WILMINGTON, DE.- The Delaware Art Museum presents Out of the Commonplace: The Folk Art of Delaware, featuring over 30 paintings, sculptures, quilts, and woodworks by Delaware artists, on view May 16, 2009 – August 16, 2009. Part of the Museum’s Outlooks Exhibition Series, this exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Delaware Folk Art Collection, a program of Delaware State Parks.

Out of the Commonplace includes objects made for utilitarian purposes for work and home; works that celebrate history and life’s passages; and pieces that reflect deeply held beliefs, from spiritual to political. Among the works are a painting of the American flag made from fence pieces, a sculpture made of farm implements, and a variety of duck decoys.

Folk artists bring their individual creativity to the routine and necessary objects of daily life. Self-taught, they express the traditional and artistic values of their community. Their craft is often passed down from one generation to the next, leaving a legacy for all to share.

“When we are close to home, we often overlook what is in out midst—the extraordinary in the ordinary,” said Carol Balick, the Guest Curator for the exhibition. For 27 years, she owned the Artisans III gallery in downtown Wilmington, which featured contemporary American craft as well as folk and tribal art from Africa, Latin America, and southeast Asia.

Out of the Commonplace: The Folk Art of Delaware serves to complement the exhibition Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum, on view at the Delaware Art Museum from May 9, 2009 – July 12, 2009.

About the Outlooks Exhibition Series
The Delaware Art Museum’s Outlooks Exhibition Series encourages community involvement in the creation of exhibitions that will be hosted by the Museum. The Delaware Art Museum accepts proposals for Outlooks exhibitions from organizations, community groups, and residents of our surrounding area, contributing to the Museum’s mission of providing an inclusive and essential community resource. All Outlooks exhibitions are displayed in the Ammon Galleries on the Museum’s second floor. For more information, please visit http://www.delart.org/exhibitions/outlooks/index.html