VAM galleries including this work:
The Kentucky Library and Museum | Young at Art || VAM Home

Helen La France Orr’s first carvings were dolls made from roots and branches that she created for the enjoyment of her younger sister. The Pineknot Family demonstrates how detailed La France Orr’s carvings have become since. The jointed figures, complete with facial detail, clothes, and false hair, portray several generations. When on display, they are always popular with visitors to the Kentucky Library and Museum.

About the Artist

Folk artist Helen La France (also seen as LaFrance) Orr was born in 1919 in Graves County, Kentucky. She started painting at the age of 5, inspired by her mother. “She placed a pencil in my hand and instructed me to paint what I saw,” Orr once remembered. “Then she would gently guide my hand across the paper.”

Young Helen’s first work was a large gray rabbit, which she painted on the back of a leftover piece of wallpaper, using watercolors given to her by an aunt. Her mother kept her supplied with paints by blending laundry bluing with dandelions and berries. The budding artist also created dolls for her younger sister using roots and branches.

Memories of rural Western Kentucky life are a favorite subject for La France Orr. Her paintings depict scenes from a bygone era—farmers plowing in the field, church picnics, cotton fields, river baptisms. They have been exhibited in galleries in Richmond, Kentucky; Columbus, Georgia; and St. Louis. And a biography of the artist is included in Outsider Art of the South, an art reference book by Kathy Moses.

La France Orr was enshrined in the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians, an educational poster and bookmark series produced by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, in 2004. For information about ordering the poster and bookmarks, visit the gallery web site [www.state.ky.us/agencies2/kchr/ggbk.htm].

Note: Helen La France Orr talks about how she paints her memories in the video segment “Painting: Helen La France,” found in Part 5: Folk/Traditional Arts of the Spectrum of Art DVD in the Visual Arts Toolkit.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: Compare The Pineknot Family with the painted works by La France Orr elsewhere in this gallery (see gallery index). Would you have guessed that all of these works were created by the same artist? Why or why not?

The Pineknot Family figures portray several generations. How does the artist suggest the age differences?

Activities: Choose your favorite Pineknot Family member. Give him or her a name and write a story about your character.

Create a doll of your own using found objects. Think about objects like soda cans, cereal boxes, and Styrofoam balls for the body form and cloth, paint, beads, yarn, or other materials for details like hair and eyes.

Links

See samples of La France Orr’s paintings at Galerie Bonheur.
[www.galeriebonheur.com/memory/helenlafrance/lafrance.htm]

Read a biography of Helen La France Orr at the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights web site.
[www.state.ky.us/agencies2/kchr/HelenLaFrance.htm]