Make Do Folk Art Carved and Painted Two-Faced Baluster Man faces and the soft

and the soft

but I think is all the better for it

I picked this fabulous l pair of vintage Kuna Mola from among a large collection of them at the estate sale of an artist and galleries who dealt in them

Pretty great then to find this fur-covered and fully operational one in order to see the bear in action--and the way it moves couldn't be any better: very slowly and very deliberately

with a perimeter of braided sweetgrass on the face and side of the lid

Make Do Folk Art Carved and Painted Two-Faced Baluster Man faces and the softI could not resist bringing this piece into my care, at least for a bit! A great example of creative "make do" resourcefulness, it's an old stair baluster into which little faces were carved on both sides of one end, each with its own personality: one seeming almost on the verge of cracking a smile; the other looking quite distressed! (The eyebrows are my favorite.) And at the other end, what could definitely read as a phallus! Late 19th century or so