Calling muffler people “the last American folk art” may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.
If you accept a fairly rigorous definition of folk art, much of what is called folk — whether art, music, or craft — isn’t. That is, it’s not made by artists working from within a communal creative context, artists whose roots are in local or regional traditions more than in mass culture or eccentric visions.
To say that Bob Dylan was never an actual folk singer or Howard Finster a folk artist does not diminish their talent or even their authenticity as artists. But you have to look further afield for art that is truly folk.
Given the thoroughness of our culture’s commercialization (including the nearly unquestioned hegemony of show business), that can require looking pretty far. There are undoubtedly still folk traditions hanging on from the more distant past, and there are examples of popular craft culture from the 20th century that may not be entirely folk but are at least analogous. But I don’t think many authentic folk traditions have been born in the last 100 years, muffler sculptures being a notable exception.
These spare-parts figures that serve as trade signs for auto repair shops possess the significance within a tradition, local production, and craftsmanship that are hallmarks of authentic folk art.
Muffler people are made by skilled artisans, even if their skill working with metal is in a different context than making art. What their creators know they know from repairing cars and from what they’ve seen other repairmen do with spare and used parts to create a sculpture/advertisement.
Most importantly, these figures aren’t made by hobbyists, or by someone working from a set of instructions, or by slumming art students. Nor are they being presented as objets d’art removed from their context (a folklorist trepidation that I don’t fully share).
But the creators of these figures often do seek to make them distinctly their own with customizations — individually expressive yet still within what is by now a long tradition of how to advertise a muffler shop. They are utilitarian and they are expressive — perfect!
Mufflers don’t only inspire sculpture. Many of the same shops with muffler figures in front also demonstrate the artistic possibilities of auto parts in their 2D signs. Click here for some examples.
You can read more about muffler art in this book by Timothy Corrigan Correll and Patrick Arthur Polk. You also can my read reviews of Muffler Men and of the related book Tin Men here.