Steve Ashby (American, 1904–1980)

1990, photo by Chuck Rosenak, courtesy of the Archives of American Art

Steve Ashby was born in 1904 in Delaplane,Virginia. He received very little formal education and never learned to read or write. The grandson of slaves and the third of twelve children, Ashby lived his entire life in the region of Fauquier County that his family had inhabited for three generations. Like many of the artists in this exhibition, Ashby discovered art making late in life after the death of a close loved one. Alone for the first time in the converted schoolhouse he had shared with his wife of thirty-five years, Ashby began to carve. His small creations, which he called “fixing-ups,” are part figurine, part assemblage. Carved from small pieces of wood and decorated with scrap clothing and various found objects, the character of Ashby’s fixing-ups varies from homely to humorous to erotic. Pictures pulled from magazines became the faces for his creations; nuts from hickory trees became breasts. Occasionally Ashby made a mobile figurine with whirligigs and appendages that moved in the wind.

In his youth Ashby worked as a farmhand to support his family and many of the characters created in his old age reflect the character of the land he worked, his agrarian roots and his family lineage. The fixing-ups were very personal for Ashby and he claimed to derive inspiration for his carving from images that came to him in dreams. During summers he transformed his yard into a virtual display case for his creations, which stood guard in his flowerbeds and hung from the trees surrounding his home. Ashby had been carving for over a decade when, in the mid-seventies, his work began to gain recognition outside Fauquier County. He was included in the seminal exhibitions Six Naives at the Akron Institute in Ohio (1973) and Black Folk Art in America 1930-1980 at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. (1982). Today he is widely exhibited and is regarded as one of America’s eminent folk artists.