Right, I hope this is working properly! I spotted this in poor Wadebridge in Cornwall where I was for Xmas. These kind of tat shops are everywhere down there (In fact all towns seem only to cater for tourists - and only the most philistine - to the point that you imagine that the native Cornish must only be able to get slim books on pirates and smuggling, must be heartily sick of the taste of pasty and when they buy new clothes they have a choice between comedy breasts and garish surfer shorts). This particular tat purveyor had better quality 'my dad's mug' mugs, 'beware of the kids' signage as well as lots of stuffed animals and cushion type things. And all this under the name 'Folk Art'. Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't this always been a fine art term to indicate 'traditional' arts such as native american indian sculpture, corn dollies or scarecrows?
I suppose this does raise the question of exactly when does folk art move out of the traditional into the commodified (cf Jeremy Deller's excellent Folk Archive (http://www.folkarchive.co.uk/). But this stuff looked pretty mass-produced to me. Still, it could be an investment, art collectors! Buy up those polished stones made to look like dragons and those ships made of old clock parts and you could make a pretty penny in years to come
Right I'm off to the school fete to start my outsider art collection with the work of year 3.
Rowan is definitely onto to something – as far as the west country goes, at least. Not only has kitsch and folk art been seamlessly fused in the tat shops of 
