Folk Artist Clementine Hunter

The folk artist I would like to discuss is Clementine Hunter. She was born in 1886 on a cotton plantation in Cloutierville, Louisiana. Life on the plantation was hard on both the mind and body. Clementine didn't like school so she stopped going at an early age. She didn't have any educational background except life on the plantation. At the age of fifty-four, she was promoted from the fields to the house. The assistant of the house noticed her creativity right away through her chores of making dolls and clothing for the plantation owner's children. This led to her interest in art and everything is history from there. Her paintings were beautiful and her style was in a simple, straight forward way. She painted over 4,000 paintings in her lifetime.

Clementine falls into many of the characteristics of being a folk artist. She didn't have any formal training and was actually illiterate for her entire life. All the art she had done was during her spare time as she still had chores to do around the house. She did not know how to read and write, but she communicated her ideas through her paintings. Her art was done mainly on a canvas but since she didn't have much money she painted on anything she could. This included cardboard, glass bottles, paper bags, or old window shades. She truly tried to make something special out of things from her ordinary life. Her art has been awarded by Northwestern State University of Natchitoches by receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. There is a famous walk in Natchitoches where her name is preserved