VOL 1 2007 A GREAT NATION DESERVES GREAT ART 2006 NEA National HHeerriittaaggee FFeellloowwss America’s Master Folk and Traditional Artists 2 Honoring Our Nation’s 3 A Night to Remember: 15 In the News: The Arts and Civic Cultural Heritage The 2006 NEA National Engagement and Operation Heritage Fellows Concert Homecoming NEA ARTS Honoring Our Nation’s Cultural Heritage NEA National Heritage Fellowship Program “The class of 2006.” Oat’s the way Mavis Staples In the end, a slate is described herself and the other distinguished recipients recommended to the of our nation’s highest form of federal recognition of National Council on folk and traditional artists, the NEA National Heritage the Arts and the Fellowships. In September 2006, a group of 11 musi - National Endowment cians, craUspeople, dancers, storytellers, and cultural for the Arts Chairman conservators came to Washington, DC to be honored for Snal approval. for their lifetimes of commitment to creative excellence Oe process culmi - and cultural heritage. Admission to this class is no small nates in September accomplishment. Oese artists joined such luminaries as with a banquet in the B.B. King, Bill Monroe, Ali Akbar Khan, Michael Flatley, Great Hall of the Folk and Traditional Arts Director and Shirley Caesar as honorees. Library of Congress, an Barry Bergey with 2006 NEA National Each year a panel of experts spends four days dis - Heritage Fellow Mavis Staples at awards ceremony on cussing thousands of pages of materials and reviewing the awards ceremony and concert Capitol Hill, and a rehearsal at the Music Center at hundreds of media samples supporting the more than public concert. Ois Strathmore. Photo by Tom Pich. 200 nominations received from the American public. year the concert was held for the Srst time at the new Music Center at Strath - ]Va[^]V\ W^b]W[\ ^] aZX V_a` more in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. Dana Gioia Chairman James Ballinger Oe events in 2006 marked the 25th year that these Ben Donenberg fellowships were awarded, and more than 325 artists and Makoto Fujimura David H. Gelernter groups have now been recognized as NEA National Chico Hamilton Mark HoRund Heritage Fellows. With the generous support of Darden Joan Israelite Restaurants and Darden Restaurants Foundation, we Charlotte Power Kessler Bret Lott plan to celebrate the 25th anniversary in 2007 –8 with Jerry Pinkney special concerts, tours, exhibitions, publications, and Frank Price Gerard Schwarz media programs around the country. Terry Teachout Dr. Karen Lias WolP Oe cumulative history of the NEA National Heritage Fellowships provides a striking portrait of our nation. Xd-^YY[W[^ Bess Lomax Hawes, the NEA Folk Arts Director who Appointment by Majority and Minority conceived and initiated the program, perhaps said it best: leadership of six Members of Congress to the Council is pending for the 110th Congress. “Of all the activities assisted by the Folk Arts Program, ]XV V_a` `aVYY these fellowships are among the most appreciated and Paulette Beete Editor applauded, perhaps because they present to Americans Don Ball Managing Editor a vision of themselves and of their country, a vision Barry Bergey Contributor Beth SchlenoP Design somewhat idealized but profoundly longed for and so, in signiScant ways, profoundly true.” ^] aZX W^cX_: 2006 NEA National Heritage Fellow Charles M. Carrillo working on a new altar screen for Santa Maria de la Paz Church in Santa Fe. Photo Barry Bergey by Paul Rhetts, courtesy of www.nmsantos.com. Director, Folk and Traditional Arts 2 NEA ARTS A Night To Remember Oe 2006 NEA National Heritage Fellows Concert A celebration was underway applause from the audience. as members of New Orleans’s As Spitzer introduced Treme Brass Band paraded Tewa linguist and storyteller through the aisles of the Esther Martinez, he said, Music Center at Strathmore. “Language is the music of the Oe audience enthusiastically storyteller.” Accompanied by joined in, jumping to its feet her daughter and grandson, and clapping hands in time Martinez taught Spitzer to say with the bass drum as the a few words in Tewa and band mounted the stage. So shared passages from her began the 2006 NEA National favorite stories. Heritage Fellows concert. Tight harmonies and sonic Produced in partnership Sngering are the hallmarks with the National Council for of bluegrass and gospel artist the Traditional Arts, the Doyle Lawson who, with his annual concert is the culmi - band Quicksilver, wowed nation of the new Fellows’ the crowd in the program’s awards week in Washington, The Treme Brass Band opened the 2006 NEA National Heritage second half. Dressed in a Fellows concert with a parade through the concert hall aisles. DC. Oe Music Center was a Photo by Tom Pich. vibrant yellow suit, kumu Srst-time host for the 2006 hula George Na’ope brought concert, which featured performances and craU demon - Hawaii to the mainland, playing ukulele with his band strations by the Fellows. aUer a traditional dance performance by some of his Emceed by Public Radio International radio host students. Nick Spitzer, the concert’s Srst act included cuatro Master santero Charles Carillo shared the stage with maker and player Diomede Matos, who performed with his blue-tinged portrait of San Rafael. Bess Lomax his students, the Camacho Brothers, and his son Pucho; Hawes honoree Nancy Sweezey also shared the stage — and blues pianist Henry Gray, backed by a four-piece with a slideshow of photos from her decades long career band and demonstrating his legendary barrelhouse as an advocate for the folk and traditional arts. style. Oe evening’s Snal performer, gospel and rhythm- Invoking a centuries-old family tradition, Finnish and-blues artist Mavis Staples, kept things up-tempo as kentele player Wilho Saari demonstrated his skill on the Spitzer called the 2006 class of NEA National Heritage 36-string lap harp. Saari’s great-great-grandmother Fellows to the stage for a group bow. Oe concert ended “Kantele Kreeta” originally popularized the instrument as it began, with the audience applauding, dancing, and in 19th-century Finland. hollering for more. Welcomed to the stage by her singing granddaughters, In the pages that follow, a brief biography of each Haida traditional weaver Delores Churchill also Fellow is presented along with an excerpt from inter - appeared in the program’s Srst half. Churchill noted that views that the NEA has conducted with the artists. Read she had been a bookkeeper until age 45. “Oen I became full versions of the interviews at www.nea.gov/honors/ insane and became an artist,” she recalled, prompting heritage/Heritage06/NHFIntro.html . 3 NEA ARTS charles m. carrillo Santero (Carver and painter of sacred Sgures) ()Santa Fe, New Mexico A trained archaeologist, Charlie Car - techniques of santeros, and why he rillo developed his interest in santeros remains compelled by his craU. during a research project in the late 1970s. He explained, “As I read NEA: What special skills do you think through documents I was fascinated santeros need? with all the references to santos.... I CHARLES CARRILLO: You need the decided one day to paint an image of desire to understand traditions. Some [Santa Rosa de Lima] based on a his - of the santeros in the past weren’t toric picture I had seen of her from great artists. Oe artwork is some - New Mexico.” In 1980, Carrillo made times very crude. But they had a deep his Srst appearance as a santero at feeling for what they were trying to New Mexico’s Spanish Market, a bi- impart with their images. annual traditional craUs market. Ois is not just about art, it’s about Carrillo’s work is in the permanent a people’s philosophy. It’s about a peo - collections of museums, including the ple’s way of life, a people’s outlook on Smithsonian Museum of American Nuestra Señora del Pueblito de Queretaro life. Oe santos express not only the History in Washington, DC, the (Our Lady of the Village of Queretaro) bulto by hopes and dreams of people, but also Charles M. Carrillo. Collection of Paul Rhetts Museum of International Folk Art in and Barbe Awalt. Photo by Ron Behrmann, the sadness. We need our saints for Santa Fe, and the Denver Museum of courtesy of www.nmsantos.com. the good things in life and the Art. His honors include the Lifetime tragedies. Oe total package. And in Achievement Award at the Spanish Market and the New Mexico there’s a saint for everything. Museum of International Folk Art’s Hispanic Heritage Award. NEA: Are the techniques being used today different from In this excerpt from an NEA interview, Carrillo spoke the past? about what it takes to be a master artist, the traditional CARRILLO: I’ve been the one pushing for the re-intro - duction of traditional pigments and other traditional elements. Twenty-Sve years ago at the Spanish Market, very few people were using natural pigments, natural homemade varnishes, natural production methods of hand daubing the wood, or using cottonwood root for carving, and so on. Now it’s the norm, the standard. NEA: Why do you continue to be so invested in this work? CARRILLO: It’s a passion. I look forward every morning to getting up and doing what I do. Not just the making, but the research, too. I love to Snd new historic images that inspire me to do new things. I love to teach. Charles M. Carrillo shows his work during the 2006 NEA National Teaching about the santos and New Mexico history is Heritage Fellows concert. Photo by Tom Pich. a passion. 4 NEA ARTS delores e. churchill Haida traditional weaver ()Ketchikan, Alaska Delores Churchill is a Haida master weaver of baskets, hats, robes, and other regalia.