House of Folk Art

In this episode of House of Folk Art, Matt Ledbetter and Kyle walk through the newly expanded Ledbetter warehouse and put it to use right away. With over 15,000 square feet of material to dig through, they each pick out five pieces and bring them back to the table to break down what they are seeing, what stands out, and why certain objects hold more weight than others.The episode starts inside the warehouse, moving through shelves, stacks, and walls of material as they search for pieces that feel like real folk art. There is no category restriction. Carvings, metalwork, furniture, and overlooked objects are all on the table. What matters is instinct. What catches your eye, what holds up when you look closer, and what actually feels like it came from the hand of the maker.Once the picks are laid out, the conversation shifts into how collectors think. Matt and Kyle get into the difference between craft and folk art, how repetition and time factor into that line, and why certain pieces that might get passed over at first glance start to reveal something deeper. A small chair made from cut Coca Cola cans turns into a longer discussion about unknown makers, production, and how entire bodies of work can exist just under the surface without much documentation.Throughout the episode, the focus stays on the objects themselves. How they were made, where they might have come from, and how you start to recognize patterns across collections. There is also a look at how pieces from the same maker can surface over time, and how one labeled example can help connect a much larger group of work.In the back half, the episode opens up beyond the table with additional pieces and context pulled from the warehouse, including a few surprises that extend the conversation beyond the original ten picks. There is also rare footage of Carl Otto Long worked into the episode, adding another layer to the discussion around makers, documentation, and how these artists are remembered.If you are interested in how collectors actually look at objects, how taste develops over time, and what it feels like to sort through a warehouse full of material, this episode gives a clear look at that process.Chapters00:00 | Inside the New 15,000 Sq Ft Warehouse00:01:45 | First Pick: The Coke Can Chair00:07:30 | The Maker, Repetition, and the Collection00:12:30 | When Craft Becomes Folk Art00:15:42 | The Carl Otto Story00:20:00 | Looking at the Next Picks00:28:00 | What Makes Something Stand Out00:36:00 | When Pieces Start Connecting00:44:36 | One Object Doesn’t Make Sense Alone00:52:00 | Expanding the Collection00:59:45 | Final Pieces and Closing ThoughtsDo you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Reach out to the show:[email protected](919) 410 8002Leave your name and where you are from and you might hear yourself on a future episode.Follow @houseoffolkart for more stories, field trips, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

In this episode of House of Folk Art, Matt Ledbetter sits down with longtime friend and antique dealer Laura Saville for a full conversation on antique American quilts, how to look at them, how to date them, and why more collectors are starting to take them seriously as both historical objects and pieces of art.Laura talks about falling headfirst into quilts over the last several months, studying fabrics, construction, and textile history, and learning how quilts connect to antique clothing, regional taste, and daily life in America. Matt brings in the picking side of it too, explaining how common quilts once were in Southern households, how they were stored, and why dealers used to bring stacks of them back from house calls and auctions.Together, Matt and Laura get into the practical side of collecting. They talk about mothball smell and why it does not always mean a textile is ruined, how long quilts actually take to make, the difference between quilts and coverlets, early whole cloth examples, hand stitching versus machine stitching, crazy quilts, Victorian era patterns, Gee’s Bend, what makes one quilt worth sixty dollars and another worth thousands, and how personal taste shapes what collectors chase.In the back half of the episode, the conversation opens up into a warehouse walkthrough as Matt and Laura start pulling and discussing many different quilts in person. They look at fabric, stitching, pattern names, dating clues, collector categories, African American quilt interest, Double Wedding Ring quilts, and the kind of instinct that starts to develop when you’ve handled enough material. The episode ends with practical advice on how to choose a quilt when you are standing at a show and trying to decide what is actually worth buying.If you are curious about quilts as folk art, textile history, or the real world of buying antique quilts, this is one of the most useful episodes House of Folk Art has done on the subject.Chapters00:00 | Laura’s Deep Dive Into Quilts01:15 | Dating Quilts Through Clothing and Fabric02:13 | How Many Quilts Were in a Household03:00 | Trunks, Attics, and How Quilts Survived05:30 | Mothballs and Getting the Smell Out05:47 | How Long Does It Take to Make a Quilt06:33 | Were Quilts in Early America08:30 | Coverlets, Whole Cloth Quilts, and Early Textiles11:05 | Hand Stitching vs Machine Stitching12:40 | What Makes a Good Country Quilt13:30 | Crazy Quilts and the Victorian Era15:00 | Quilts Inside Quilts and Picking Stories16:40 | Where All Those Quilts Ended Up17:00 | Quilt Racks and How They Were Used17:55 | Gee’s Bend and Quilts Entering the Art World20:40 | Why Quilts Read Like Art at Auction22:30 | What Makes One Quilt Worth More Than Another24:20 | Colonial Revival Quilts and 1930s Patterns25:30 | New York Beauty and Reading Old Fabric26:30 | Utilitarian Quilts vs Decorative Quilts27:30 | Learning Quilts as an Independent Researcher28:00 | What Should You Buy at an Antique Show38:00 | Moving Into the Warehouse Walkthrough52:00 | Looking at Quilts in Person1:05:00 | African American Quilt Collector Interest1:10:00 | Double Wedding Ring and Pattern Recognition1:20:49 | Deep Dive Into Collector Categories1:27:28 | Final Buying Advice for Quilt CollectorsLaura Saville is based in North Carolina and maintains a full time booth at The Antique Marketplace in Greensboro: 6428 Burnt Poplar RdGreensboro, NC 27409Laura’s main booth is the first booth to the left behind the counter.Laura also regularly sets up at regional antiques shows, including:Tarheel Antiques FestivalApril 10–11, 2026226 North Lloyd’s Dairy RdEfland, NC 27243Liberty Antique FestivalApril 24–25, 20262855 Pike Farm RdStaley, NC 27355Laura’s booth: M5Fishersville Antiques ExpoMay 8–9, 2026227 Expo RdFishersville, VA 22939Inside the first buildingDo you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Reach out to the show:[email protected](919) 410 8002Leave your name and where you are from and you might hear yourself on a future episode.Follow @houseoffolkart for more stories, adventures, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

In January of 1994, Mary Proctor lost her grandmother, her uncle, and her aunt in a mobile home fire. The grandmother who raised her, the woman she called mama, was gone. The grief was overwhelming. For thirty days, Mary spent half of every day praying, sitting with her Bible, questioning God and asking why.On the final day, she says a light brighter than the sun appeared, and a voice spoke from within it. She was told to paint on an old door, and that the words would be given to her. In that moment, grief turned into direction. What began as prayer became purpose.Painting became her calling.From that first door forward, Mary’s work carried a message. Scripture, testimony, warnings, hope. Not just decoration, but instruction. Her art became a spiritual language, a way to awaken the soul, to remind people how to live, how to forgive, how to prepare, how to believe.She did not simply start painting. She stepped into a mission and became Missionary Mary. That moment marked the beginning of her life as an artist.In this episode of House of Folk Art, Matt Ledbetter travels to Florida to sit down with Mary Proctor, also known as Missionary Mary, to talk about the calling behind her work. They discuss her childhood, the meaning of her name, the influence of her grandmother, and how faith and memory became painted onto salvaged doors and found materials.Mary walks through specific works in her yard, including pieces that reference her baptism, scripture, and family history. The conversation moves between humor and testimony, art and belief, ending with the story of how loss became purpose and paint became ministry.CHAPTERS00:00 | We’re at Mary Proctor’s and We’re Not Leaving02:02 | Who Is Mary Proctor and Why She Paints06:33 | Taking Mary’s Work to Auction09:36 | Paint or Die12:01 | The Famous Painted Doors and Amazing Grace14:27 | Bird Man, Bird Omen, and Trusting God18:52 | Why Mary Doesn’t Paint Snakes22:13 | Let Grace Grow37:54 | God Loves Folk Art47:48 | Turning Pain Into Purpose01:02:09 | The Vision of Light and the First Painted DoorDo you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Leave your name and where you are from and you might hear yourself on a future [email protected](919) 410 8002Follow @houseoffolkart for more stories, trips, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

Before museums and collectors caught on, Tom Wells was documenting Southern folk artists on VHS in the early 1990s.In this episode, Matt Ledbetter sits down with the longtime dealer to revisit those tapes and reflect on discovering artists like Z.B. Armstrong and J.T. McCord.Tom explains how he first met these artists, how relationships developed, how work was sold, and what it looked like to build a market without the internet, price databases, or collector forums. Some of the footage captures artists actively working. The footage captures artists at work and preserves moments from an important era for folk art. CHAPTERS00:00 | Meeting Tom Wells in Thomson, Georgia01:39 | First encounter with Z.B. Armstrong08:24 | National exposure and Southern Magazine12:19 | Jake J.T. McCord on his front porch18:46 | Finding Ralph Griffin off a dirt road27:09 | Jimmy Lee Sudduth and painting with mud37:21 | Leonard Jones and painted tin42:21 | Discovering Willie Tarver46:45 | Meeting Richard RoebuckDo you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Leave your name and where you are from and you might hear yourself on a future [email protected](919) 410 8002Follow @houseoffolkart for more stories, field trips, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

Matt Ledbetter talks with Julian-Sherrod Summers, also known as Red Sanford, about how their shared background in football quietly ran alongside a growing interest in old objects, self-taught artists, and the stories those pieces carry.From there, the conversation opens up into picking, collecting, valuing art, and the long road that led both of them into the folk art world.The conversation moves naturally between football culture, folk art discovery, picking, and the shared duality of living in both physical, competitive worlds and thoughtful, creative ones. Along the way, they talk candidly about how folk art is valued, how artists are discovered, the risks of the art world, and why certain work deserves to be preserved before it disappears.From flea market finds and auction stories to conversations about Black self-taught artists, access, and preservation, this episode moves beyond collecting into questions of visibility, value, and who gets remembered in the art world.Chapters00:00 | From Football to folk art03:47 | The folk art table that changed everything07:25 | Why folk art has no fixed value11:40 | Selling a Basquiat and pushing outside the art world 18:22 | When art starts to own you23:57 | Selling a Monet and trusting experience25:58 | Why folk art is not a get rich quick game29:40 | Black self-taught artists and preservation32:01 | Football toughness and artistic sensitivity38:53 | Cultivating personal collections and living with art41:19 | Lost houses, lost art, and what can still be savedThis conversation moves between football, folk art, and collecting, before turning toward questions of value, access, and preservation, particularly around Black self-taught artists and the environments that shaped their work.Do you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing?Leave your name and where you’re from and you might hear yourself on a future [email protected](919) 410 8002Follow @houseoffolkart for more conversations, field trips, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

In this episode, Wade Ledbetter sits down with Matt to talk through what real picking looked like before the internet changed the landscape. Long before Marketplace listings and phone searches, picking meant driving back roads, knocking on doors, carrying cash, and trusting instinct.Wade tells the story of calling a jug before it ever came out of the house, walking into basements unannounced, and knowing what mattered before it was labeled, cataloged, or priced. The conversation moves through door knock etiquette, cash strategy, reading people, reading places, and the difference between chasing leads and creating opportunities.From North Carolina back roads to out of state picking runs, police encounters, and lessons learned the hard way, this episode documents a style of picking that relied on preparation, nerve, and experience rather than screens.00:00 | Welcoming Wade Ledbetter back01:23 | Introducing the bottle stretcher03:29 | Beginning the Asheboro door knock story09:22 | Showing the jug in Bill Ivey’s office16:32 | What a door knock picker really is19:46 | The Salisbury basement door knock23:49 | Advice for new pickers27:12 | Business cards and contact strategy29:47 | Getting pulled over while picking35:08 | Picking before American Pickers41:05 | Finding and buying a Model T44:59 | Why back doors matter more than front doors46:08 | Final advice for door knock pickersThis conversation documents a way of picking that existed long before online listings and instant access. Door knocking, carrying cash, reading people, and learning through experience shaped how objects moved from homes to collections. Episode 48 preserves that perspective and the lessons that came with it.Do you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Leave your name and where you are from and you might hear yourself on a future [email protected](919) 410 8002Follow @houseoffolkart for more stories, field trips, and upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.