Transcript
Meredith: Hi, my name is Meredith Foster. I am a self-taught artist from Long Island, New York. I moved up here in 2018 to Schoharie Village and I fell in love with the area. Not only did I fall in love with the area, but I fell in love with the history as well. With military history and everything that had to do with it. So being an artist, I looked into different forms of art and I have always loved primitive style art.
Primitive style art has a rich history of way back before even the old days where people were poor. This goes back to war times as well. While the fathers and the man of the household were out fighting or doing farming, whatever they were doing, the wives were home with the children. They didn’t have any money to buy toys. And honestly, there were no toys really to be bought, so they made their own.
Back in those days, they made use of everything. Not a thing went to waste. Everything from spices to food to tea, which was all natural. We had no supermarkets to go to and we had clothing and even old sheets. So, they wanted to give their children toys and dolls, so they started sewing them and it was all by hand because we didn’t have electric or, you know, sewing machines at the time. So, everything was made by hand, from animals to stuffed dolls to even little vehicles were made by whittling or whatever.
But when I fell in love with the primitive style of art, I knew I couldn’t let this completely disappear. So, I looked into it. And it has grown like wildfire right now, where I stick to the old ways where I hand sew a lot. But the only thing I do cheat is sometimes if we have no sign up here in the winter, I often bake and I use a an electric sewing machine. If I can’t. So, everything by hand, but I still do by hand as well. So, I cut my patterns and that’s where everything comes alive. I use spices such as cinnamon and pumpkin spice. Not a thing in my house goes to waste. I use tea and coffee and anything you can imagine from making little dolls that can range from creepy all the way up to little animals like dogs and reindeer, which I don’t even do. Modern day Santa Claus. I try and stick to old World Yule and Germanic type Santa Claus.