Joan K. Shaver: FRAKTUR EXHIBIT

Friday, June 3, 2011

FRAKTUR EXHIBIT

HARRISONBURG-ROCKINGHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY
382 High Street
Dayton, Va.

Frakturs of Rockingham County" - special exhibit to open June 4 at 10am. A large number of frakturs from private collections will be featured. Frakturs are hand-painted and artful baptismal and marriage certificates from the 18th and 19th Centuries, by early German settlers. Call 879-2616 for more information.

Joan K. Shaver

Welcome to my Blog Site!
I am a Virginia artist from Dayton-specializing in the style of the Pennsylvania Germans.

My art work reflects my Shenandoah Valley heritage or as our Lancaster cousins refer to us-Valley Deutsch.

I love all the arts of the early PA Germans but my favorite are the Frakturs. Fraktur is a folk art form practiced by Pennsylvania Germans principally from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The name derives from that of a distinctive German script marked by "fractured" pen strokes and the form has clear roots in European folk culture. Fraktur blossomed into a uniquely rich, colorful and iconographic form of expression in the United States, tied to rites of social life.

I have a degree in Fine Arts from VCU and worked as a graphic artist and TV video editor. I use all the tools of both disciplines to create my art. No surface is out of bounds for me-from my distressed hand made paper to blanket chests--and anything in between. One of my favorite surfaces is antique coffee pots. I have done art shows throughout the state and displayed in galleries for the past 20 years.

I also paint local scenes and folks of the Valley.