Local Color

On Saturdays, students enrolled in the Aspects of Folk Culture class at UGA visited tiny Georgia town to meet “folk” artists. Visiting folk artists became a bohemian rite of passage in Athens. For UGA students from the suburbs, folk artists suggested a rootedness in place and connection to older ways of living that seemed racial and interesting. For UGA students from small towns, folk artists provided a way to link childhood experiences with current interests in art and music as well as alternative ways of seeing the world. The work of folk artists, like the indie scene, seemed like a secret as most Americans ignored it. In these exchanges, Athens bohemians travelled in the well-worn paths of earlier waves of folk revivalism. By the mid-1980s, the folk aesthetic had become a profound influence in the Athens scene. Beyond art and music-making, going to folk artists’ and musicians’ houses and studios exposed Athens residents to alternative ways of living. As they began to pay attention to rural vernacular culture, these scene participants gradually developed their own bohemian version of southern pride. But Athens bohemians never quite solved the problem of creating an alternative culture that people of color wanted to join.