Tramp Art is a wonderful name conjuring up the most remarkable images. One can almost see carefree hoboes sitting around a campfire, whittling away on scraps of wood, putting the finishing touches on small, intricate boxes, all the while talking of their travels. This is as romantic a vision as only our imaginations can create. This is also a largely inaccurate misconception to the reality of Tramp Art.
Though most of the available information is oral, the roots of the term have been obscured, altered and embellished by the passage of time and the filtering of memory. Unfortunately, we are at least seventy-five years too late to determine with any certainty the actual origins of the term or the work.
Since at least the 1970's Tramp Art has maintained the steady enthusiasm of an increasingly growing audience. The supply of pieces once thought to be infinite has emerged to number in the tens of thousands. Since the publication of Tramp Art: An Itinerant's Craft by Helaine Fendelman and her inaugural exhibition of Tramp Art at the Museum of American Fold Art in 1976 and the subsequent national traveling exhibition, interest in Tramp Art has grown. The work can no longer be considered just an underground phenomena.
Tramp Art is identified by the combination of thin pieces of shaped, edge carved and layered found wood to create three-dimensional objects. While the cedar of cigar boxwood was by far the most popular material, wooden packing crates from soap, fruit or starch were also used. The choice of material was what was most readily available. These sheets of wood were cut and shaped, usually into geometric patterns. The shaped pieces were then edge carved to form a distinctive and easily recognizable form of chip carving. The pieces of wood were then attached, like appliqué work, in multiple pyramidal layers.
From the beginnings of recorded time the process of gouging angular cuts in wood with a sharp instrument, such as a seashell or knife, was a popular form of decoration. This decorative process of chip carving involved making highly organizes geometric designs by cutting triangular or square wedges with a knife or chisel. It has been found worldwide on canoe paddles in Polynesia, on shields in Africa, on trunks in Denmark and boxes in Turkey. Even entire rooms, including chip carved walls and doors have been found from the sixteenth century in Abbeville, France.
In fact, when one looks at the elaborate nineteenth century architectural detailing and ornamentation found throughout Northern Europe, clear precedent to the layered and ornamented style of Tramp Art can be seen. In Novgorod, Russia one can see the extraordinarily fanciful carving on log houses moved to the museum from the village of Ryshevo. Throughout the provinces of Russia these decorative conventions range from the small, almost delicate layering of shaped wooden roof shingles to the three-dimensional fretsawn gingerbread detailing surrounding windows and along gables.
The folk craft known today as Tramp Art evolved from this primitive chip carving. The process of that evolution began when man began chip carving for ceremonial or persona ornamentation. Ceremonial decoration was thought necessary to imbue items with the power of supernatural beings and spirits. Personalizing the decorations on a particular object distinguished that object as belonging to a particular person or group. From these beginnings, chip carving passed in an oral tradition from person to person and generation to generation.
The simplicity of the process was also important because it allowed carving to be done despite where a carver happened to be and in whate4ver free time was available. Over time wood carving and whittling became favored pastimes and traditions. Even today men can be seen sitting on the stoops of buildings in New York City carving designs into wooden canes with pocket knives.
The effect of the incremental sizing of the applied layers creates a seemingly Gothic ornamentation, sometimes crude, but often delicate. Bold geometric shapes are the patterns most typically used, probably because the simple straight cuts were the easiest to create. The wood was usually decorated with edge or notch carving alone or in combination with paint and other "found" materials such as fabric, broken bits of household china and mirrors or photographs. It was also common to include porcelain, brass or hand carved knobs. Occasionally, colorful lithographed cigar box labels, especially those depicting beautiful young women, were incorporated on the pieces. Figural wood carvings in the shapes of hearts, stars, leaves, animals or people were also worked into some designs.
Boxes and frames are the most frequently found pieces of Tramp Art because they were the easiest to make and the most useful. Small jewelry and dresser top boxes and sewing boxes are also prevalent. Not as common, but still plentiful, are wall pockets, wall boxes, comb cases and pieces of doll-sized furniture. Rarer are religious artifacts, such as altars, crosses and reliquaries. Full-sized pieces of furniture are even more unusual even though it appears that almost every known style of furniture was copied into a Tramp Art form. But the rarest are the fanciful wooden creations, such as a full figure but small in scale Eiffel Tower or Brooklyn Bridge, because except for these unusual, whimsical works, all Tramp Art was made to be useful.
The specific style of layered and notched wood carving that came to be known as Tramp Art developed from the chip carving done in the nineteenth century in Northern Europe. As Helaine Fendelman noted in Tramp Art An Itinerant's Folk Art, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1974, during the mid-nineteenth century in Germany and Scandinavia, there were "wanerburschen", or wandering apprentices, who, upon completion of part of their apprenticeship with a master craftsman, would roam the countryside working in their particular trade. Nineteenth century American craftsmen or itinerant peddlers traveled and worked in much the same way. In addition, when periodic economic dislocations occurred, many American craftsmen and their immigrant brothers would walk great distances in search of work and a better life.
The immigrants to America in the later part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries worked in the same ways as they had in Europe. Similar social economic factor influenced them. They brought not just their trade skills but also their crafts and hobbies. They engaged in whittling and wood carving during their free time as they had in Europe; and they taught their craft techniques by describing and demonstrating them to those they encountered in their travels. Tramps, hoboes and other self-taught wood workers sometimes taught the craft while roaming the countryside. On occasion, possibly just seeing a piece may have been enough to inspire a maker to create a similar example of his own. But, far more common and far more often, the edge carving and layering of Tramp Art was learned as an oral tradition from traveler to local resident, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend and father to son.
Also contributing to the development of Tramp Art's specific style of woodworking was the ready availability of the principal raw material needed to create the work. Cigar box wood was a thin wood that easily lent itself to chip carving and layering. The abundance of cigar box wood is readily explained. When cigars were first introduced, they were sold individually or in cloth bags. Itinerant peddlers were even known to sell cigars in bundles tied with silks. In the 1850's, however, the wooden cigar box came into use in Europe and the United States. It was thought that the essence of the wooden boxes and the aroma of the cigars would blend to enhance the flavor of the cigars. Eventually, cigars ceased to be sold in cloth bags because The Revenue Act of March 3, 1865 passed by the 38th Congress required that all cigars be packaged in boxes. Three years later, on July 20, 1868, the United States government prohibited the repackaging of cigars in used boxes and required that all cigars be sold in new boxes. The result of these two laws provided the plentiful supply of the basic raw material needed for creating Tramp Art.
Even when Tramp Art was most popular from the latter part of the 19th century through the early part of the 20th, it is unlikely that many makers considered themselves artists. Even though a few pieces are signed, little or nothing is known about the individual artists. Most makers are anonymous. If the pieces were thought to have any importance, it was purely utilitarian. When pieces were no longer usable, many were often relegated to the trash heap or burned in the garden. That is no longer true. Many people buy boxes or frames to accent a certain spot in their home and Tramp Art is prized by a growing number of collectors.
