Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Vic Fortunato (left) and David Critchfield have their Poliwoggs creations in the Critchfield family store on Big Basin Way, but the papier-mâché figurines are gaining popularity nationally in folk art circles.

Poliwoggs grew from an interest in folk art

By Sarah Lombardo

All David Critchfield was really looking for was better folk art at a reasonable price. What he and Poliwoggs co-founder Vic Fortunato found was an immediate interest in the charm of handmade folk art figures.

"Pretty much the reason that I ever got started doing this was I would go out looking for quality folk art, but when you find it, it's so expensive," Critchfield, 48, said.

So, he decided to create his own. He recruited the help of artist Fortunato, whose miniature sculptures have graced the shelves of the Critchfield family store, Bit O' Country, 14527 Big Basin Way, for about 10 years.

"I thought, 'I can do it, and if I can get him to do it with me, then we can push each other to make it happen,' " he said.

And, apparently, it has. In the less than a year since Critchfield and Fortunato began creating their papier-mâché figures, sales have boomed. The figures, which range from Raggedy Ann dolls and rabbits dressed in their Sunday finest to mother bears toting pails of water to cat-shaped candy containers, are carried in about 50 California stores in addition to several stores nationwide.

According to Critchfield, he and Fortunato tried wood figures, a combination of wood and papier-mâché and then papier-mâché alone. "We just experimented with all sorts of papier-mâché until we finally had the right formula," he said.

Current Poliwoggs--named for a nickname Fortunato had for the Critchfields' dog, who lounges in Bit O' Country in her basket and can often be heard offering welcoming barks to visitors--are first sketched, then created using ground-up newspaper and a nontoxic binding agent. The figures are completely handmade. Because molds are not used, each figure has its own look, and no two are exactly the same.

After drying, the figures' movable arms and "tadpoles"--tiny sculptures attached to the Poliwoggs--are joined, and the pieces are primered and, finally, painted. Critchfield said that he and Fortunato are involved in each step of the process, sometimes molding the sculptures, sometimes primering one that the other person has molded, sometimes each painting at different times on the same piece.

On the bottom of each piece, Critchfield and Fortunato sign their names, a feature that Critchfield's mother, Ava, said is important to many customers.

"That means a lot to a lot of people," she said. "People want to know that it was made by hand and that the artist signed it."

Ava, who with her husband, Bob, and Critchfield and his wife, Cecile, opened Bit O' Country in 1984, said she has been a little surprised by how quickly the Poliwoggs have taken off, but added that she also understands customers' interest in the papier-mâché figures.

"This is a lost art," she said. "And he has kind of brought it back."

Not only have Poliwoggs been successful with country store customers, but the figures have caught the eyes of those in the business, something that the often modest Critchfield said has given credibility to their work. Poliwoggs was featured in two country art and craft magazines--including Country Business, a trade magazine distributed to country store owners--and the figures are also displayed in the Museum of American Folk Art in New York.

Although a few of the Poliwoggs are actually carried in the Bit O' Country store, the figures are making the rounds at trade shows in New York and Los Angeles under the supervision of the company's representative, Margaret Harjunpaa, of Lincoln County Ltd. "I want it to sell on its own merit," Critchfield said.

For more information on the Poliwoggs, Harjunpaa can be reached at 916/485-9062.

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