American Weathervanes: The Art of the Winds, published to coincide with an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum, reveals the beauty, historical significance, and technical virtuosity of American vanes fashioned between the late seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. This American art form has long been an enduring part of the country's skylines. Early church steeples were graced with weathercocks, following a European tradition that dates to the MiddleAges. America's first documented vane maker, metalsmith Shem Drowne of Boston, crafted a number of surviving vanes, including the iconic golden grasshopper that has topped the city's Faneuil Hall since 1742. Farmers, blacksmiths, and other craftsmen proudly fashioned roosters, cows, horses, and other forms for country barns, and as the tradition and public demand expanded over the course of the nineteenth century, so did the diversity of forms, which grew to fill the mail order catalogs of commercial manufacturers in Boston, New York, and other cities. Today, weathervanes hold a well-established place in the canon of American folk art and American Weathervanes celebrates this artistry in the most up-to-date and authoritative work on the subject. Lavishly illustrated with masterworks from prominent private and public collections, this is a book to be treasured by anyone who collects or simply admires American vernacular art and sculpture.

This useful book contains detailed patterns of 68 beautiful weather vanes, each modelled on an original American folk art masterpiece. The complete instructions -- for enlarging and reducing the patterns, making the weather vane, and putting together the standard that supports the weather vane -- make it easy to know which way the wind blows. But that's not all: you can use these charming patterns for dozens of other folk art projects, including Christmas ornaments, cribbage boards, bookends, chopping boards and children's toys.

Using over 290 crisp color images, 25 detailed line drawings, and concise text, Bruce Helmreich guides readers through the steps necessary to build a hand-hammered copper weathervane. This step-by-step guide transforms a sheet of copper into a fully functioning weathervane. Folk art subjects used in American weathervanes are shown, including domesticated and wild animals, birds, occupations, patriotic themes, and transportation. Create your own design or use the complete set of plans included to produce a traditional rooster weathervane. Using basic tools (tin snips and hammers), ageless techniques, and sheet copper available at your local sheet metal shop, this book will teach you how to make a weathervane that will serve your roof for years. Whether you are an experienced metal worker, or a woodworker who is looking for a challenge, this is the book for you.

From classic folk art styles to never-before-seen designs, weathervanes from many sources illustrate the distinctive vitality of this artistic form. 60 color plates bring many weathervanes to life visually, as they serve as both practical wind direction indicators and decorative architectural ornaments. Manufacturers are identified and their backgrounds are explored.

This book presents watercolor renderings along with a selection of the artifacts in the Index of American Design, a visual archive of decorative, folk, and popular arts made in America from the colonial period to about 1900. Three essays explore the history, operation, and ambitions of the Index of American Design, examine folk art collecting in America during the early decades of the twentieth century, and consider the Index's role in the search for a national cultural identity in the early twentieth-century United States.

When the farm is abandoned, Bonnie Bess's usefulness as a weathervane horse is almost ended.