Art Seen: All Folk at Barbara Archer

• Whirligig by R.A. Miller and two works of Tramp Art

The term “folk art” gets thrown around too often. It’s a broad term, of course, meant to encompass a wide variety of styles and skills and approaches that don’t fit comfortably in the canon of western art. Lately though, it brings to mind the imitators cranking out work for the shopping mall style booths at neighborhood festivals, whether they’re selling mass-produced whirligigs or by-the-numbers wood carvings.

All Folk at Barbara Archer is a relief, a group show full of visionaries and outsiders and tramps offering welcome reminder of the varied pleasures of folk. Archer, who once dealt exclusively in folk art, has carefully balanced the show among styles, including a couple of pieces of anonymous tramp sculpture, a couple drawings from the self-taught outsider Robert Lindsey Walker, a particularly great whirligig from R.A. Miller, and so on.