The Girard Collection at Santa Fe's Museum of International Art encompasses more than 100,000 works from 100 cultures worldwide. Here, folklorist Henry Glassie has selected 300 objects from the collection to illustrate a wide-ranging study of folk art. The pieces depicted - ceramic figures, beaded purses, intricate textiles, dolls and toys - combine beauty with function. The essay draws upon aesthetics, literature, religion, art history, sociology, and anthropology to examine the creative wellsprings of folk art, while over 50 field photographs show the artists at work evoking the human factor, central to the folk-art tradition.