhere

The most remarkable thing about folk art is that it can be found anywhere. Perhaps the most exciting place to find folk art is along the highways or back roads of any region in the country. There are numerous folk artists who do more than make art; they create experiences by transforming their property into artistic environments that can be explored on foot.







These roadside attractions have been around for decades, but they have received a great deal of attention in the past 20 years or so. The most famous example is Watts Towers in Los Angeles, (above, right) created by Simon Rodia from the 1920s to the 1950s and now a National Historic Landmark. Rodia was an Italian immigrant who spent 33 years making these 99-foot-tall towers out of steel pipes and rods coated with mortar and embedded with ceramic and glass.



Some of my favorite environments are in the South. Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden in Summerville, Georgia (above), was an amazing experience up until the mid 1990s, when I had the pleasure of visiting on several occasions. Finster was a Baptist preacher who believed he was instructed by God to "paint sacred art." The garden was one way he had of spreading the Gospel. Much of the best art from the garden is now in the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, a necessary step as exposure to the elements poses threats to many of these creations.




Another favorite folk environment is closer to home: Veronica Terrillion’s “Woman-Made” house and garden in Indian River, New York (above). I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Terrillion some years ago and getting a tour of her environment. It is a stunning collection of concrete figures that represent her life and her interest in nature. Veronica died in 2003, but her garden can still be seen from the roadside and can be visited by appointment. You can find out more here.


Why do these artists create these fantastic settings? Many are driven by an intense need to share some aspect of their lives, and for them, a picture or series of pictures isn't enough. They need to draw people into their world in a real, physical way. If you have ever been in one of these environments, you will quickly realize that being enveloped in some else's imagined and created world is an extremely effective way of understanding their life and its relation to your own. That really is the point of all art. It's just doubly impressive when someone with no prior aptitude in the arts is able to draw upon their manual skills gleaned from a lifetime of hard work to make something truly magical. I'll be featuring some stellar folk art environments in more detail in the weeks to come, so keep your eye out here and on the road. Do let me know if you see something I should be aware of.

After a visit to any one of the hundreds of these environments in the US, you will forever be on the lookout for great folk art on your journeys just about anywhere. It can make an ordinary trip the experience of a lifetime.