We are preparing an exhibit on beadwork world wide. We have all kinds of
neat beaded stuff (thats technical talk) from


all over. But when we
started looking at modern American beadwork--besides "high fashion"
sorts of things--all we seemed to find were "tacky" arts and crafts,
plastic beads on safety pins linked together to form holders for
silk flowers, that sort of thing. That lead us to several questions:
-what is the difference between kitsch and tacky?
-do other cultures have kitsch? [not just tourist art]?
-does anyone have any bibliographhic citations for studies of American
kitsch, lawn art, etc?
-is there an American Studies list-server or newsgroup?
Your comments will be appreciated.
tk