House of Folk Art – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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House of Folk Art

Matt Ledbetter

Arts

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Fréquence : 1 épisode/14j. Total Éps: 65

Join Matt Ledbetter, esteemed auctioneer and folk art connoisseur hailing from Gibsonville, North Carolina, as he unveils the rich tapestry of Southern Folk Art. With personal ties to numerous folk artists through his renowned quarterly auctions, Matt brings you on a journey through the intricate history, the profound motivations, and the intimate encounters that shape the world of folk art.

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Données mises à jour le 22/09/2026

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Episode 65 | The Antique Baskets You Should Be Hunting For

Épisode 65

lundi 14 septembre 2026 • Durée 01:33:32

Matt sits down with antique dealer and collector Laura Saville for a deep dive into old baskets, using examples from Matt’s collection and baskets Laura brought with her to answer a deceptively simple question: how do you know a good basket when you see one?

The episode starts with the best basket Matt says he has ever seen. They revisit footage from the Ledbetter Auctions sale, talk about the bidder who still regrets letting it go, and use it as the standard for what a truly great Appalachian basket can look and feel like.

From there, Matt and Laura work through a table full of Appalachian baskets and explain what they are actually looking at when they pick one up. Age, construction, rim wraps, handles, ribs, tie-offs, patina, materials, shape, condition, repairs, and even the way a basket feels in your hands can all help separate an average basket from a great one.

By the end, Matt has gone from showing Laura the baskets he knows best to letting her teach him what to hunt for next.

Laura is based in North Carolina and maintains a full-time booth at The Antique Marketplace in Greensboro, where you can find antique baskets and other pieces she has collected and sourced.

The Antique Marketplace
6428 Burnt Poplar Rd
Greensboro, NC 27409

Laura’s main booth is the first booth to the left behind the counter.
She also regularly sets up at regional antique shows, including the Tarheel Antiques Festival, Liberty Antique Festival, and Fishersville Antiques Expo.

Do you have an old basket, folk art collection, unusual antique, or something tucked away that deserves a closer look? Reach out and tell us what you have:

houseoffolkart@gmail.com
(919) 410-8002

Leave your name, where you are from, and any information you have about the item, artist, or collection. You might hear from us or see your story featured in a future episode.

Follow @houseoffolkart for more folk art stories, artist visits, collection deep dives, and new episodes, and find upcoming auction dates at LedbetterAuctions.com.

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Episode 64 | Face Jugs, Monsters and the Art of Stacy Lambert

Épisode 64

lundi 31 août 2026 • Durée 01:28:58

Kyle and Matt dive into the life, work, and wild imagination of North Carolina folk potter Stacy Lambert, using old photographs, stories, interview footage, and pieces from Matt’s collection to trace how Stacy developed a style completely his own.

Stacy Lambert Bio

Stacy was born in Randolph County in 1965, one of six children, and grew up around Seagrove. His parents worked in textiles rather than pottery, and his first artistic interest was drawing. After high school, he joined the Army, later returned to North Carolina, earned an associate degree in commercial art from Randolph Community College, and in 1993 began working with fifth-generation potter Sid Luck. Stacy started with more traditional forms, but drawing, figures, humor, and storytelling quickly became the center of his work.

Matt explains how his own Stacy Lambert collection started at the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival and eventually grew into hundreds of miniatures, face jugs, figures, and custom pieces. Kyle and Matt also look through photographs from Stacy’s early years, including work from the 1990s, pictures with other potters, and a high school newspaper clipping from 1982 with the headline, “He creates a world of fantasy with pencil and paper.”

The photographs lead into stories about Stacy’s Tattoo Man figures, James Earl Jones owning one, and what may be one of Stacy’s earliest face jugs. Kyle also previews footage from a video he and Sullivan filmed with Stacy in Asheboro, where Stacy explains why he moved away from traditional production pottery and toward work built around drawing, characters, and jokes.

The second half of the episode turns into a tour through Matt’s collection. They open a box of Stacy miniatures, compare standard face jugs with more elaborate applied pieces, and look at everything from lions and tigers to custom Predator and Alien jugs. Along the way, Matt calls Billy Ray Hussey, tells the story behind a corn-and-snake jug inspired by something happening in his own life, and discovers what appears to be an actual snakeskin sitting on the pottery.

The episode ends with a damaged Walter Fleming jug that Stacy turned into something completely new after its spout broke during firing. Matt calls it a “mystical collab,” and it sums up much of what makes Stacy’s work interesting: give him a traditional form, a broken pot, a movie character, a joke, or a story, and he finds a way to turn it into something unmistakably his own.

Episode 63 | The Lost Art of Door-Knock Picking with Wade Ledbetter

Épisode 63

lundi 17 août 2026 • Durée 01:09:43

Wade Ledbetter returns to the House of Folk Art to talk about the lost art of door-knock picking.

Wade started picking around 1978 and spent more than 30 years driving back roads, choosing houses that looked promising, and knocking on doors to ask if anyone had old things they were ready to sell. In this episode, Matt asks him to explain what real picking looked like before Facebook Marketplace, online auctions, and yard-sale listings changed the business.

Wade walks through the pitch he used at the front door, how he gained someone’s trust, and why the first offer could determine whether he ever made it into the basement, barn, or shed. He remembers arriving as a stranger, spending cash one piece at a time, and occasionally finding himself in the middle of a family disagreement after the buying had already started.

The biggest story begins with a house Wade had passed several times outside Roanoke, Virginia. When he finally found someone home, he made his way through the basement, upstairs, and into the surrounding buildings, buying vinegar jugs, handmade violins, a forge, an anvil, carved powder horns, and a face jug he paid $20 for. The powder horn later brought around $1,500, while the face jug sold at auction for $5,500 and would likely be worth considerably more today.

Matt and Wade move from face jugs into baskets, early pottery, country store material, carnival glass, and the objects that once filled weekly auctions. Wade remembers returning to an old house in Littleton, North Carolina, only to find that most of the building had collapsed with the antiques still inside. He also explains how pickers once bought throughout the week, called their auction advertisements into the newspaper, and had everything ready to sell by Friday.

Somewhere along the way, the conversation turns into an auction of its own. Matt sells Wade a seven-foot crosscut saw on camera, tries to interest him in several baskets, and learns that Wade is still ready to make a deal as long as the price is right. They also look through handmade folk art, old seed cards, unused can labels, rare carnival glass, and Appalachian oak split baskets while arguing over what is worth buying, what is worth shipping, and what should be left behind.

Episode 62 | Mike Smith Was There: Rare Photos from Folk Art History

Épisode 62

lundi 3 août 2026 • Durée 57:10

Mike Smith returns to the House of Folk Art with something remarkable: a collection of photographs he took while visiting folk artists across the South during the 1990s.

Mike estimates that he has photographed thousands of works, artists, homes, studios, and folk art environments over the years. In this episode, Matt sits down with him to look through around 50 of those images, many showing artists at home and surrounded by work that has since disappeared, changed hands, or been lost entirely.

The photographs include Benny Carter sitting in his living room and standing among the carvings in his backyard, Mose Tolliver painting from his bedroom, Mary T. Smith outside her home, Jimmy Lee Sudduth working with mud, leaves, and whatever else he could find, and Howard Finster walking through the early days of Paradise Garden.

As the photographs move across the screen, Mike shares what it was like to visit these artists and spend time inside their worlds. He remembers Raymond Coins describing dreams while a mouse crossed the kitchen, James Son Thomas sitting beside his bed and playing blues songs, Royal Robertson sending visitors into town with a grocery list, and James Harold Jennings throwing a threatening letter into the fire after the man he threatened brought it back to him.

Some of the photographs reveal details that Matt has never seen before. A rare image of Anderson Johnson leads to the discovery that the painted portraits hanging throughout his church were intended to fill the room like members of his congregation. Another photograph shows Benny Carter’s backyard environment in better condition than Matt had ever seen it, including a carved Adam and Eve that Matt suddenly realizes may have once belonged to a piece in his own collection.

The episode becomes more than a slideshow. These photographs add context to the art, document environments that no longer exist, and preserve the personalities behind work that is often separated from the people who made it. By the end, Matt calls Mike’s collection a national treasure and points out that they have only looked through a small fraction of what remains.

Chapters
00:00 | Inside Mike Smith’s Folk Art Photo Archive01:21 | Early Portraits and Artist Visits05:39 | William Pumphrey, Mose Tolliver, and Son Thomas10:27 | Howard Finster, Benny Carter, and Billy Ray Hussey18:30 | Benny Carter, James Harold Jennings, and the Kentucky Folk Art Scene23:33 | Artists at Home and in Their Environments31:11 | Artists, Dealers, and the Value of Folk Art38:50 | Matt’s Benny Carter Mistake43:10 | Anderson Johnson’s Painted Congregation46:31 | Why the Artist and the Environment Matter54:55 | Name That Folk Artist56:42 | A National Treasure

Episode 61 | Is This Folk Art? The Mystery of the Columbus Collage Man

Épisode 61

lundi 20 juillet 2026 • Durée 29:43

Matt and Sully are back with a mystery collection from Columbus, Ohio.

This episode starts with a simple question: is Collage Folk Art? In front of them is a group of 147 handmade collages, all believed to be from the same unknown artist. The pieces came out of a Columbus estate, with no artist name, very little history, and just enough clues to make Matt think something important may be hiding in plain sight.

Before digging into the work, Sully gives a quick setup on collage as an art form, from early modern artists like Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso to the bigger question of whether collage can belong in the world of folk and self-taught art. From there, Matt walks through what he knows about the collection: how it was bought, why the group feels different, and why he has started calling the unknown maker the Columbus Collage Man.

As the stack unfolds, the mystery only gets bigger. Were these made by a self-taught artist working privately for decades? Could they have come from a clinical or institutional setting? Were they made by the Columbus Collage Man, the Columbus Collage Woman, or someone else entirely? Nobody knows yet, but Matt makes the case that the work deserves to be researched, preserved, and taken seriously.

This is part auction preview, part folk art debate, and part real-time discovery. Whether the collages sell for a few dollars each or become something much bigger later, the episode captures the moment when a strange box of art arrives, the questions start piling up, and the collection begins to speak for itself.

Episode 60 | Matt Shows Mike Smith the Rare Folk Art Leaving the Gallery

Épisode 60

lundi 6 juillet 2026 • Durée 01:06:03

This episode starts with Mike returning to the table, where Matt has pulled together a group of rare folk art, pottery, baskets, quilts, and objects from the gallery before they ship out to new collections. Some of these pieces may not come back around for decades, so Matt wanted to get them on camera while they were still in the room.

The conversation begins with Mike’s 35 years in the folk art world and his early trips through the Southeast visiting artists. From there, Matt and Mike dig into Billy Ray Hussey, including a red-glazed lion Matt calls one of the best pieces of contemporary Southern pottery he has ever seen, along with an early monumental lion from Hussey’s years around M.L. Owens and Jugtown.

The table keeps changing as more pieces come out: rare stamped North Carolina copper measures, a Chester Webster salt-glazed jug, a small-bottom dirt dish, Charles Moore pottery, a double-sided Charlie Brown face jug, Benny Carter paintings and miniatures, Appalachian baskets, and an African American quilt found in Guilford County. Along the way, Matt talks about why serious collectors often are not sellers, and why some pieces disappear into private collections for a very long time.

Mike also brings a few treasures of his own, including hand-built circus wagons and a major James Harold Jennings piece. The episode closes with Matt showing Mike two alligator walking sticks that appear to be by the same unknown maker, opening up the bigger question of how anonymous folk art discoveries can begin with just one matching piece.

This is part auction preview, part collector conversation, and part folk art history lesson with one of the people who has spent decades chasing the artists, objects, and stories that make the field so alive.

Episode 59 | What Does a Real Folk Art Collector Collect?

Épisode 59

lundi 22 juin 2026 • Durée 01:02:24

Matt and Sully are back at Ledbetter Auction Gallery in Gibsonville with a fresh stack from a 400-piece single-owner folk art collection that just came through the door.

The collection had already been unboxed and was waiting to be photographed, but Matt had not fully gone through it yet. So instead of picking their own favorites from around the gallery, Matt and Sully grab a random stack of about 40 pieces and start digging in with fresh eyes.

This episode is a look at what a real folk art collector collects: the known names, the lesser-known artists, the pieces that need more research, and the kind of work that only starts to make sense once you slow down and really look at it.

The stack starts with a carved Calvin Cooper dog, then moves into work by Po Phil, Levent Isik, Alpha Andrews, Kaye Simmons, Sam Ezell, Bob Newell, Richard Burnside, John Burgess, Myrtice West, Aretha Hardy, Albert Wagner, Purvis Young, Willie White, and more.

There are auction estimates, artist stories, a few mystery signatures, and plenty of moments where the guys have to admit they do not know everything yet. That is part of the point. This is what it looks like when a collection arrives, the research starts, and the pieces begin to tell you where they came from.

Do you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Reach out to the show:

Episode 58 | Matt and Kyle Get Back to Folk Art

Épisode 58

lundi 8 juin 2026 • Durée 01:08:28

Matt and Kyle are back at the Auction Gallery in Gibsonville after a run of antique shows. Liberty and Fishersville were fun, but this episode gets back to the roots of House of Folk Art: self-taught art, pottery, carvings, and the stories behind the pieces.

Matt and Kyle pull work from around the gallery and talk through what makes each piece worth slowing down for. The episode starts with Sam Ezell, a North Carolina artist and picker whose work has become a major focus at the auction house, including a large group of pieces coming up in a future sale.

From there, the conversation moves into Denzil Goodpaster, a bear carving, and Matt’s ongoing argument about the difference between craft and art. The crew also digs into a Charles Simmons wood carved jug, the connection to Raymond Coins, and why some important North Carolina artists are still only known by a small circle of collectors. Matt talks through why a piece may not bring enough at auction, but can still be exactly the kind of thing he wants to keep. There is also pottery from Marvin Bailey and Ellen Martin, including the story of the first Marvin Bailey piece that really pulled Matt into contemporary face jugs.

The episode closes with a few pieces coming up for auction, including a tramp art box, plus a quick reminder for first-time bidders ahead of the June 11 auction.

Bid in the June 11 Folk Art & Americana Auction:
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/419094_folk-art-and-americana-auction/

Chapters
00:00 | Back at the Auction House in Gibsonville
03:11 | Sam Ezell, Self-Taught Art, and Large Scale
12:42 | Denzil Goodpaster’s Bear Carving
22:00 | First Look at House of Folk Art Merch
24:10 | Charles Simmons and the Wood Carved Jug
34:34 | Matt’s First Marvin Bailey Piece
47:19 | Ellen Martin’s Lion and North Carolina Pottery
56:44 | A Huge Baseball Carving Hits the Table
01:00:34 | Auction Preview: Tramp Art Box
01:08:00 | A Good Day Back at Ledbetter Auction Gallery

Do you know a folk artist or have a picking story worth sharing? Reach out to the show:

Episode 57 | Van Side at Fishersville Antique Expo

Épisode 57

lundi 25 mai 2026 • Durée 24:10

Fishersville was a great show this year. Friday was packed from the start, dealers were moving material early, and by Saturday morning Matt was already back at the van digging through the pile of things that he’s taking back home.

Matt pulls out a few of the buys from Fishersville and talks through them while the show is still happening around him: carved walking sticks, tramp art, Clyde Herman carvings, a dancing figure, a whirligig that nearly flies apart in the wind, and one folk art cane that immediately turns into a full blown appraisal session.

There is also an ongoing challenge throughout the episode to find somebody at Fishersville who actually knows who Benny Carter is. Matt signs a copy of the Benny Carter book in the van and walks the show trying to give it away to the right person.

This is only part of the Fishersville trip. We still have more videos coming from the field, including a full day of buying around the show with Amanda’s Mercantile.

After Fishersville, everything heads back to the auction house alongside the Liberty finds. The plan now is to unload it all, photograph everything, and start getting pieces ready for upcoming auctions at Ledbetter Folk Art Auctions.

Chapters

00:00 | Back at Fishersville Antique Expo

00:20 | Friday Was a Madhouse

00:55 | Signing the Benny Carter Book

02:04 | The Nude Grandma Whirligig

03:01 | Clyde Herman Carvings and Walking Sticks

04:09 | The Five Dollar Owl

05:00 | The Best Cane at Fishersville

Episode 56 | Liberty Buys, Fishersville Plans, and One Last Look at Benny Carter

Épisode 56

lundi 11 mai 2026 • Durée 42:03

Matt returns to the auction gallery after Liberty with the buys still sitting behind him and another show already on the calendar. This time, the conversation picks up in that brief window between antique shows, when the dust from one trip has barely settled and the next one is already starting to take shape.

Liberty had the feeling of a final chapter, but not necessarily a dead end. After months of questions about what the last Liberty show would mean, Matt came away with a different impression. Dealers were still buying, still selling, and many were already talking about setting up again when the show moves into its next form. For Matt, the proof of the show was sitting right there in the room. He bought steadily, stayed late, and even kept working the field during pack up, coming home with pottery, baskets, canes, quilts, and a late day monkey jug that sends him into a full dealer’s breakdown.

From there, the episode turns north toward Fishersville, Virginia. The Fishersville Antiques Expo sits in the Shenandoah Valley, and Matt talks through why that region changes the kind of material you expect to see. Virginia brings a different layer of age and history into the hunt, with early period furniture, painted blanket chests, blue decorated stoneware, baskets, folk art canes, and other forms that can reach back deeper than the material usually found at Southern shows. For Matt, Fishersville is not just another stop after Liberty. It is a different buying environment, with a different pace, a different geography, and the possibility of finding pieces that can still make the whole trip worth it.

The episode also opens up the practical side of the antiques business. Matt talks about buying with the auction in mind, teaching his son how money moves through the trade, and why collecting and dealing are not always the same thing. Some pieces stay in the collection. Some pieces go straight back into the market. Others become part of the education that happens along the way. By the end of the Fishersville run, the plan is to bring everything back to Ledbetter Auctions, photograph it, list it, and let viewers see what the Liberty and Fishersville buys actually do once they hit the auction block.

The final section shifts from the road back into the gallery, where Matt walks through the Benny Carter display arranged for a North Carolina Folk Art Society exhibit and book event. The room is filled with Carter’s birdhouses, New York City paintings, clocks, Noah’s Ark scenes, poem paintings, cutouts, and one remarkable Annie Moon doll made to look like Benny himself. Matt traces Carter’s development from early birdhouses to dense city scenes, from unfinished late paintings to self-made clocks, showing how one artist returned again and again to the same subjects while constantly reworking them.

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