Art de Graaf
May 9th 1933 — July 3rd 2002

Occasionally folklore fieldwork manuals advise the reader that he or she may become socially attached to their informants. This partly depends on one’s approach to the informant in the first place, of course, and it also depends on the general nature of the person being approached. Jack Fleetwood (1914–1998) was the son of a remittance man and was a first generation settler with a store of local lore and history. He became a good personal friend as well as being a generous supporter of the Society.

Art Degraaf also became a good friend in the very short time I knew him. He has sadly been taken from us far too soon. Following a stroke that led to complications Art passed away quietly in the early afternoon of Wednesday, July the third.

Others, elsewhere have written about and remembered Art as a husband and a father. They have spoken of his compassion, his caring nature, his intelligence and humour and his great mechanical skill. But to the Society he was also a brilliant folk artist with a refreshing lack of any pretensions and possessing a generous disposition.

The folk art aspect of his life was a recent development begun a little less than four years ago. It began with weathervanes, quickly branched out to include brazed manikins with metal-based, body-filler heads, and large, welded, machine abstracts and signs. These brightly painted larger pieces were (and are still) displayed fronting his property on the Lake Cowichan Hwy a couple of miles from the Island Hwy intersection. Their very presence was planned and guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any passing traveler, an aspect that was typical of Art’s generosity to his fellow man.

Art experimented with many other specifically folk art and generally artistic constructions including an extremely complicated box of wound spring gears and a number of simple and complicated wind-driven amusements and abstracts that are placed strategically round his garden again simply to please the passing eye.

Two years ago we included a visit to Art and Hilda in our Cowichan Valley Folklore Field Day. In our brochure we wrote, “Our main visit on the 29th of July will be to the home of Art Degraaf and his wife. Art was a mechanic for many years and is now retired. He has applied his fabricating skills mostly in iron, steel, and aluminium, augmented with found objects, to create spinners, whirligigs, weathervanes, gates, signs and other amusing sculptures — made ‘just for fun.’” I know that those who were able to attend found Art, himself, a delight and his artwork a great joy.

Both Art and Hilda shared some of their family folklore with us. Art’s Ketelbinkie, a song from his Navy days, and Hilda’s memories of Saint Nicholas’ Day traditions and recipes in North Holland appeared in Issue 15 of BCF, on pages 42-45 and 54-56 respectively.

In a few months the Society will be adding a folk art component to its website. Photographs of a number of Art’s pieces will be featured there including a very fine weather vane, in the prairie style, made by Art, that Hilda has generously donated to the Society folk art collection as a memorial to Art and for our public displays.

Mike Ballantyne, B.C.F. No. 17, p. 3.