A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006
AFS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN
Volume 23, Spring 2006
PUBLIC PROGRAMS SECTION OF THE AMERICAN FOLKLORE SOCIETY
Published by the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Dear Section Members:
In 2006, there are many more venues for communication among public folklorists than when I started my first public folklore job (an internship) in 1982: websites, publore and other listserves, AFS meetings and sessions, regional and state conferences and retreats, seminars sponsored by private organizations such as the Fund for Folk Culture, etc. Amidst so many opportunities to share ideas, the Public Programs Bulletin retains, I believe, a vital role. With forty-one program reports, as well as an updated directory of public folklorists, this year’s Bulletin continues to be a significant tool for public folklorists, and the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University remains committed to its production.
As always, the success of the Bulletin depends on time and effort of folklorists who contribute to it. I would like to thank Jonathan Philpot, Drucilla Belcher, Michael Ann Williams, Tim Lloyd, Brent Bjorkman, Sue Eleuterio, Peter Bartis and all contributors for help with the Bulletin. Suggestions for changes are always welcome.
The deadline for the 2007 Bulletin will be February 15, 2007. We will post notices as the date approaches. In addition to program reports and tributes to departed colleagues, we welcome short articles, critiques, manifestos, or commentaries on current issues. The Bulletin will continue to be published in both hard copy and electronic formats.
Contributions to future issues can be e-mailed, mailed on a disk or CD, or mailed as hard copies. Photos are welcome and can be sent in electronic or hard copy format, or downloaded from the web. We prefer photos to be sent separately, not as part of your text; don’t forget captions and credits. Be warned that unusually large photo files are sometimes bounced back by our server.
You can contact us at: Tim Evans, Dept. of Folk Studies and Anthropology, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd., #61029, Bowling Green, KY 42101-1029. Email: [email protected]. Phone: (270) 745-5897. Fax: (270) 745-6889. Web: http://www.wku.edu/fsa.
Tim Evans, Western Kentucky University
The electronic version of this Bulletin is available at http://afsnet.org/sections/public/ppbulletin.cfm.
Cover photo: Texan camels add authenticity to “Oman: Desert, Oasis, Sea” program, Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo by Jens Lund.
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CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor...... 2 Conveners’ Report...... 4
National Agency Reports National Network for Folk Arts in Education...... 6 Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage...... 7
Regional Agency Reports The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture at the University of Madison...... 9 Southern Arts Federation...... 11 Western Folklife Center...... 12
State Agency Reports Alabama...... 14 Arkansas...... 20 California...... 21 Connecticut...... 24 Florida...... 27 Georgia...... 30 Idaho...... 31 Indiana...... 32 Iowa...... 34 Kentucky...... 36 Louisiana...... 44 Massachusetts...... 47 Michigan...... 49 Nebraska...... 56 Nevada...... 57 New Jersey...... 59 New York...... 60 Ohio...... 64 Pennsylvania...... 64 South Dakota...... 67 Utah...... 68 Washington...... 77 West Virginia...... 86 Wisconsin...... 87 Wyoming...... 89
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CONVENERS’ REPORT
AFS PUBLIC PROGRAMS SECTION CO- Thanks to all those who served on CONVENERS’ REPORT committees this year!
Peter Bartis, Sue Eleuterio, Section We would like to create a handbook for Co-conveners the Section conveners including a calendar, list of deadlines and activities for each committee. Please send this to Sue AFS Public Programs Section Annual st Meeting Report Eleuterio at [email protected] by June 1 . Thursday, October 20. Also discussed ideas for communicating The Public Programs Section held its within the section. There was a long annual meeting on Thursday, October discussion about having a section list 20th. serve. This was also discussed at the Co-Conveners Peter Bartis and Sue Section Conveners breakfast. Some felt Eleuterio welcomed everyone. communication could happen through Publore but this is a very large list-not all Gwen Meister introduced James Leary as section members are on Publore; not all the 2005 Benjamin Botkin Award winner. Publore members are Section members. Betty Belanus introduced this year’s Archie Green Student Travel Award We would welcome suggestions for how Recipients; Clifford R. Murphy, Michael to create a reasonable communication Knoll, Christine F. Zinni, Puja Sahney, method for updating section members and Hilary-Joy Virtanen. when section business comes up during the year-for instance, this year, it was The section’s balance as of July 31, 2005 suggested to use Auction proceeds to was $18, 216.55. We had revenues of assist arts and artists affected by $4,186.79 ($2,266.45 memberships + Hurricane Katrina. This was posted on $1,920.34 auction income, and expenses the AFS forum on the AFS website but of $2,335.18 (139.18 cash bar at hotel in almost no discussion ensued. Salt Lake City + $1, 200.00 travel stipends + $996.00 administrative fee) (Also had Program Committee, Chair, Lisa costs of the PPS bulletin). Tim Evans Higgins along with Alysia McClain, and reported on the Public Programs Section Peggy Shannon. Bulletin with a deadline of February 15th 2006 Chair will be Alysia McClain (Lisa for the next issue. will coordinate with Alysia for a few months) Other members are Ross Fuqua The Section received an NEA Grant for a and Carol Spellman. Public Programs DVD Documentation Project through AFS. A copy will be sent Archie Green Student Travel Award to every member of the section next year. Committee, Co-Chairs, Tamara Kubacki, and Betty Belanus. Committees: Reports and new 2006 Chair will be Tamara Kubacki, other appointments members are Betty Belanus and Pat Wells
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Botkin Prize Committee, Chair, Cindy subscriptions to Global Sounds. Kerchmar with Gwen Meister, Amy Mills Smithsonian Folkways received 5 Betsy Peterson, and Christina Bar Grammy nominations. 2006 Chair will be Gwen Meister, other members are Christina Barr and Tim Betsy Peterson reported for the Fund for Evans. Folk Culture, which is carrying out a pilot project targeted at indigenous groups Auction Committee, Chair, Christina along the Sonora Desert. FFC is also Barr with Sharon Clarke, Tamara looking at the state of the field to plan for Kubacki, and Sally Hauter. future convenings. 2006 Chair will be Christina Barr, other members are Deb Bailey, Julie New Business: Andrea Graham Throckmorton and Terry Brewer. requested that the Section consider funding an independent folklorist travel This year’s auction proceeds of $1,842.00 scholarship. An Independent Folklorist were donated to the Southern Arts Travel Committee was formed to work on Federation to benefit artists and arts criteria and implementation for next year. organizations in Louisiana, Mississippi Members: Riki Saltzman, Carol Edison, and Alabama, which were affected by Elinor Levy, Deb Bailey and Jens Lund. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We want to Sue Eleuterio will send information on the give special thanks to our volunteer criteria for student travel scholarships to auctioneers Mike Luster, Nancy Nusz and members. Kay Turner, our generous section members, and Teresa Hollingsworth at Amy Kitchener raised an issue which has SFA. affected the Traditional Arts Program in California-they were informed that some National Folklife Organization of their grants were considered illegal Reports: subgrants. This is an issue which may impact other states. Contact Amy for Barry Bergey reported that the National more information. Gerilyn McGregory Endowment for the Arts budget was so asked section members to become more far the same. 115 access grants, and 39 involved in the AFS Task Force on infrastructure grants were submitted in Cultural Diversity. Folk Arts. Some funding will be available for programming in conjunction with Special thanks to Lisa Rathje for taking Inspirations from the Forest Traveling minutes at this year’s meeting. Exhibition.
David Taylor reported that the American Folklife Center is holding a field school in Colorado. Information is on the AFC website.
Richard Kurin reported that Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage will be losing staff, due to a shift from programming into construction. Many universities now have
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NATIONAL
NATIONAL NETWORK FOR FOLK ARTS did not understand our proposal to IN EDUCATION provide hands-on interactive training, invite local educators and artists, and Paddy Bowman break the 90-minute panel mold!
Among the pleasures of working in K-12 education and folklore are the teachers and students we encounter. As the National Network for Folk Arts in Education begins a second decade, at the 2006 AFS Milwaukee meeting we plan to create time and space for folklorists and folklore graduate students interested in education and pedagogy to reflect on praxis and look ahead together. Maryland Artists
The Winter 2006 issue of the Journal of American Folklore features an article I wrote, “Standing at the Crossroads of Folklore and Education.” Please share questions, news, resources. It’s time to update www.carts.org so check entries for your state or region and email corrections to me at [email protected]. To illustrate the joys and diverse settings in Mississippi teachers quilting. which folklore in education practitioners work, here are some photographs to tell Many people say that the annual Saturday the story of 2005. morning workshops we organize at AFS meetings with the Folklore and Education NATIONAL NETWORK FOR FOLK Section provide excellent models and ARTS IN EDUCATION rationales for teaching at all levels and Paddy Bowman, Coordinator across disciplines. Competition from 609 Johnston Place other Public Programs sessions on Alexandria, VA 22301 Saturday morning have affected 703/836-7499 attendance on Saturday mornings, [email protected] however, and we are looking for ways to www.carts.org re-ignite our connection to grad students and academic as well as public sector folklorists. This year marks our return to Milwaukee, where we fought to get our first workshop on the program in 1994, facing a skeptical program committee that
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SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR FOLKLIFE Other Festival programs too proved AND CULTURAL HERITAGE popular and educational. Forest Service employees, retirees, and forest community artists proved adept at conveying the skill, Richard Kurin, Director knowledge, and artistry brought to bear on the preservation of our forest lands. The 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival We are now producing a follow-up exhibit was, like past Festivals, a great success. on the arts of the forest that will tour the Attendance topped 1,035,000. The country in the years ahead. Food Culture Festival generated more than 1,200 media USA brought a who’s who of cooks, items. Marketplace sales returned chefs, and food workers to the Mall— hundreds of thousands of dollars to Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme, Alice musicians, craftspeople, and cooks. Waters and her Edible Schoolyard, David Results from our random survey of Robinson and his Tanzanian coffee visitors revealed that people learned cooperative, and many others. Guest something about the people and cultures curator Joan Nathan followed with a represented. For example, most visitors commentary and virtually a whole issue of reported knowing nothing about Oman U.S. News and World Report on the topic. before visiting the Festival; as a result of And Nuestra Música again brought a hearing Omani women discuss diversity of Latino musical groups to the adornment, joining in Afro-Arabic dances, Festival for a series of concerts that were eating Levantine foods, smelling broadcast nationally on Radio Bilingüe. frankincense, watching the artistic dexterity of calligraphers, and navigating Our digital music Web site, Smithsonian around Ibrahim and Richard—the two Global Sound, had its kick-off at the camels used by the Omani nomads—large Festival with an opening ceremony speech percentages thought they’d learned a good by Tony Seeger, secretary general of the deal. International Council for Traditional Music, UCLA professor, and director The importance of featuring an Arab emeritus of Smithsonian Folkways. Some nation at the Festival is obvious. There is 10,000 visitors sampled Global Sound in a a tremendous need for Americans and tent on the Mall, enjoying free downloads. people of the Middle East to know each This and other activities generated more other a lot better, and the Festival than one million visits to the site and contributed to this effort. In addition to more than 10,000 paid downloads. Since the incredibly positive and participatory then, close to a hundred college and involvement of visitors with the Omani university libraries have taken out presentations, a reception for the program subscriptions to Smithsonian Global brought together 20 ambassadors from Sound, bringing the collection to more the region and with music, food, and than one million students and faculty other guests turned the Smithsonian across the nation. Castle into a lively gathering place. The impact was felt not only in Washington. Of course we continue strongly with Daily, scenes from the Festival were Smithsonian Folkways, which is having a broadcast on Omani television so that banner year. A Young Dylan’s Folkways citizens there could see the appreciative Routes highlights the folk rock icon’s high and respectful way their countrymen were regard for the historic role played by received by the American public. Folkways Records and was timed to the
7 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 release of Martin Scorsese’s new of Struggle, which was nominated for a documentary. New recordings Rolas de Grammy—and inspired many with his Aztlán: Songs of the Chicano Movement and insight and dedication. Para Todos Ustedes by Los Pleneros de la 21 help build our Latino program. Other It is that kind of inspiration that drives us recordings, such as those of old-time forward—this year working on Festival musician Hobart Smith, the eclectic Mary programs on Alberta, Native American Lou Williams, and New Orleans street basketry, and Latino music, developing a singer Snooks Eaglin, mine our archival partnership with the new National holdings. Our mail order division has Museum of African American History and done a fantastic job in filling some 40,000 Culture, producing new Smithsonian orders for published and custom-made Folkways recordings, expanding the CDs. We have had a strong beginning offerings of Smithsonian Global Sound with our new wholesale distributor, and the accessibility of our collections. Rykodisc. Our partnership with the While we are doing fine, timely work, the University of Alberta is also coming to Center is under tremendous budgetary fruition with a landmark exhibition of pressure. Given the priorities in the Folkways Records cover art later this year. Federal and Smithsonian budgets, our allocation is insufficient to cover the All of our work continues to raise issues operational costs for the Center and of cultural representation, intellectual Festival infrastructure, let alone modest property rights, and other matters of program support, as it used to. policy. Aided by a fine group of fellows Allocations of discretionary funds within supported through the Rockefeller the Smithsonian for fundraising and labor Foundation, we have expanded both our support have ceased. At the same time, ability and purview in contributing to the the demands for administrative oversight development of national and international have increased. Thus, for the first time in policies that aim to be intellectually sound, decades, we will undertake a ethical, and helpful to those who make reorganization, losing several permanent and nurture grassroots cultural traditions. positions and, sadly, the people who occupy them. It is necessary to take such Among those who make those traditions action lest we become unable to produce is Michael Doucet, the leader and founder the Festival and Smithsonian Folkways of BeauSoleil, and member of the Center recordings as well as care for our board. Enduring the ravages of Hurricane documentary collections and make them Katrina, it was wonderful to see Michael accessible to a broad public. I am honored this year by the National confident, however, that such action will Endowment for the Arts as a National enable us to continue our good work long Heritage Fellow. In October month we into the future. will honor Worth Long, amother of those nurturers, at the meeting of the American Smithsonian Institution, Folklore Society in Atlanta. Worth, a Center for Folklife and member of our board who worked closely Cultural Heritage (CFCH) 750 9th Street, N.W., Suite 4100 with Ralph Rinzler, Roland Freeman, Washington, DC 20560 Bernice Reagon, and others did field CFCH Main (202) 275-1150 research for many Festival programs, Folkways Main (202) 275-1144 produced Smithsonian Folkways www.folklife.si.edu recordings—including one on the Musics
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REGIONAL Street Cultural Tour, which featured visits to THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF a Mexican-American grocery store, a UPPER MIDWESTERN CULTURES community garden, an African-American barber shop, a Chinese laundry and other (CSUMC) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF stops. To see the Park Street Cultural Tour WISCONSIN – MADISON that Mark Wagler’s 4th and 5th grade students experienced, go to Jocelyne Bodden, CSUMC Newsletter Editor http://csumc.wisc.edu/cmct/ParkStreetC T/index.htm. Staff of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures have certainly earned their suppers this year. They’ve been hard at work on a number of projects.
Last spring, CSUMC collaborated with the UW’s Center for the Humanities to put on The Future of Folk, a ten-day “humanities festival.” Among the folklorists who came to Madison to speak were Peggy Bulger, Jan Brunvand, Steve Participants from the Midwest Folklife Festival 2006 Zeitlin, Tim Tangherlini, Bill Ferris, Patricia Turner, Margaret Mills, Elizabeth During the summer, we worked with the Matson, Phil Nusbaum, and Alexander Wisconsin Arts Board, Iowa Arts Council, Panchenko. At various events and panels, Illinois Arts Council, and Folklore Village these speakers were joined by UW’s own to put on the Midwest Folklore Festival, Jim Leary, Janet Gilmore, Tom Dubois, which featured over 50 musicians and Kirin Narayan, Ruth Olson, Bill Malone, artists representing cultures and traditions Nicki Saylor, Rob Howard, Chris from Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. Garlough, Harold Scheub, V. Narayana Rao, Jack Niles, Theresa Schenck, Mike The Center received funding from the Lange, Kevin Barrett, and Jim Miksche; National Historical Publications and along with a film by Lowell Brower and Records Commission (NHPRC) to carry Mike Knoll. For a glimpse of what went on a one-year survey project to identify on, see and describe multi-format ethnographic http://www.humanities.wisc.edu/progra materials that document traditional culture ms/fof.html. in six states (Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin). During this same week, CSUMC helped The project will result in an extensive sponsor the Midwestern Folklorists database outlining the documentary Retreat, with the stalwart help of Sue universe of our region’s important folk Eleuterio, the hardest working woman in heritage collections. The survey project the folklore business. Although sparsely has three primary goals: 1) to gain an attended, the Midwestern folklorists had a understanding of the folk heritage great time, attending some of the Future of collections in the Upper Midwest, their Folk talks, and going on a shortened conditions and accessibility; 2) to move version of teacher Mark Wagler’s Park toward salvaging ethnographic and folk
9 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 heritage collections and productions that Milwaukee’s Tabernacle Community are in jeopardy; and 3) to increase Baptist Church, and images from three awareness of these collections and our photographers documenting aspects of visibility as a regional archival resource for church life and a wonderful hat shop in ethnographic collections in the Upper Milwaukee, Heads Up. The exhibit has Midwest. So far, CSUMC archivist Nicki been accompanied by great programming, Saylor has visited sites in Iowa, Illinois, including an abbreviated performance of and Wisconsin, and soon will be traveling “Crowns” by members of church choirs to Michigan and Minnesota to look at folk from several area churches. The amount heritage records there. We believe that of attention the exhibit has garnered in the database and reports coming out of Madison has been very gratifying. this grant project will be extremely valuable to folklorists not just in the Midwest but nationally.
Nine collection guides that describe regional folklore collections are set to “go live” online April 1. The University of Wisconsin Digital Collection Center will host the full-text searchable guides, the culmination of CSUMC’s two year “Access to Prior Folk Arts Projects in the Upper Midwest.” Spearheaded by Janet Gilmore and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the project identified close to 50 documentary folklife Sharon Martin, a member of Tabernacle projects in Wisconsin and border areas Community Baptist Church in Milwaukee. undertaken since the 1970s and supported Photo by John Urban. by public funding. The nine guides—with several more reaching completion— describe projects’ documentation and CSUMC also has been awarded a Baldwin productions, which are often lodged in grant, an internal grant through the several locations and are marginally University of Wisconsin, for a joint acceptable for archival preservation. project with the Wisconsin Arts Board: Here at Home: a Cultural Tour for K-12 Nicki Saylor and Janet Gilmore will be Teachers. This work is through WAB’s and attending the PACT meeting in CSUMC’s shared organization, Wisconsin Washington D.C. this February, to discuss Teachers of Local Culture. This eight-day with other folklorists and archivists interdisciplinary tour will travel the possible ways to assure preservation of periphery of the state and expose teachers folk heritage collections. to a variety of cultures and disciplinary approaches. In a collaboration with the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, We are also busy helping to plan next CSUMC’s Ruth Olson worked on the fall’s AFS meeting in Milwaukee, where exhibit Miss Annie Mae’s Hats: Church Hats we hope to see you all. from the Black Community, which features a collection of hats from one member of
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Jocelyne Bodden Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A panel 901 University Bay Dr. discussion addressing agritourism will Madison, Wi 53705 include representatives from several (608)262-7546 successful Southern agritourism ventures. [email protected] Jan Selman, Executive Director of Arts Leadership League of Georgia (ALL-GA), SOUTHERN ARTS FEDERATION will present, Advocacy: Where do the traditional arts fit? Other meeting highlights Teresa Hollingsworth will include a presentation from our colleague and friend, Lynwood Montell, Cultural Connections who will discuss his fieldwork in Kentucky and share stories he has Partnering with the South Carolina Arts collected over the years. Saturday night, Commission and the Consortium for fiddler Roger Cooper of Garrison, Latino Immigration Studies at the Kentucky, will join us for an evening of University of South Carolina, SAF is music. Kentucky Folklife Program staff developing a performing arts tour will coordinate two optional field trips featuring traditional artists to complete that include a visit to a local thoroughbred our participation in NEA’s Cultural farm and a canoe trip down the Kentucky Connections project. We are working to River. bring Grupo Siquisiri, a son jarocho ensemble from Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, to New Southern Visions exhibit unveiled in the South in 2007. Charlotte On October 22, 2005, SAF celebrated the debut of its latest traveling exhibit, Faces & Stories: A Portrait of Southern Writers, at the Charlotte Museum of History. Faces & Stories features the artistry of internationally acclaimed photographer Curt Richter. Initially commissioned to photograph the founding members of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Richter expanded the project over a seven-year 2005 FITS Retreat Group Photo. period to photograph over 200 writers associated with the South. Sixty of these Folklorists in the South Retreat portraits appear in the exhibit and accompanying catalog. The exhibit, The annual Folklorists in the South curated by David Dombrosky, includes an gathering will be held April 7-9, 2006 at educational guide and catalog. During Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill near FY06, exhibits from the Southern Visions Harrodsburg, Kentucky. SAF is pleased to roster were hosted in 26 communities and partner with the Kentucky Folklife viewed by over 82,000 visitors. Program to host this year’s gathering. Sessions will include an update from our Traditional Arts Advisory Committee Gulf Coast colleagues on the status of artists, arts organizations and life, post Al Head, Executive Director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, is
11 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 serving as our committee chair. Other about occupational life in the Las Vegas committee members include Linda entertainment industry. Caldwell (Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association), Bob Gates (Kentucky Folklife Program), and Larry Morrisey (Mississippi Arts Commission), Susan Roach (Louisiana Regional Folklife Program/Louisiana Tech University), Craig Stinson (South Carolina Arts Commission) and Bob Stone (Florida Folklife Program). Many thanks to Linda and Larry for their time, expertise and enthusiastic support as they rotate off the Steve Green, Western Folklife Center committee in Spring 2006. Archivist. Photo by Darcy Minter. Teresa Hollingsworth Archivist Steve Green has been Manager, Traditional Arts Program overseeing an audio preservation project Southern Arts Federation funded by the Grammy Foundation 1800 Peachtree St., NW, Suite 808 transferring the contents of approximately Atlanta, GA 30309 1000 hours of digital audio tape (DAT) (404) 874-7244 x. 14 recordings (1990-2001) to audio file [email protected] formats stored on removable hard drives www.southarts.org and recordable compact discs (CD-R). The copied recordings will exist in several WESTERN FOLKLIFE CENTER formats and be stored in geographically separate locations in order to minimize Charlie Seemann, Steve Green, Ross Fuqua, risks of catastrophic loss. The Western Meg Glaser, Christina Barr, Kevin Davis, Folklife Center’s extensive media Darcy Minter, Hal Cannon and Taki Telonidis collections continue to present a major challenge in terms or organization, Western Folklife Center Archives preservation, and access— digital asset management issues are currently at the The Archives continues to serve as a heart of many archival projects. In terms major in-house resource for programs and of programs development, Steve has product development at the Western helped create an interactive “digital Folklife Center. Ross Fuqua, who recently jukebox” of cowboy poetry and song that received an M.A. in Folk Studies from is installed in the Folklife Center’s exhibit Western Kentucky University, was hired gallery for use by visitors. Steve also as Archives Assistant in the summer of continues to be active working with the 2005. In addition to helping field public Archives Task Force of the Association of service requests from outside researchers Western States Folklorists (AWSF). The and assist Folklife Center staff, Ross Task Force has been working for several works with audio-visual collections in the years to collect and present information Archives, and has contributed to a variety about archival collections housed in of programs including the National public folklife programs around the West. Cowboy Poetry Gathering and The 24 Hour Show, a series of radio programs
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Western Folklife Center Programs for the summer. We plan to offer workshops, performances, interviews, and Sheep Ranching in the American West other presentations as part of this Deep West outreach initiative. Many elements of this project came together this summer, with the near 22nd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering completion of the traveling exhibition, Trailing the Year: The Human Landscape of The 2006 Gathering theme was “Cowboys Sheep Ranching in the American West, the of the Americas” and we welcomed production of our Songs and Stories of gaúcho musicians from Brazil and gaúcho Sheepherding CD, and the development of gearmakers from Argentina. The rich an online presence for this project. We cultural traditions of South American are still seeking funding to complete and gaúchos were represented by Brazilian market the availability of the audio CD musicians Renato Borghetti and Luiz and exhibit, including the production of Carlos Borges from the South Brazilian one or two concerts featuring performers state of Rio Grande do Sul, and by from the CD. Argentine rawhide braiders Armando Deferrari and Pablo Lozano, whose work In early October we were once again is displayed in the Trappings of the invited to collaborate with the Trailing of Gaucho exhibit in the Western Folklife the Sheep event in the Wood River Valley Center gallery. of Idaho. This included mounting our traveling exhibit at the Ketchum/Sun In addition to cowboy poets and Valley Ski and Heritage Museum (October musicians, the Folklife Center also 6 – 9), hosting an exhibit reception for brought fisher poets from the Pacific WFC members and friends, recording two Northwest to this year’s Gathering. Like evening events (Ivan Doig reading and a cowboy poets, these artists represent Sheep Stories session), and a day of another vibrant tradition of occupational interviewing individuals involved with the poetry inspired from a life on the sea. The sheep occupation inside a sheep camp Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, loaned to us by sheep camp maker and Oregon were featured on several radio cook Alan Lauder. programs and magazine publications across the nation, including NPR and Smithsonian Magazine in 2005.
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Education Programs
This year the Western Folklife Center once again offered a full roster of education programs for young people Christina Barr interviews Peruvian Sheepherders. Photo by Ross Fuqua. who attend school in northeastern Nevada. For Elko County students the The exhibit will travel next to Sheep is Life, National Cowboy Poetry Gathering began an event organized on the Navajo with the three-day Youth Festival, and reservation in June, 2006 before being continued with the Rural & Home School mounted at the Western Folklife Center Program, the Cow Kid's Stampede, library
13 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 programs, and special concerts around the video, and features work by some of the Elko area. Western Folklife Center staff West’s most celebrated photographers. also brought artists into the schools by offering a series of school assemblies Our virtual community features online which featured artists from Texas, journals by western writers, California and Brazil. The Student Art photographers and gearmakers, and story Show highlighted the creative forums where you can participate in achievements of Elko County students conversations on topics of importance to from kindergarten through high school. the rural West. Eventually these journals We also offered the second year of our will be expanded to include audio and film Youth Workshop series with three clips produced by the artists involved in workshops for young people ages 10-18. the project. All of the journals are open These included poetry writing, leather for public comment. tooling, and drawing workshops taught by master artists from around the West. Over Online Exhibit: Back at the Ranch – 5,500 students participated in Western An Artful Life Folklife Center education programs in 2006. The Western Folklife Center’s first online exhibit, Back at the Ranch – An Artful Life, Deep West showcases the dynamic expressive culture of the ranching occupation. The goal of the Western Folklife Center’s Deep West initiative is to enhance our audience’s experience of our programs, to facilitate connections with the Folklife Center and with each other, and to create greater investment and engagement in our programs. As part of this effort we launched a new website in January and are beginning outreach programs in communities across the West this spring. Photo by Blanton Owen www.westernfolklife.org The exhibit is organized in three sections. In Tools of the Trade, visitors meet some of Our new site showcases the traditional the master craftsmen and women culture of the West and invites represented in the Western Folklife participation by exploring, listening, Center’s contemporary handcrafted horse watching, learning and connecting. The gear collection and learn about the art of site features stories, music, poetry, gear, making saddles, reatas, reins, bits, and photography, film – all by and about the spurs through text, photos, and short West and its people. You can listen to the films. Western Folklife Center’s radio programs and watch short videos made by rural In Cowboy Songs and Poetry, visitors are westerners. The Back at the Ranch online invited to read and listen to some favorite exhibit showcases the work of poems and songs of the cowboy and learn contemporary gearmakers, cowboy poets about their origins. and musicians through online audio and
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And in Stories from the Ranch, first-hand Exhibits stories from western ranches are presented through short films, online Trappings of the Gaucho journals, and a story forum. The Western Folklife Center's new exhibit Deep West at the National Cowboy Trappings of the Gaucho opened in the Poetry Gathering Western Folklife Center gallery in January 2006 and runs through June 2006. The 22nd National Cowboy Poetry Trappings of the Gaucho gathers Gathering also included a series of Deep together examples of historical and West programs designed to highlight the working gear of the South American personal stories and experiences of horsemen to explore the techniques and traditional artists around the West, and equipment that have been adapted to elicit audience feedback, participation and meet the demands of the diverse investment. We launched the first of a environments and cultural aesthetics of series of state parties designed to create the Americas. Fine braided rawhide work opportunities for audience members to created by master craftsmen Armando get to know each other and highlight their Deferrari and Pablo Lozano is on display state, screened the latest films created as along with gaucho gear and artwork from part of the Deep West Video Project and the collection of the National Cowboy & introduced Deep West Records to the Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma Gathering audience through the recording City, and others. The exhibit also features and sale of one of our performances. We photography by Heather Hafleigh and also once again transformed a sheep camp Charlie Seemann. into a recording studio and invited artists and audience members inside to visit with staff folklorists who interviewed them for the Western Folklife Center Archives.
Making West Home
The Western Folklife Center staff is currently producing a series of Deep West programs called Making West Home that will involve artist residencies and workshop trainings in several communities around the West. Each of these programs will draw upon the Deep West concept of stronger and deeper audience engagement, encouraging Photo by Heather Hafleigh. participants to draw upon their personal Buckaroo! The Hispanic Heritage of the High experiences to create community Desert cookbooks, photo albums and stories. Making West Home will begin in June We expanded our gallery to host this 2006 at the National Basque Festival in exhibit which was developed by the High Elko, Nevada. Desert Museum of Bend, Oregon, and loaned to us for five years. Buckaroo!
15 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 traces the California vaquero roots of the website. The project is supported by the working buckaroo of the High Desert R. Harold Burton Foundation and the through a memorable collection of George S. and Dolores Dor’e Eccles historic and contemporary imagery and Foundation. artifacts, including photography by Kurt Markus. We hope to develop an audio From Sagebrush to Steppe tour in the coming months to bring an added dimension to this exhibition and The Western Folklife Center sponsored a featuring our favorite stories, poems and cultural exchange between American music of living buckaroos. We are creating cowboys and Mongolian herdsmen. The a teacher's guide to the exhibition to radio documentary that came out of this encourage educational tours and exchange aired on NPR’s Weekend developing a docent program to lead these Edition Sunday in November 2005. It has tours. Other programming being since been selected as a featured considered are gear making and documentary by WBEZ’s Third Coast horsemanship workshops, story sessions, Audio Festival, will be aired twice on the and film showings. Australian Broadcasting Corporation in March 2006, and has been selected for the The 24 Hour Show new national podcast, Nature Stories.
In October 2005 The 24 Hour Show Deep West Videos exhibit opened in Las Vegas at the Nevada State Museum & Historical Each year Deep West videos is presented Society. The exhibit will run through June at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. 2006. The companion radio series began This year, nine short videos were airing on Nevada Public Radio in produced on subjects ranging from December 2005 and is ongoing. Both the apprenticing for a cowboy bootmaker, to exhibit and the radio series highlight the a presentation on Kyrgyz eagle hunters. contemporary folklife and work culture of The mission of Deep West Videos is to casino and entertainment workers in Las provide a forum for telling first-hand Vegas. Based on original fieldwork, this stories from the rural West that are rooted project offers a fresh perspective of Las in the values of life on the land. Using the Vegas through the eyes of people who live tools of digital communication, these and work in the city. Listen to The 24 homemade productions are simple yet Hour Show online at www.knpr.org. elegant, not glossy and commercial but from the heart. Submissions are open to Western Folklife Center Media anyone. DVD’s are available of this year’s films. What’s In a Song CD Projects In its second year, What’s in a Song is a monthly radio series that airs on National Stories from Native America is now Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday. available for sale from our gift store. It The series weaves together a tapestry of features commentary from Henry Real American music, one song and one story Bird and stories from the Crow, at a time. All segments are available for Shoshone/Paiute, Navajo, Zuni, Lakota listening on the Western Folklife Center’s Sioux, Haida and Havasupai tribes.
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Here are a few quotes from listeners: Records. In addition, Western Folklife Center Media produced Songs and Stories “It provides a way to look at ourselves as of Sheepherding, a CD that will be Native people and as humans, in all our distributed in 2006. diversity, finding the glue of hope that will allow us to live together.” -- Edward Western Folklife Center Wemytewa – Zuni Tribal Council 501 Railroad St. Elko, NV 89801 (775) 738-7508 “Strong and moving and funny. Good fax: (775) 738-2900 stuff”--Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain and Shipping News
“Amazingly rich: poignant.”-- Gary Nabhan, Northern Arizona University
“I really appreciate the fact that you don't skirt the sticky issues … I also love the fact that you traveled all over the U.S. to record these stories - so that people can see the diversity within Indian Country.” -- Laura Marcus, independent folklorist
“This is a terrific resource… I've used it in my classes here at Arkansas State, and the students have gained a greater understanding of the place of storytelling within American Indian contemporary culture.” -- Gregory Hansen, Folklore Department, Arkansas State University.
In May 2005 the Western Folklife Center held two concerts - one on the Grand Canyon's South Rim and one in Flagstaff, Arizona - to celebrate the release of Songs and Stories from Grand Canyon - a collaborative CD project of the Western Folklife Center and Smithsonian Folkways
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STATES We hosted the annual Capitol City A LABAMA Shapenote Singing at Old Alabama Town on Thursday, July 21, 2005. Singers from all over the state come and sing from the ALABAMA CENTER FOR TRADITIONAL four shape-note hymnals used in CULTURE: A DIVISION OF THE Alabama. ALABAMA STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS Folkstreams has put up more films about Alabama folk culture on their website. Joey Brackner, Anne Kimzey, Steve Grauberger “Tommie Bass: A Life in the Ridge and Valley Country” produced by Allen Tullos In 2005 we received word from the of Emory University is a profile of the late National Endowment for the Arts that the great herbalist of northeast Alabama. Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) “Gandydancers” a film profile of the work has been awarded a Folk Arts song traditions of retired African-American Infrastructure Initiative grant of $20,000 to railroad workers. This film was produced produce a catalog and exhibition by Maggie Holtzberg. Anyone can go to documenting the first twenty years of our www.folkstreams.net and watch the film Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program. Anne online. The site will also include a study Kimzey and Joey Brackner will be guide for the films as well as a film coordinating that project during 2006. transcript. The ASCA-funded films “Sweet is the Day,” a documentary about Sacred Our partner organization, the Alabama Harp singing on Sand Mountain, and Folklife Association (AFA) also received “Unbroken Tradition: Jerry Brown’s word from the NEA that they are to Pottery” are also available on Folkstreams. receive $25,000 to establish, with ASCA, an Archive of Alabama Folk Culture at Steve Grauberger produced the CD the Alabama Department of Archives and reissue of Traditional Musics of Alabama, History. The state personnel department volume IV Wiregrass Notes: Black Sacred created a folklife archivist position and is Harp Singing from Southeast Alabama, now in the process of hiring someone to originally an LP produced by ASCA and fill it. the University of Alabama in 1981. Because of the CD format, Steve was able On April 1-3, we helped the Southern Arts to add more recordings to this landmark Federation host “The Folklorists in the documentation. Traditional Musics of South” meeting at Mt. Cheaha State Park. Alabama, volume III has also been Participants in the 2004 Alabama recently reissued. These products may be Community Scholar Institute made a ordered online at presentation to the group. Also there was www.traditionalculture.org . a performance by former Apprenticeship participants Cast King and Matt Downer. Steve also produces ASCA’s weekly radio On that Sunday, a large group of us series “Alabama Arts” on the Southeastern attended a Sacred Harp singing at nearby Public Radio Network. He is assisted by Edwardsville Baptist Church. ASCA staff members who conduct the interviews. You can listen to past
18 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 programs at: Joey Brackner administers the Folklife http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/1/radios Program’s project grants and Anne eries.html . Kimzey has taken on the administration of the Folk Arts Apprenticeship program. The Alabama Folklife Association is now accepting applications to the Alabama The Council approved the following Community Scholars Institute (ACSI), Folklife Project Grants for FY 2006. which will take place at the University of North Alabama in Florence, July 9-21, Folklife Project Grants 2006: 2006. All information and application material is posted in the ACSI section of • Alabama Blues Project - $3,750 www.alabamafolklife.org. blues camp with Willie King and Jerry McCain The 8th edition of Tributaries: The Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association is now • Alabama Folklife Association - available. This issue features articles on $5,625 CD of children’s song Sacred Harp singing, Latino Alabama, from Byron Arnold Collection Mobile cuisine, and Alabama blues women along with book and CD • Alabama Folklife Association - reviews. The next issue will be a thematic $3,150 Tributaries: the Journal of issue exploring the connection between the AFA Alabama cultural traditions and the natural environment. • Alabama Folklife Association - $2.365 Gandy Dancers film on We hosted the 9th annual Rotunda Folkstream.net Singing at the State Capitol on February 4th, 2006. Some 100 singers from all over • Artemis Media Project - $5,910 the nation came and sang from the four W.C. Handy radio program shape-note hymnals used in Alabama. The Alabama Folklife Association • Brundidge Historical Society - cosponsored the event. $1,000 Sheila Kay Adams storytelling The report on Latin-American cultures in Alabama will be available shortly. The • Friends of Alabama Archives - publication includes contributions by $5,625 Traditional music concerts Anne Kimzey, Steve Grauberger, Joey at State Archive Brackner and Charles Kelley. The Alabama Latin American Association • Mobile Arts Council - $1,650 served as a partner in the project. ALAS exhibit and performances of director Hernan Prado contributed the “Alabama Blues Women” main essay. Topics included are: musical traditions, dance, home altars, mural • Music Preservation Society - painting, Mayan languages, the Mexican $4,125 Shoals Area Folklife Study Day of the Dead, and the quinceanera tradition of honoring a girl’s fifteenth • People’s Historical Museum - birthday. $1,740 Chittlin’ Strut folklife and foodways event
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• Poarch Band of Creek Indians - Last September all of the Center staff $2,250 Native American moved their offices into ASCA Dance/Pow Wow headquarters in the RSA Tower. Please note new address and phone numbers • Rural Members Association, Inc. - below. $5,910 Freedom Creek blues festival The Alabama Center for Traditional Culture Joey Brackner, Director • Sacred Harp Musical Heritage - Alabama State Council on the Arts 201 Monroe Street, Suite 110 $3,940 Camp Fasola summer Montgomery, AL 36130-1800 Sacred Harp camp 334-242-4076 ext.225 FAX 334-240-3269 • University of West Alabama - [email protected] $1,650 Sucarnochee Festival www.arts.state.al.us
The Council approved the following Folklife Apprenticeship Grants for FY ARKANSAS 2006: ARKANSAS FOLKLIFE PROGRAM Folk Arts Apprenticeships 2006: ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY • William Bailey - $1,000 Creek Mike Luster Indian language, culture, herbal medicine Arkansas adds state folklife program-- • George Conner - $3,000 Blues guitar I have begun work as Arkansas folk arts • Matt Downer - $3,000 dobro coordinator under a $30,000 grant to • Nora Ezell - $1,000 quilting Arkansas State University from the • H. Dennis George - $2,000 old- National Endowment for the Arts. time and bluegrass music • David Ivey - $1,500 Sacred Harp The project, a collaboration with the Singing Arkansas Arts Council, begins a new • William (Gene) Ivey - $1,000 old- statewide folklife program. The initial time fiddle projects will involve researching the • Marcus Johnson - $3,000 brass traditional culture of the Mississippi Delta band Region and technical assistance with • Willie King - $3,000 blues music heritage programming throughout the • Jeannette Lancaster - $1,500 pine state. needle basketry • Lucy Mingo - $3,000 quilting There is a long history of research and • Mary Pettway - $3,000 quilting presentation of folklore in Arkansas. • Freda Randall - $2,500 white oak In creating the new position, the Arkansas basketry folk arts coordinator will build • Enoch Sullivan - $2,000 bluegrass on research completed on topics as music diverse as old-time and bluegrass music, • Joe Bob Traylor - $1,000 bent blues, storytelling, foodways, and other willow furniture folk arts.
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The results of research on the state's artists to both further that understanding traditions and tradition-bearers will and to enhance the archives at Arkansas be presented to the public through State University. educational programs, media projects, concerts, the Delta Blues Symposium, and For more details about the Arkansas other events coordinated by ASU and the folklife project or to suggest leads or Arkansas Arts Council. topics, please contact me at 417-938-4633 or via email at [email protected]. To Since beginning work in September, I subscribe to "ArkFolkNet" send an email have already established an Internet message to discussion group, ArkFolkNet ArkFolkNet- (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArkFol [email protected]. kNet/) to enable those interested in Arkansas traditions to share information. I J. Michael Luster, Ph.D have nominated two outstanding Arkansas Folklife Program Arkansas traditional artists, a Pine Bluff Arkansas State University blues musician, CeDell Davis, and a PO Box 102 Mountain View potter, basketmaker, and Mammoth Spring, AR 72554 ballad singer for the National Heritage 417-938-4633 Fellowship. Arkansas has not had one of its citizens honored with the award since C ALIFORNIA 1985.
I am also working to create new THE NATALIE AND JAMES THOMPSON programming for the Delta Blues ART GALLERY AND THE Symposium for 2006 including a DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART performance of Latino musicians from the Delta and a Blues-in-the-Schools program. HISTORY, SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY
Much of the work involves traveling to Jo Farb Hernandez inform others about ASU, including its Heritage Studies doctoral program, as well as the Arkansas folklife program. A groundbreaking collaboration during I spoke recently at the Talking Ozarks fall, 2005 between the Natalie and James Symposium at Missouri State University Thompson Art Gallery in the School of in West Plains, and have traveled to speak Art and Design at San Jose State at the Tennessee Folklore Society University and the Department of Art and meeting and to the American Folklore Art History at Santa Clara University, Society meeting in Atlanta. focused on Spanish traditional arts and their iterations among Mexican artists. I'm working to meet with as many of my The exhibitions, book, videos, lectures, colleagues both in and out of state to panel discussions, community receptions, learn about what projects are working and and processional combined to enable us to look for new ways to serve the people to explicitly explore the links between the of Arkansas. Spanish Catalan tradition of creating monumental press-molded paper I am also conducting a series of interviews constructions used in community with Arkansas musicians and other performance events with their cultural arts
21 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 manifestations in Mexico and in Mexican- After attending the opening at the SJSU’s American communities within the U.S, Thompson Gallery, they initiated an tied within the rubric of both SJSU’s and intensive workshop integrated into SCU’s SCU’s academic program and curricular Sculpture 64/164 course taught by offerings. Professor Sam Hernandez.
Spurred by the publication of the 225- Prior to the arrival of the Spanish artists, page fully illustrated book Forms of Professor Hernandez presented the Tradition in Contemporary Spain (University concept of developing ideas for the Press of Mississippi, 2005) that explores creation of cabezudos or “big heads,” the the works of four traditional artists from large helmet-style masks worn in various parts of Spain, the Thompson conjunction with the gigantes in traditional Gallery mounted an exhibition featuring Spanish processions. Each student was to works by each of these artists as well as create his/her own figurative helmet-mask documentary photographs of their works sculpture after viewing Ventura and in situ. The exhibition reception was Hosta’s demonstrations of the different preceded by a public slide lecture given by stages in the technical processes as they exhibition curator and author Jo Farb created their own gigante that will remain at Hernandez, and the objects on display SCU. This included preparatory sketches were complemented by a running video of for the design, the creation of a full-scale four DVDs featuring the artists at work. clay original, pulling a plaster mold from the clay form, layering special paper imported from Spain into the negative sides of the mold pieces, drying, removing, and reassembling the rough paper components, and finally painting and designing and creating costumes for each “big head.”
During the course of the semester, several additional elements enhanced the students’ understanding of the A group of capgrossos done by the students in the background and function of these works SCU class. within the communities in which they are traditionally used. These included a panel Artists David Ventura and Neus Hosta, discussion that presented specific co-founders of the Ventura and Hosta information on the conceptual, technical, studio in northeastern Spain, are among and aesthetic differences between Spanish the foremost artisans creating and Mexican traditions in monumental monumental figures or gigantes, which are paper constructions. Panelists were Jo used as important components of village Farb Hernandez, who provided festivals around Catalunya and beyond. background contextual information on the With funding from SJSU’s Natalie and tradition of using the gigantes and cabezudos James Thompson Endowment and in Spanish festive processions; David supplemented with funds from the Center Ventura and Neus Hosta, presenting for Multi-Cultural Learning at Santa Clara slides of their work; and Rubén Guzmán, University, the two artists were brought to Mexican paper sculptor currently living in California for a three-week residency. Oakland, California, who also presented
22 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 slides and actual objects for the audience To celebrate the unveiling of the to view. Having the Spanish and Mexican monumental sculpture created by Ventura artists interact was fascinating; among and Hosta for the SCU community, a other new understandings, we all agreed community-wide paella dinner was hosted that the Mexican and Mexican-American by the Department of Art and Art paper tradition is more freely inventive History. Later, when all of the student and idiosyncratic than the Spanish works had been completed, a university- tradition, which is more steeped in wide processional and performance of all folkloric and culturally-proscribed of the monumental constructions took parameters. place. Administered through a collaborative partnership between the Departments of Art and Art History, Music, and Performance Studies, the students “wore” their cabezudos and “danced” them to a percussion ensemble consisting of faculty and students from the Music Department. The procession was enthusiastically received and covered widely in television and print, in both mainstream and Spanish-language media organs.
Having the opportunity to watch, study with, and learn from two traditional artists from Spain helped to develop a much broader multicultural understanding among our student, faculty, and community participants than a less experiential and hands-on approach would have, and enabled us to trace those connections and explore the changes between Spanish and Mexican traditions over time within a broader context. Ventura and Hosta’s gigantes in procession in Couched in relation to the contemporary Navata, Spain, summer 2005. arts issues that the university students typically study, this emphasis on A selection of works by Ventura and traditional and folk arts has broadened Hosta and documentary photographs by their bases and academic experiences, and Jo Farb Hernandez that had been on has greatly enhanced all aspects of the display at SJSU’s Thompson Gallery were university communities of both transported to the SCU Department institutions. Gallery for a smaller and somewhat different exhibition titled “Connections and Links.” Paper works by Mexican Jo Farb Hernandez, Director paper artist Rubén Guzmán were also Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery included in this second display. School of Art and Design San Jose State University San Jose, CA 95192-0089
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[email protected] American Folklife Center’s office tel: 408-924-4328 Homegrown: The Music of America home office tel: 831-684-0405 Presentation
I also participated in two other “national C ONNECTICUT stage” events in October, presenting Hartford’s exciting Afro-Peruvian group Negrura Peruana at the Library of Congress INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY and the Kennedy Center Millennium RESEARCH (ICR), HARTFORD Stage. The artists were thrilled to be CONNECTICUT CULTURAL HERITAGE performing at these venues, and they ARTS PROGRAM really rocked the KC where crowds drawn by Gloria Estefan signing books and CDs Lynne Williamson down the hall heard the drums and came to check us out. This was a great 2005 proved to be a terrific year for us, opportunity for the group to sharpen their with an emphasis on public presentations. large-audience performance skills and Highlights include: work with experienced stage crews - we thank all at the AFC for the chance. National Heritage Fellowship Events - Connecticut rosemaler Eldrid Arntzen was Flying Words Project : Deaf Poetry amazed to be chosen for this award in Presentation - this remarkable duo of 2005, but she deserved it. Having worked poets, one hearing and one deaf, with her for many years, I attended the performed at Saint Joseph College to an festivities in Washington for the first time, audience that included students and and loved the mix and the quality of the faculty from the American School for the artists honored. There was a special Deaf and the National Theater of the camaraderie too at the hotel where artists Deaf, both based in Hartford. Our stayed with their families; what fun to be collaboration with them was inspired by part of that. Congratulations to NEA for the excellent traveling exhibit History sustaining this signature program for so Through Deaf Eyes, curated by Jean Bergey, many years. that came to Hartford a few years ago, and also by the work of City Lore with deaf poets.
Laotian Traditional Arts After-School Project - the community has really embraced this NEA-funded project that brings new classes in khene playing, dance, lam singing, and traditional culture to the long-running Lao Saturday School in New Britain. Middle- and high-school students now are involved. Unforeseen benefits Negrura Peruana, Afro-Peruvian music and dance group from Hartford, who performed at the AFC's have included the addition of Lao Homegrown concert series in October. Photo courtesy language classes for this age group, and of Negrura Peruana. the location of a master khene player who came out of retirement to teach. Students will show off their new skills at several
24 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 upcoming New Year events throughout Program funders include NEA, and new the community. this year - Bank of America. Also for the first time, the Greater Hartford Arts Regional Festivals - I really enjoyed Council supported a public festival of being involved in both the Lowell Folklife apprenticeship participants, held on June Festival and the Working Waterfront 19, 2005. We showcased 26 artists and Festival organized by Laura Orleans in groups, both performing and visual, at the New Bedford, Mass. Several artists from Portuguese Club in Hartford. Although it the Apprenticeship Program (described was Father’s Day, 300 people showed up below) demonstrated as part of the Crafts to meet the artists, watch them perform Area curated by Millie Rahn at Lowell, and also dance with them, and eat as with terrific regional musicians such as much of the Polish, Portuguese, Peruvian, Armenian kamancha player David Ayriyan Norwegian, and Laotian food as possible. performing. At the WWF (NOT The CT Year of Languages Committee set wrestling, at least not last year), I hosted a up an information table on language- narrative stage featuring panels on women learning, and several artists made some in the fishing industry, fish processing money selling work. As always, the artists then and now, and watching the weather. were excellent, and audiences commented This is one of my favorite festivals; it’s on their quality, diversity of art forms, and inspiring and fun watching it grow. “rarity” - “we never knew these artists existed!” was a common refrain. A Cape The Southern New England Verdean convention of sorts took place Traditional Arts Apprenticeship among CV artists and audience members Program - We are now in Year 8 of this from Connecticut and Rhode Island very successful collaboration with the meeting up. Folk Arts programs of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Eight master/apprentice pairs are involved (master artists in bold): * Jorge Job (CT)/Djim Job (RI) - Cape Verdean music * Somaly Hay (CT)/Maliss Men (RI) - Cambodian court dance * Jason Roseman (RI)/Matthew Williams (MA) - Trinidad steel pan making and playing Ukrainian pysanky made by Father Paul Luniw, * Paul Luniw (CT)/Carol Kostecki master artist in the Southern New England (MA) - Ukrainian pysanky Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program; from his display at the Lowell Folklife Festival 2005.Photo * Brenda Hill (RI)/Elaine Thomas L. Williamson. (CT) - Mohegan pottery * Donna Hébert (MA)/Nate Ouellette Training Workshops in Community (CT) - Franco-American fiddling Ethnography - this course for * Ana Vinagre (MA)/Tania da Silva community scholars, artists, and educators (RI) - Portuguese fado ran at ICR in September and October * Susan Madacsi (CT)/Sasha Galuin with a very dedicated group of (MA) - blacksmithing participants and faculty. We framed the
25 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 series as “community ethnography,” based festival. Last year’s tours netted us about on discussions held during the project $900, a good start on new earned income. planning phase with folklorists Greg Sharrow and Andy Kolovos from the Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory - Vermont Folklife Center, Michael Bell, ICR will display this powerful exhibit Kathleen Mundell, and Winnie from October 28, 2006 to January 12, Lambrecht. Session topics were the 2007. Curated and circulated by folklorists following, and additionally each from the Michigan State University participant developed an individual Museum, the Vermont Folklife Center, project. City Lore in New York City, and * Taking Stock of Your Community - Cultural independent scholar Ariel Zeitlin Cooke, Assessment Methods the show highlights traditional textiles * Methods and Issues of Cultural made by women from a wide variety of Documentation ethnic groups who have experienced * Preserving Your Materials: Archiving recent war, strife, or forced exile. The * Reaching and Teaching Others About Your stories of those experiencing such Heritage: Developing Programs and Activities traumatic events are expressed in pictorial * Course Wrap-Up and Individual Project narrative or in new motifs blended into Planning (2 meetings) the traditional form of the textiles in The students - a very diverse, startling ways. Included in the exhibit are accomplished, and engaged group - want arpilleras from Chile and Peru, story cloths to continue, and the success of the course from the Hmong people of Laos, is pushing me to run it again, maybe in embroideries from Viet Nam and South partnership with new friends at Africa, rugs from Afghanistan, and more. Manchester Community College. There’s The creative process of recording a real hunger for this kind of information, contemporary events using a traditional which seems to attract and impact people art form, and the healing effects of this from many walks of life. process, are major themes of the exhibit. It is both aesthetically beautiful and highly New Initiatives for 2006-2007: emotional in its range and effect on viewers. Connecticut Folk Art and Festivals Bus Tours - we are about to begin a new We plan to host several events related to series of four tours, after last year’s the themes of Weavings of War in success. This time we have teamed up partnership with local members of with Manchester Community College to communities represented in the exhibit. offer the tours as a continuing education Events and activities will include a day- course - the benefit comes with their long forum or workshop on refugee outreach to 40,000 households via the groups in Connecticut; a marketplace of course catalogue, but the downside is that textiles and other traditional art forms; the costs to participants is higher. We performances by Connecticut ethnic need to figure that out; I have written groups represented in the exhibit; some grants for scholarships. The tours presentations of personal narratives of should be great experiences: visiting artists and those who have experienced Tibetan artists and shops, a Finnish war; and small-group dinner conversations cultural center for weaving and food, and with cultural leaders of immigrant a Laotian temple for the water purification communities.
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New Folk Artist-in-Education 2 Hartford Square West Trainings - we have been invited to Hartford CT 06106 develop this very recent initiative with the 860/278-2044 x 251; CT Commission on Culture and Tourism, [email protected] which has a dynamic new education www.incommunityresearch.org manager, Amy Goldbas. She recognizes that traditional artists have different goals, F LORIDA experiences, and styles of presentation for working in school settings, so we will FLORIDA FOLKLIFE PROGRAM, BUREAU OF explore how best to serve their needs HISTORIC PRESERVATION, DEPARTMENT OF while also addressing the schools’ STATE expectations. I think a gathering is a good way to start, bringing artists together to Tina Bucuvalas, Robert Stone hear from them about concerns, challenges, desires etc. as they consider Voices of Florida doing presentations or residencies. We are FFP has completed production on Voices also thinking of pairing folk artists with of Florida, an 8-part radio series of artists who have experience in schools, community portraits with an emphasis on either for training purposes or for actual folklife. Topics include: “Home on the presentations, if that’s what they need and Swamp: Cattle Ranching in Florida,” want. I will be calling on some of you for “Cuban Florida,” “Technofolk: The war stories and advice! But this is a great Interface of Technology and Folklife,” step forward for us in our relationship “The Haitian Community of South with the Commission. Florida,” “Florida Boatbuilding,” “Southeast Asians in Central Florida,” Website Enhancement Project - All “The House of God Sacred Steel Guitar these public events and new projects are Tradition,” and “The Greek Community exciting and important, but the Program of Tarpon Springs.” The series has can’t neglect its own infrastructure. To recently been distributed to public and improve our outreach and services community radio stations. It will also be through the ICR website, I am planning to available soon through the websites of the develop ways of putting more information Florida Folklife Program, Central Florida about our work on the ICR website. Heritage Association, and Florida Included could be artist profiles, archival Humanities Council. information from unique projects such as the Cape Verdean community history, Folklife Apprenticeship Program curricula such as the training course The Florida Folklife Apprenticeship mentioned above, our many images and Program, funded in part by the National recordings organized in a useful and Endowment for the Arts, provides an coherent way, and my personal interest - a opportunity for master folk artists to marketing component. Also, one of the share their technical skills and cultural training course participants wants to knowledge. Six 2004-2005 apprenticeship produce a web list of ethnic and teams were selected: master artist Percy occupational events, and we could host “Vola” Francis/apprentices Lamar Bain, that. Stuart Cumberbatch, and W. Jason Lynne Williamson Mortimer (Bahamian Junkanoo costumes), Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program Margaret Howard/apprentices Benjamin Institute for Community Research
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Sharp and Jillian Howard (Scottish and Tampa areas from January through Highland dancing), James April. Kelly/apprentice Lynnsey Smith (Irish fiddling), Robert W. Marek/apprentices Florida Folk Heritage Awards Travis Malennor, Mark Raisch, and Joshua The Florida Department of State Terry (woodcarving), Erdin presented three Florida Folk Heritage Salcin/apprentices Belinda Bajric, Sanja Awards for 2005. The award recognizes Smajlagic, and Maid Kucevic (Bosnian authenticity, excellence, and significance dancing), and Lazaro A. in traditional arts. The awards were Santos/apprentice Jessica Ortiz (Brazilian presented on April 6 to Michael Kernahan capoeira). The six teams for 2005-2006 (Miami), Wayne C. Martin (Blountstown), include master artist James and Ruby C. Williams (Bealsville) at a Kelly/apprentice Lee Staley (Irish fiddling, ceremony attended by the Governor, County Clare style), Nicholas Florida Arts Council, Florida Historical Mastras/Michael Raysses (Greek laouto Commission, and Florida Folklife music), (Bobby Johns/John Hartley (Creek Council. Mr. Kernahan is a highly woodcarving), Marilia Carrasquillo/Wendy respected Trinidadian pan musician and Martinez (Puerto Rican vejigante masks, Ponce instrument maker; Mr. Martin is a fiddle style), Ezequiel Torres/Curtis Lanoue player and an advocate for folk culture; (Afro-Cuban batá drumming), and Aida and Ms. Williams is an African American Etchegoyen/Lourdes Rodriguez (Puerto painter and preacher whose work was Rican bobbin lace. The deadline for the recently featured at the Smithsonian. The 2006-2007 program is May 15. deadline for the 2006 Awards is September 15. New Communities in Central Florida Project FFP Receives NEA Infrastructure With the assistance of a $15,000 grant Grant from the National Endowment for the The Florida Folklife Program was Arts, FFP staff and awarded a $25,000 grant for 2005-2006 folklorist/ethnomusicologist Martha Ellen from the National Endowment for the Davis conducted research into new Latin Arts to continue its Statewide Outreach American and southeast Asian Program. Outreach includes the planning communities in Central Florida. As part and implementation of an annual topical of the project, FFP partnered with local survey, the Apprenticeship Program, institutions to present traditional artists in Festival Outreach to incorporate folklife a variety of festivals, concerts, and school into events such as the Florida Folk programs. Events included the festival Festival, the creation of a comprehensive portion of the Orlando Latin American book on Florida folklife, upgrading our Film & Heritage festival on February 19, website, and Florida Folklife Institutes to 2005, a section at the Mennello Museum train lay people to document and present of American Folk Arts’ Folk Arts Festival local traditions. in Orlando on March 6, 2005, a concert of Mexican music at the Tarpon Springs Florida Folklife Collection Online Performing Arts Center on May 6, 2005, The State Archives of Florida houses the and the Folklife Area at the Florida Folk records of the Florida Folklife Program’s Festival on May 28-29, 2005 in White first twenty years (1976-1995), along with Springs. We also presented four school nearly forty years of Florida Folk Festival programs in the Orlando, St. Petersburg recordings. In addition, the Florida
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Folklife Program is now in the process of experience as an opportunity to better turning over more recent audio and visual understand the history, personality, and materials to the State Archives for sensibility of each of these artists. Each inclusion in their Folklife Collection. On site reflects the unique aesthetic of the the Archives’ Florida Folklife Collection artist, has galleries of their work, and Online web page, users can search includes interactive opportunities to create information, images, and links relating to artwork of a similar nature. This year the Florida’s folklife, as well as find Folkvine.org site was expanded to descriptions of nearly 50,000 images and incorporate online tour guides that lead 5,000 audio recordings from the the visitor through all of the individual collection. For more information, visit sites according to humanities themes their webpage: including recreative identity, social http://www.floridamemory.com/Collecti economy, and place-making imagination. ons/folklife/index.cfm. Of special Folkvine.org will be expanded next year interest to those who have worked in into K-12 education through the creation Florida, the website also includes the of online tour guides that explore arts beginning of a section documenting the education. folklorists whose work built this collection.
Tina Bucuvalas, Bob Stone Florida Folklife Program Bureau of Historic Preservation 500 S. Bronough St. Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 (850) 245-6333 or (800) 847-PAST (850) 245-6437 fax http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/preservation/folklife/
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA A screenshot from folkvine.org. CULTURAL HERITAGE ALLIANCE In addition, CHA has paired with the Natalie Underberg Orlando Museum of Art to collect and post online motorcycle stories as part of This has been another busy and the museum’s “The Art of the productive year for the University of Motorcycle” exhibit. UCF Film and Central Florida Cultural Heritage Alliance Digital Media graduate students are (CHA), part of the School of Film and premiering their motorcycle films at the Digital Media. CHA has worked on or is Orlando Museum of Art as part of this working on several diverse projects that historic exhibition. merge folklore research and education with the exploration of new media and Another folklike and technology project is technology. CHA'S largest site is the East Mims Oral History Project Web Folkvine. This website features the art and site which details the past and present of community of some of Florida's greatest East Mims. Premiered at the Harry T. and folk artists. Folkvine treats online Harriette V. Moore Park, "The East Mims
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Oral History Project" combines archival G EORGIA recordings, oral history, and contemporary animation to enliven the agricultural past, religious community, and civil-rights LAURIE SOMMERS, efforts of East Mims's residents. INDEPENDENT FOLKLORIST
This year CHA continues to host the Since the South Georgia Folklife Project Florida Folklore Society annual meeting funding ended in June, 2005, I have been (March 4 at Crealde School of Art in collaborating with the Valdosta State Winter Park, Florida). This year the University Archives on transferring the theme is “Story, Performance, and South Georgia Folklife Collection to the Technology” and will feature such diverse VSU Archives. We received a Georgia topics as a panel on folk artists who use Council for the Arts Folklife grant to aid new technology in their traditional arts in this work. We are digitizing materials and a presentation on the animated tale and will be making selected aspects of the “Uncle Monday” (based on the tale from collection available online in the future. Kristin Congdon’s Uncle Monday and On March 30, 2006 we will host Visions Other Florida Tales) being created by the and Voices: the Artistry of Wiregrass Women, a University of Central Florida’s Visual pubic program featuring selected women Language track (part of the School of traditional artists included in the Film and Digital Media). collection, as part of the annual regional Women's Studies Conference at VSU. Finally, currently underway is an The exhibition, Folklife of Wiregrass Georgia, educational computer game mod based on is now on permanent display in VSU's "The Turkey Maiden" (also from Kristin Odum Library. The old SGFP websites Congdon's Uncle Monday and Other will be moved and updated so it will be a Florida Tales). More information about permanent part of the collection all of these projects is available at associated with the VSU Archives. www.sfdm.ucf.edu/heritagealliance. I am in the process of collaborating on a book manuscript on the culture of turpentine workers for University of Natalie M. Underberg, Ph.D. Alabama Press, along with anthropologist Assistant Professor of Josh McDaniel. For information on Digital Media and Folklore turpentining, see the SGFP website, Faces Project Coordinator, Heritage Alliance in the Piney Woods: Traditions of Turpentining School of Film and Digital Media in South Georgia, 12461 Research Parkway www.valdosta.edu/turpentine. Suite 500, Room 132 University of Central Florida Laurie Sommers Orlando, FL 32826 Independent Folklorist 407-823-1140 Director, South Georgia Folklife Project Fax: 407-823-5216 1816 Woodcrest Drive n [email protected] Valdosta, GA 31602 W-229-293-6310 Cell 229-300-0582 email [email protected]
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I DAHO and quilters, musicians, and members of two Utopian communities on the Utah- Nevada border. This information will go ANDREA GRAHAM, INDEPENDENT toward planning for heritage tourism and FOLKLORIST economic development efforts by the Great Basin Heritage Area Partnership— Andrea Graham, Independent Folklorist they have submitted legislation to become federally designated. They also received Once again I have separated my report Utah Humanities Council funding for into two sections, one here with my three public programs in late April, 2005, freelance work, and one under South in three communities, which I presented Dakota, where I serve as Traditional Arts along with local tradition bearers. The Program Coordinator for the South Utah Arts Council was a vital partner in Dakota Arts Council. this project, providing film and tape, leads and contacts, and archival storage of the The long-running Bear River Heritage field materials. Area project, at least my part of it, is at last winding down. We have been documenting local traditions in the four southeast Idaho counties of Bear Lake, Caribou, Franklin and Oneida for a couple of years, and I delivered several boxes of field materials to the Utah State University Fife Folklore Archives last fall. The final activity under the NEA fieldwork grant we received will be public programs in each of the counties this spring. I will do a presentation on the project and the results of the fieldwork, and we will bring in a couple of the local folks we interviewed to talk about their traditions.
I also have been working with another fledgling heritage area, the Great Basin Heritage Area, which covers two counties in western Utah and eastern Nevada. After working on the White Pine County folklife survey for the Nevada Arts Rugmakers Celia Harris and her mother Ava Losee Council several years ago, the organizers of Delta, Utah, were interviewed for the Great Basin Heritage Area Project. Photo by Andrea Graham. of the GBHA asked if I’d be interested in doing a similar survey in Millard County, In Idaho last March I worked with Maria Utah, and of course I said yes. They Carmen Gambliel, photographer Miguel received an NEA/Forest Service grant in Gandert from New Mexico, and the 2004 and I spent two weeks at the end of Idaho Commission on the Arts to present that year talking with fossil and rock a field school for community cultural collectors and businesses, ranchers and workers. The four-day event was held at a farmers, miners, two saddlemakers (on of monastery in Jerome, and included field whom is also a blacksmith), rug makers
31 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 visits to a sheep ranch, a saddlemaker, and I’m sure that was only a taste of the local a nearby outdoor museum, and a culture, and the local work, that we’ll be in demonstration of Mexican wax flower for when AFS comes to Boise in 2009. making by one of the participants, who is an apprentice to Eva Castellanoz. The great strength of the field school was the Andrea Graham participants, who came from a wide Independent Folklorist variety of backgrounds and brought lots 1637 Glacier St. of prior experience in photography, arts Pocatello, ID 83201 management, journalism, and their own 208-238-8418 cultures, which included Native American, [email protected] Guatemalan, Mexican, and ranching. It was really a treat to work with these folks. I NDIANA We hope to make the field school a regular offering of the Arts Commission. I also continue to serve as an at-large TRADITIONAL ARTS INDIANA member of the Commission’s board. Jon Kay, director I am also continuing to do fieldwork in Humboldt County in northern California, Quilting Needles and Wine Barrels completing my third annual trip there in November of 2005. There are incredibly TAI State Fair Masters 2005 rich and diverse cultures there, ranging from fishing, ranching and logging For the fifth year in a row, TAI has occupations, to Portuguese, Swiss, and partnered with the Indiana State Fair in Hmong ethnic communities, and very honoring some of Indiana's finest talents, strong and self-sufficient Native American who have gained reputations within their tribes. The project has been sponsored by communities as bearers of traditional the Ink People Center for the Arts, a knowledge. Their skills range from terrific and creative local arts council, and cooking and steer-raising, to candy- funded by the FFC and ACTA. Last fall making and sheep shearing. This year, the when I was there ACTA Director Amy Masters included master winemakers and Kitchener came up and we held a quilters. community meeting to explain the status of the project and solicit ideas for future No image speaks more vividly of Indiana's research and programming. We are now at pioneer women than a Hoosier quilting the point of making some long-term plans bee. Today, many groups throughout for support of traditional arts in the area, Indiana continue to quilt and visit with and will be using another grant from each other. Master quilters, The ACTA’s Living Cultures program this year Piecemakers from Evansville, have been a to move forward. staple at the Indiana State Fair Pioneer Village since 1982, demonstrating quilting Finally, I helped coordinate the Folk Arts in this lively setting. Peer Group meetings at the NASAA conference in Boise last September. Boise Like clockwork, each Wednesday was a big hit, and a big surprise, for throughout the year, the Piecemakers conference attendees, and we enjoyed gather at Salem United Methodist Church showing Idaho off to a national audience. to quilt. Some learned to quilt at their
32 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 mother's knee while others taught Towards evening, steel guitarist Clary themselves. Together, each year they Butler, Jr. and his group "Seven Minutes make a quilt for the state fair to be 'Til Midnight" from Indianapolis roused auctioned off, contributing more than 200 the state fair audience to its feet with hours of shared labor and talent. "Putting some "sacred steel" music, which is a a quilt together is an art," explains Jane form of gospel utilizing pedal steel guitars. Eberhart, "putting the colors and designs In-between performances, accordionist together and being able to see it in your Mike Macchia from Lake County, a mind before it actually happens." master artist in TAI's apprenticeship program, set the audience's toes tapping Master winemakers, the Huber Family to "Lady of Spain" and popular polkas. from Clark County, have brought the fruit-growing and winemaking tradition On the Road with them from Baden Baden, Germany to Southeastern Indiana. Since 1843, the Along the I-69 Heritage Corridor family has been making wine, at first only a couple of barrels a year. In 1972, they From glassmakers and quilters to luthiers decided to enter the commercial market. and beekeepers, fieldworkers working in Today, sixth generation winemakers Ted Northeastern Indiana found that the and Greg oversee a winery, vineyard, region was buzzing with creativity. orchard, and retail store. A few years ago, Through a partnership with the I-69 Ted's father, Gerald Huber, won the Heritage Corridor, TAI worked with Governor's Cup at the Indiana State Fair's seven convention and visitor bureaus that International Wine Competition. line I-69, one of Indiana's major north- south interstates. TAI identified, TAI State Fair Masters DVD wins award interviewed, and photographed more than 100 folk and traditional artists in Traditional Arts Indiana hired free-lance Hamilton, Madison, DeKalb, Huntington, videographer Anders Lund to develop a and Grant counties. Researchers in the DVD on the 2005 Indiana State Fair project included Ilze Akerbergs, Brent Masters. This DVD has won the Philo T. Bjorkman, Butch Ross, and Jon Kay. The Farnsworth Award for Documentary next phase of the project is to provide Profile and Promotional Video over 61 training for community scholars and Seconds. Over 700 copies of the DVD artists in the region and to create online were distributed at the Indiana State Fair. slideshows featuring several of the artists To obtain a copy of this DVD, contact for which TAI received NEA funding. TAI at (812) 855-0418, or e-mail This project allowed TAI to make the leap [email protected]. into the digital age, by collecting and logging all photos and interviews digitally. TAI Day at the Fair Copies of the digital files will be placed at the Indiana Historical Society and Indiana The Main Street stage was the setting for a University. repeat performance by the popular mariachi group from East Chicago, Jon Kay, director Mariachi Acero. This band originated Traditional Arts Indiana from the schoolrooms of East Chicago's 504 N. Fess Avenue Central High School more than 15 years Bloomington, IN 47408 ago, led by band instructor Larry Lane. 812-855-0418
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I OWA identify and tell the stories of five to ten Iowa foods that met at least two of three criteria, e.g. have an IOWA ARTS COUNCIL, FOLKLIFE ecological/geographical niche, a heritage PROGRAM basis, and a narrative that elucidates those connections to Iowa. Thanks to some Riki Saltzman excellent publicity from the Leopold Center, the Iowa Department of Cultural The past year has been a busy one what Affairs, Practical Farmers of Iowa, with funding for a year-long study of Iowa regional electric co-ops, email lists, and Place-Based Foods, a new series of Iowa Roots newspapers around the state, there was an http://www.iowaartscouncil.org/program overwhelming response about this project s/folk-and-traditional-arts/iowa- from all over Iowa. There have been at roots/index.shtml along with an updated least 50 suggestions for Iowa place-based website, and the launching of Cultural foods. I conducted interviews with Express producers and documented seven foods http://www.iowaartscouncil.org/funding that meet all three criteria. Those foods /cultural-express/index.shtml, a series of include: Maytag ® Blue Cheese, 9 table-top exhibits and 2-hour live Maasdam’s Sorghum ®, Amana rhubarb programs. I’ve also been working closely wine, Uncle Jack’s Popcorn®, K & K with IT folks at the University of Tiny but Mighty Popcorn®, western Iowa Northern Iowa to put the Iowa folklife mettwurst, and Southeastern Iowa black curriculum, Iowa Folklife: Our People, walnuts and pawpaws. There were also Communities, and Traditions on line, several other foods that met at least two complete with downloadable audio and of the criteria such as lefse, flour tortillas, video, and links to Iowa Roots and the corn tortillas, Dutch letters, pork Folkways CD, Iowa State Fair. That site tenderloins, and kringle. will be launched in late spring and will be updated with a second set of lessons in the following year. We’ve also worked with Nikki Saylor of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwest Cultures at UW- Madison to begin the long overdue process of archiving over 20 years of folklife materials. Finally, and at long last, by late spring 2006, there will be an on line Iowa Folk and Traditional Artists Roster, which will be hot-linked to the on line curriculum. Hogs grazing at Willis Farm, Niman Ranch(R) Taste of Place: Place-based Foods in Pork Company. Iowa The intent of the project was to survey During 2005, the Iowa Foodways Project: the state through a variety of methods— Taste of Place has researched via surveys, press releases to the media, contact with interviews, and photography Iowa previously researched communities and produced foods that have a connection to individuals, on line surveys, and interviews place and heritage. The goals were to with reporters around the state. Results at
34 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 different phases of the 2005 project have 3). Those that are grown and processed been presented at three national here but have no substantive heritage conferences and two in-state conference, basis (several kinds of great salsa, cows’ as well as reported in a variety of in-state milk and goat milk, cheese from Cresco newsletters, websites, and to an ISU and the Goat Sisters, Java chickens and extension class. most other heritage poultry, emerging vineyards and wineries, a variety of Some general comments: First, there is a delicious local organic and natural dairy wealth of research that still has to be products—some of which is from re- done. Second, while it was easy to find emerging micro-dairies, farmed fish from foods that met at least two of the criteria, western Iowa); and there were few that met all three. Third, and most important, Iowa really is a state 4). Those that are grown and processed that is about food. here and that do have a heritage basis but are not necessarily produced organically or naturally—and which may, as a result, prove problematic to market without having to contend with other political and economic issues (buffalo from northwest Iowa, Amana® meats, pork tenderloins, Maidrite®, hybrid sweet corn, soy nuts, etc.).
Although visitors from Iowa and from away do search out that ubiquitous Iowa pork tenderloin or Maidrite®, the “best” Pies at Iowa State Fair judging. sweet corn or ice cream, the “biggest” cinnamon roll or food on a stick, it is From the various research methods important to distinguish among those employed to do this study, I’ve foods that really do have a taste of Iowa as determined that most of the foods that a result of where and how they are grown Iowans and others identify with Iowa fall as well as where and how they are into four categories: processed. The ecological basis of IA place-based foods has to do with the 1). Those that are grown and processed grasses the animals eat, which effects the here and have a heritage basis (pork taste of the meat or the milk/cheese tenderloins, produced; the soils in which the crops Maasdam’s sorghum syrup, Amana grow (e.g. sorghum, Muscatine melons), rhubarb wine, mettwurst, black walnuts, the soil and climate for grapes and fruits Muscatine melons, and pawpaws); (e.g. Hawkeye apples, Amana rhubarb wine), the effect of molds and humidity 2). Those that are processed here and (Maytag® Blue Cheese), and so on. More have a heritage basis (Dutch letters, lefse, research needs to be done as to exactly kolaches, Swedish pancakes, Norwegian how those factors influence the taste of kringle, Danish aebleskivver, Mexican flour any one kind of food. But the where and and corn tortillas, and other ethnic the how become the substantive issues for dishes); growing and processing, especially given
35 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 the very clear European definitions of and museums to program Cultural Express: terroir and appellation. Traditional Arts on Tour, a roster of 2-hour programs involving traditional artists, a On the other hand, if the food comes small traveling exhibit, press kit, and from ingredients grown elsewhere or is so resources for pre-program presentations common that it doesn’t really matter in Iowa public libraries and cultural where it comes from (e.g. potato chips, museums. The Gutekunst Library in State doughnuts, hamburgers, sweet corn), it’s Center, in partnership with several other difficult to make the claim for the food as libraries and museums in central Iowa, having a taste of Iowa—as opposed to was awarded funding to showcase all nine anywhere else—especially if the major programs and exhibits between January ingredients do not necessarily come from and June 2006. A second RFP will be this state. And as the various examples issued later this spring for funding in above demonstrate, the foods that are FY07 that will also include programs on missing the heritage part that “tells the Vietnamese Tet and Iowa Polka Bands, in story,” somehow seem lacking in their addition to the current ones featuring pedigree. Identifying a food as “place- Bosnian, Lao, American Indian, Danish, based” may be as deceptively simple and and Asian Indian cultural traditions as well as inherently complex as “you know it as Old Time, Gospel, Blues, and Latino when you see it.” folk music. This program provides a focused way to present and publicize Besides those foods noted above, some Iowa’s diverse traditional cultures in ways examples of foods that that really do fit that make them accessible to audiences into this category also include Muscatine’s and manageable for traditional artists. melons (see study by Sue Futrell and Craig Chaise). There are also several foods such Riki Saltzman, Folklife Coordinator as Hawkeye apples, Beeler’s Hog Wild® Iowa Arts Council, Department of Cultural Affairs pork products, Cloverleaf and Naturally 600 E. Locust Iowa® diary products, and Radiance Des Moines, IA 50319 Dairy milk, cream, and yogurt that may 515-242-6195, 515-281-6911 also fit into this category, but more fax: 515-242-6498 research is needed. [email protected] www.iowaartscouncil.org The Leopold Center has awarded the Iowa Arts Council a second year of funding to create several web-based fact K ENTUCKY sheets, which will include audio clips, photos, and downloadable pdfs. Go to http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/research/ KENTUCKY FOLKLIFE PROGRAM marketing_files/2006grants.htm#m07 for more information and check out our Bob Gates, Mark Brown, Sarah Milligan website in July 2006. This year was a busy and exciting year for the Kentucky Folklife Program. The KFP along with our parent organizations, the C ULTUR AL EX PRESS Kentucky Historical Society and the Last fall, the Iowa Department of Cultural Kentucky Arts Council, are finally settling Affairs issued an RFP for public libraries into our new positioning under the
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Kentucky Commerce Cabinet. Although music stars that any other stretch of road challenging at times, we have managed to in the nation. continue to build our public programming and cultivate our community outreach The Kentucky Folklife Program, as an programs. This year we have introduced inter agency program of the Kentucky new programs and made progress Arts Council and The Kentucky Historical improving and continuing many ongoing Society, and with a grant from the programs. A look at some of our year-in- Kentucky Department of Transportation review highlights follows: produced this cultural heritage driving tour of the Country Music Highway. The Release of More than Music: A tour starts at the Kentucky border, just Heritage Driving Tour of Kentucky’s south of Portsmouth, Ohio and leads the Route 23 listener all the way down to Jenkins, Kentucky. The 3-CD audio tour, based on interviews with over 60 people and narrated by Ricky Skaggs, brings to life the voices of the people who live in this land of rolling hills, coal mines and banjos. Our intent is not to focus on the famous stars—although they are part of the story —but to offer a glimpse into the folk groups that live along the way. In addition to the driving tour itself, we produced a 60-page guidebook which includes area maps, history, travel tips, GPS coordinates and tidbits of local heritage and lore. In appreciation for the music talent of this region we included a compilation CD combining a mixture of music from country music stars, traditional artists, and regional favorites, who may be part of the tour.
At this year’s Kentucky Crafted: The Market, the Kentucky Folklife Program will present culture from along the Route 23 corridor. From mining to mountain music, we will showcase occupational, After more than 4 years of fieldwork, material, and recreational culture found planning, writing and recording we are along this span of highway. We will also proud to announce the release of our first display a new traveling exhibit heritage driving tour! The stretch of US complementing the driving tour and will Route 23 that winds along the border of present Route 23 performers on the far eastern Kentucky has been officially cultural stage. In conjunction with the designated as the Country Music Highway Kentucky Historical Society’s Education National Scenic Byway because the region Team we will present a children’s activity is the childhood home of more country based on the concept of found art and inspired by Minnie Adkins’ community of
37 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 folk artists near the Country Music occur at the summer camps. The Festival Highway. also successfully hosted a reunion of KDFWR retirees as far back as 1941. The Driving Tour’s retail price is $24.99 + tax. If anyone is interesting in purchasing Also a theme for the Festival this year was a copy of this exciting new product, please music and culture along the Route 23 contact Sarah Milligan at corridor. In celebration of the release of [email protected]. our new driving tour More than Music: A Heritage Driving Tour of Kentucky’s Route 23, 2005 Kentucky Folklife Festival the Kentucky Folklife Program presented material culture, community events, and musicians from this region of the state. The Saturday night headlining performance was a musical montage of artists from the driving tour including Rebecca Lynn Howard and Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder.
A return program for this year’s festival was the Community Crossroads area on the Old State Capitol grounds, which The Kentucky Folklife Festival was held focuses on an exploration of the meanings again in 2005 in historic downtown of “community.” Here occupational, and Frankfort. The festival was a success, ethnic folk groups were stationed together thanks to the deep commitment of to intimately illustrate similarities and researchers, artists, staff, and volunteers. differences in a variety of community New research by folklorists and traditions. A new feature to this year’s Community Scholars provided an Community Crossroads area was the “I’m abundance of new programming alongside a Kentuckian” tent, which explored what some favorite artists from previous it means to individuals and groups to Festivals. A record high attendance was identify themselves as Kentuckians. This evident this year, while narrative stages, was done through a photo exhibit and a foodways demonstrations, learning series of narrative stages. Featured workshops, and hands-on activities communities included Latino groups from provided in-depth encounters for visitors Central Kentucky, Kentucky’s Deaf and and school groups. Hard of Hearing community, and an occupational group of River Boat Pilots. New programming at this year’s festival included the presentation of occupational Again at this year’s Kentucky Folklife folk culture of the men and women in the Festival, patrons and staff had a Chance Kentucky Department of Fish and to Dance during evening concerts after Wildlife Resource (KDFWR) along with learning dance moves during the day’s the communities they serve. interactive dance demonstrations. These Demonstrations included duck-, goose-, dance workshops were a favorite for the and turkey-call carving, fishing traditions almost 8,000 students visiting the festival and techniques, and the recreation of the on Thursday and Friday. Although the remarkable learning experiences that spike in gas prices this fall limited the number of field trips schools are allowed
38 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 to schedule in a semester, we still received Kentucky Community Scholars. This new impressive attendance and positive Community Scholars Survey Grant teacher feedback. Program is our way to encourage use of skills developed through the Community Scholar workshop series. We hope this Community Scholars grant will build confidence in the skills of trained Community Scholars, offer funding for those projects that require it, and help build the Kentucky Folklife Program’s archive while developing new public programming. Applicants must attend the upcoming Kentucky Folklife Conference in Cumberland, Kentucky March 17-19 in order to understand the expectations of the grant and build upon documentation skills needed to complete the survey grant. To complete the grant requirements, the Community Scholars must submit an archivist-approved This year has been a year of review and cultural survey of their community and growth for the Kentucky Community build their research into a local public Scholars Program. In addition to several program. review and planning meetings with program participants and coordinators from around the state, the Kentucky Recent Community Scholar Participants, Folklife Program, in collaboration with Bowling Green, KY-- July 2005. Alabama Community Scholars Institute coordinator Joyce Cauthen and South Carolina Community Scholar coordinator Leslie Williams, hosted a Community Scholars forum at the 2005 American Folklore Society meeting. Out of these discussions we developed a plan to increase access for individuals to receive Community Scholar training as well as to build programs supporting the Kentucky Community Scholar Network. We developed a Community Scholar workshop curriculum which allows us to employ trained facilitators to lead We are very proud of this past summer’s workshop sessions alongside folklorists in Community Scholars graduates from the state. We are now testing the new Warren and Logan counties. Three curriculum with newly trained Community impressive projects came out of this Scholars facilitators. group’s class. Four individuals from Logan County used their fieldwork skills This spring we are also testing a new to add oral history, material culture, and granting program through the Kentucky public presentation to a documentation Arts Council specifically for certified project of a historically African American
39 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 community in Russellville, Kentucky push the boundaries of bluegrass referred to by locals as the Black Bottom. mandolin have inspired such artists as Also from this class of graduates, four Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, and Bowling Green women collected oral Vince Gill. histories from attendees who taught in or sent children to a segregated African American high school that was in Bowling Green. All four women attended the high school themselves, which was only open a few years before desegregation. The last member of this Community Scholars class used her Community Scholar training to play the role of a cultural mediator between the city of Bowling Green and a group of teenage skateboarders during the planning and construction of a local skate park. She is also the director of the Paul Colón. Bowling Green International Festival and Louisville photographer and musician has used her documentation and Paul Colón had been playing mandolin for presentation skills to present a local more than ten years when he first met community of Bosnian refugees at their Danny at a fish fry. Paul identified 2005 festival. We are proud of this class’s immediately with Danny's style, and felt enthusiasm to become trained compelled to learn and share his playing Community Scholars. techniques and arrangements to ensure that Danny's contributions would never Apprenticeships be forgotten. “When we met, Danny was really Through the Kentucky Arts Council, the encouraging to me,” Paul says. “His feel Kentucky Folklife Program funds Folk and soul are what I'm attracted to. Part of and Traditional Arts Apprenticeships each my duty as the apprentice is to take that year. Awardees receive up to $3,000 and emulate it in a way that will honor which compensates a master artist to him.” teach an apprentice within a community. Over the past year, apprenticeships Paul discovered that spending time with included john boat building, white oak Danny has brought him much closer to basket making, square dance calling, and his goals of mastering this mandolin style. making Guatemalan Easter alfombras "There is no substitute for face-to-face (carpets). Banjo, fiddle, and mandolin learning. To be able to see the finger masters have received the grant. position and pick position is essential to the true learning experience.” One example is Mandolin player Danny Jones, who is linked to the past, present, Danny, in turn, welcomes Paul's and future of bluegrass music. During the enthusiasm, and has a positive outlook on 1960s and ' 70s, performing in bands such the apprenticeship and on the future of as the Grayson County Boys and the bluegrass in general. “I think it's in good Bluegrass Alliance, Danny established his hands," he says. "I'm lucky to have played credentials in the Louisville bluegrass bluegrass in the '60s and '70s when I saw scene. His distinct style and willingness to
40 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 the rise of it. And now, with great new range of individuals and groups who will artists, it escalates again." learn from one another, build collaborations, and enjoy social activities For more information on Kentucky Arts and concerts. Anyone interested in folk Council Apprenticeship grants, visit culture is encouraged to attend. This http://artscouncil.ky.gov. The year’s theme, “There’s a Story behind It” application deadline is March 31 each is attracting a wide array of cultural year. workers. A major goal is to bring together seasoned experts with those who The Kentucky FolkWeb have little experience with folklore but would like to know more. This year’s conference will also see the formation of a Kentucky Folklife Association. Guidelines will be discussed and an association board will be selected. The meeting will take place March 17-19, 2006 at the Western Kentucky University’s Folk Southeastern Community College in Studies Department and the Kentucky Cumberland, Kentucky. Folklife Program are pleased to announce the release of the Kentucky FolkWeb. Kentucky Folklife Program This website should be on the “Favorites” Bob Gates, Director list of anyone interested in folk culture of 100 West Broadway Kentucky. Frankfort, KY 40601 (502)-564-1792 The new site is a headquarters for folklife 877-444-7867 (toll free) information, resources, and articles. Users fax: (502) 564-0475 of the site are encouraged to visit frequently for calendar events and news. KNOTT COUNTY ART AND CRAFT Also, all are welcome to log on to the FOUNDATION, KENTUCKY Kentucky FolkWeb Forum. This APPALACHIAN ARTISAN CENTER discussion board features different topical areas for general folklore dialogue, as well Stuart Burrill, M.A., Director as Community Scholar networking. The Knott County Art and Craft Please visit www.kentuckyfolkweb.com, Foundation is a non-profit organization share the link with others, and get leading a broad coalition in developing the connected to this exciting online town of Hindman, KY, into an arts and community. heritage tourism center. This project is becoming a model of how to use arts and Kentucky Folklife Conference heritage to spur economic development in rural areas (and it has a folklorist at the At the first conference in 2003 held in helm!). Bowling Green, artists, archivists, historians, teachers, anthropologists, and The Foundation began a gut renovation Community Scholars came together to of the 5000 Sq ft. Bolen Building in explore networking opportunities and downtown Hindman, in February, 2006. share current trends in folklife. In 2006, Before the end of the year the building the meeting will include an even broader
41 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 will house the Foundation’s first artisan September 8-10, 2005. With more than incubator spaces. Plans over the next 85 registered participants from all over the couple years call for an additional 20,000 world, the symposium featured 16 sq. ft. of artisan incubator space including sessions, a keynote address by Neil a café/restaurant. Rosenberg, and a concert by J. D. Crowe and the New South. The symposium was The Knott County Art and Craft coordinated by Erika Brady, and partially Foundation operates the Kentucky funded by Western Kentucky University, Appalachian Artisan Center. The Center the Kentucky Humanities Council, the sells work from approximately 150 juried International Bluegrass Association, and artisan members. Its members are from ASCAP. throughout eastern Kentucky. The Center hosts a variety of cultural events including Ravensford Project. Michael Ann a summer arts camp for kids, art exhibits, Williams, along with several current and film screenings, small concerts, and former graduate students in Folk Studies various speakers through out the year. at WKU, has been working on an oral history project in conjunction with Kentucky Appalachian Artisan Center archaeological excavations at the Telephone: 606-785-9855 or 1-800-246- Ravensford tract, a piece of land recently 7521 ext 73450 transferred from the Great Smoky Fax: 606-785-9003 Mountains National Park to the Eastern h ttp ://www. artisancenter.net Band of Cherokee. The project, funded Postal address: P.O. Box 833 through TRC Garrow, reflects an Hindman, KY 41822 innovative collaboration of folklorists and Location: 16 West Main St. archaeologists on a cultural resource Hindman, KY 41822 management project. [email protected] Pioneer Cabin Concert Series. Erika Brady coordinates this ongoing concert DEPARTMENT OF FOLK STUDIES AND series on the WKU campus, featuring the ANTHROPOLOGY, WESTERN best in acoustic music. The series features a varied selection of artists whose work KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY relates to American roots music, in a setting that lends itself to interpretation as Chris Antonsen, Tim Evans well as performance. Recent performers include Barry and Holly Tashian, Roland In addition to course work, ongoing White, Curtis and Ruth Burch with Joel activities such as Erika Brady’s work on Whittington, and Kathy Chiavolo, as well the training of medical professionals, and as an old-time fiddle workshop by Alan the seasonal rhythms of academic folklife, Jabbour and a mandolin workshop by members of the Folk Studies Program Roland White. Dr. Brady coordinates the were involved in a number of activities, series with a community advisory board including many in collaboration with the consisting of renowned bluegrass Kentucky Folklife Program. musician Curtis Burch, gospel singer and composer John Edmonds, guitarist Greg The Bluegrass Music Symposium. Martin of the Kentucky Headhunters, jazz The world’s first academic conference on guitarist John Martin, and bluegrass music took place at WKU on singer/songwriter Dan Modlin.
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program under the direction of Chris The Material Culture of the Atlantic Antonsen, the Kentucky FolkWeb Slave Trade in Nigeria. Johnston A. K. presents information about folklife in Njoku has been conducting research on general and specific Kentucky folklife as the folklore and material culture of the well as descriptive or definitional pieces Atlantic slave trade in Nigeria. His about general folklife concepts. If you research has confirmed that the Ancient would like to contribute an article, contact Dr. Cave Temple Complex at Arochukwu, Chris Antonsen served as a secret slave dealing location ([email protected]). and the beginning of many slave journeys to the coast. Working with WKU and Kentucky Folklife Festival. WKU with the Nigerian National Commission folklore faculty and graduate students on Museums and Monuments, Dr Njoku migrated en masse to the three day hopes to nominate the Cave Complex as a Kentucky Folklife Festival in Frankfort, in World Heritage Site, and develop a plan September 2005. We participated in many for documenting, interpreting and aspects of the festival, including preserving the site. interpretation, emceeing and managing performance stages, training and escorting Second Kentucky Folklife Conference. visitors in the Very Important Presenter This year’s conference was held at the program, facilitating narrative stage Southeastern Community College in conversations, and more. Harlan County, Kentucky. It was largely organized by Harlan County folklorist and Bowling Green International Festival. recent WKU graduate Theresa Osborne, Chris Antonsen served on the Board of in collaboration with the Kentucky Directors for the Bowling Green Folklife Program. Tim Evans was on the International Festival for 2005. Dr. planning committee; and several WKU Antonsen’s undergraduate fieldwork class faculty and students attended and helped performed a service-learning project by out in various ways. documenting the festival as part of a photo shootout challenge. Students were Community Scholars. Chris Antonsen encouraged to offer select photos to the continues to collaborate with the festival board for marketing and Kentucky Folklife Program to develop the documentary purposes. Dr. Antonsen Kentucky Community Scholars program. also consulted with the festival’s Community, public, and academic Executive Director on a successful folklorists gathered in Frankfort in Kentucky Arts Council grant to provide December 2005 to hammer out details for funds for local Bosnian immigrants to a new training rubric and support demonstrate and interpret their dance and materials for trainers of Community food traditions. Scholars. In addition, WKU Folk Studies produces Kentucky FolkWeb. the Public Programs Bulletin (currently edited (http://www.kentuckyfolkweb.com) The by Tim Evans and Jonathan Philpot), and Kentucky FolkWeb site continues to all of the faculty are engaged in research support education, community, public, projects. Michael Ann Williams’s book on and tourist interests related to Kentucky Sarah Gertrude Knott (founder of the folklife. Developed jointly by WKU Folk National Folk Festival) is due out in the Studies and the Kentucky Folklife summer of 2006.
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project until it finds a permanent home Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology and will manage the site and post Western Kentucky University information about hurricane oral history 1906 College Heights Blvd., #61029 projects. See www.louisianafolklife.org Bowling Green, KY 42101 and select In The Wake of the Hurricanes. Susan Roach serves as a clearinghouse for Michael Ann Williams, Department Head the In the Wake of the Hurricanes Chris Antonsen, Erika Brady, Tim Evans, discussion group on Yahoo. Barry Kaufkins, Johnston A. K. Njoku. Report on Public Programs Section contribution to Southern Arts Federation. Funds raised at the Public L OUISIANA Programs auction were distributed to the three affected states by formula. Funds sent to Louisiana were received by the LOUISIANA FOLKLIFE PROGRAM newly created Cultural Economy Foundation and are awaiting distribution Maida Owens, Susan Roach, Dayna Lee, to folk artists. Laura Westbrook, Eileen Engel Changes to grants guidelines: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Six Following a strategic planning process and months later, we are still dealing with the a new budgeting process, our guidelines aftermath of the hurricanes. Finding have dramatically changed so that all displaced people continues to be a major programs now support building a cultural challenge because we tended to use their economy. The only program relatively physical mailing address and telephone unchanged is the fellowships. Regrettably, land lines. I had very few email addresses the apprenticeships didn’t make it through or cell phone numbers for artists, the budget process even though they were community organizations, or folklorists. ranked very high as supporting the The mail is still irregular in New Orleans cultural economy since they support and land lines don’t work. traditions that make the state unique and authentic. We may be able to support Hurricane Research Coalition: After them through a special initiative this year Hurricanes Katrina and then Rita, Susan if the budget predictions aren’t as a bad as Roach worked with Shana Walton with they are presently. I am very pleased that a the Tulane Deep South Humanity Center new program did get funded. The Folklife to create the Hurricane Research Coalition Initiative Fund will support fieldwork and and develop materials, including topics then implementing projects that use the and question forms for hurricane fieldwork to support the economy. survivors and responders. The forms are Another new program has potential for modeled after the Library of Congress’s folk artists: Artist Entrepreneurs will Veteran’s History Project. The LOC’s support artists in growing their arts- American Folklife Center staff helped related businesses. with the documents and agreed to be a secondary repository. The Coalition is Louisiana State Museum opened a new seeking a centralized database of site in Baton Rouge in January including interviews and research. The Folklife much of the Folklife Program’s Creole Program has provided webspace for the State Collection. The entire third floor
44 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 features Louisiana’s folk traditions, music, Bowman’s original version of Fieldwork and Mardi Gras, the first permanent Basics is still available for projects not exhibit to feature the folk traditions of the based in schools. entire state. The Regional Folklorists and I provided and identified video clips, LV Project Manager Eileen Engel photos and other interpretive materials. ([email protected]) saw an opportunity to We will be recommending to museum formally pilot the fieldwork unit when staff topics for lectures, folk artists for teachers in the LV network started demonstrations and performances, and requesting resources to help students cope other educational programming. The with the hurricane aftermath. Teachers museum is developing an exhibit on the were specifically looking for resources to storms and has started collecting artifacts. help their students document hurricane They have again requested the help of the experiences. In response, Eileen Folklife Program and the Regional developed In the Wake of the Hurricanes for Folklorists. 5th grade and up, which draws upon materials from the Hurricane Research Websites: Online additions include Coalition and the new LV fieldwork unit. articles, photographs, music clips, and Eileen is using the same piloting process revision of two units in Louisiana Voices. she used to with the Louisiana Many Food One of my primary goals for the website Traditions Unit, in which students research was to make information more accessible their food traditions and produce to classrooms. I am very pleased that I cookbooks. In that pilot, a network of regularly receive requests from textbook Louisiana Voices teachers used the publishers to use photos from the foodways unit in their classrooms, Louisiana Folklife Photo Gallery. From resulting in over 300 students conducting these conversations, I learn that they are recipe interviews and producing also mining the articles. Evidently, it’s easy cookbooks. to browse online to find photos, so they are doing it. Folklife in Louisiana, The same process is now being used to www.louisianafolklife.org, Louisiana pilot the hurricane unit. One class Voices, www.louisianavoices.org. participating in the hurricane unit pilot is at the new Math and Science Charter High Louisiana Voices Folklife in School of New Orleans. The oral histories Education Project (LV): We have and photographs collected by students revised the first two units of the Louisiana will be the basis for an exhibit which will Voices Educators Guide. These were be open to the public. All of the students originally written as background in the class are displaced residents of New information for teachers, but educators Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Regional taking LV workshops and institutes Folklorist Laura Westbrook is co- requested more structured guidance instructing the project. Because of this concerning defining folklife and teaching class, these students were chosen to sit on fieldwork. They felt that the current the dais with Mayor Ray Nagin and ask materials required them to intuit too questions expressing young people's much of the process. So we more fully concerns about the recovery effort at a articulated the definitions and processes as press conference on February 20th. classroom activities. The result is Unit I Defining Terms and Unit II Classroom Another impact of Katrina is the demise Applications of Fieldwork Basics. Paddy of the Deep South Regional Humanities
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Center at Tulane University. In November work with the Hurricane Research 2005, Tulane dramatically reduced staff Coalition discussed above, partnered with and some faculty, including the entire the Shreveport Regional Arts Council Center. Shana Walton spearheaded Lessons (SRAC) and Dayna Lee to help them in Folklife and Technology for English Language produce an exhibit “Folk Art Is...” from Arts (LIFT ELA), a project drawing upon the Southern Arts Federation. She Louisiana Voices resources to research the continues to work on the Louisiana impact of such projects on student Quilt Documentation Project and learning. Cherice Harrison-Nelson worked develop online materials for Folklife in with 70 teachers from seven parishes over Louisiana website, which includes a two years. The most significant finding searchable database of quilts, articles, and was that the teachers who fully resources about quilting. She is assisting implemented the projects saw their on two non-profit groups with folk students outperform other comparable architecture projects which will be cultural classrooms on the statewide assessment tourism sites: the Shadow Plantation, an test (LEAP). In November, upon hearing antebellum dogtrot house and that the Center was closing and that all outbuildings to serve as a museum and materials needed to be cleared from the folklife center, and an 1880s dogtrot office, Shana asked me to help save the which will be moved to Dubach to serve project records and data from the debris as a welcome center. piles. It is now in my garage waiting to be archived. After being displaced, Shana and Regional Folklorist Dayna Lee Cherice are both back in New Orleans ([email protected]) is working with the and involved with several hurricane Creole community and Creole Heritage documentation projects and/or education Center to interview displaced Creole projects. Both are interested in seeing the residents of New Orleans who are now in work continue, willing to talk about the the Cane River community, families results, and interested in working with hosting evacuees, and the effects on the anyone who would like to get funding to community. She is working on two replicate the project and assessment. driving tours with the Apalachee Tribe Shana Walton, [email protected], and African American communities 504/232-1441 within the Cane River National Heritage Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Area in Natchitoches Parish. Other [email protected] 504/214-6630 projects she is assisting include the Alexandria Civil Rights Project, foodways Louisiana Folklife Festival: Monroe activities and exhibits in conjunction with cancelled the 2005 festival after Katrina regional presentations of the Key because no lodging was available in the Ingredients exhibit from the Smithsonian, city and city resources were dedicated to and a GIS project to map locations noted hurricane relief. Susan Roach worked with within oral histories, ethnographic and Mike Luster to get the Louisiana Folklife folklife interviews. . She worked with the Festival materials from 1994 - 2006 Creole Heritage Center on a video, The archived before he left for his new job in Common Pot, on Creole foodways. A Arkansas. related project to create a Creole foodways map of Louisiana that will Regional Folklorist Susan Roach document Creole communities, ([email protected]), in addition to her restaurants, and food traditions throughout the state has been put on hold
46 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 due to the hurricanes. She continues to Hurricane Hugo, Coalition to Restore work with NSU's Williamson Museum on Coastal Louisiana's efforts to document a southeastern Indian basketry collection the stories of their members, and several inventory and database. The Work of Tribal NPR stories concerning the aftermath. Hands: Southeastern Indian Split Cane Basketry by Dayna Lee and H. F. Gregory Maida Owens will be published by NSU Press in 2006. Louisiana Folklife Program PO Box 44247 Regional Folklorist Laura Westbrook’s Baton Rouge, LA 70804 ([email protected]) entire region was (225) 342-8178 devastated by Hurricane Katrina and she [email protected] spends most of her time on Katrina- related issues. All projects that she had M ASSACHUSETTS formerly been assisting have been rendered moot by the storms and their aftermath. Laura's own home was FOLK ARTS & HERITAGE PROGRAM submerged, and she lost everything. After MASSACHUSETTS CULTURAL COUNCIL 2 months’ evacuation in Florida, she found temporary housing with electricity Maggie Holtzberg just outside New Orleans, where she remains. Much of the university is still Exhibition: We are busy researching, working out of homes with cell phones. planning, and fundraising for Keepers of Soon after the hurricane she knew that the Tradition: Folk Arts in Massachusetts, an university had some flooding and looting, exhibition project intended to raise public but no one was permitted on campus until awareness of the folk arts traditions December, when it became clear that practiced throughout the state. The plan is some equipment had been stolen. All in all for an exhibition, catalog, and public little was lost since staff had raised most programs -- ambitious but definitely items from the floor; program records and doable. field materials were safe. The university was looted again in January, and Laura's We are pleased to be partnering with the office computer and some personal items National Heritage Museum in Lexington, were stolen. MA. (Some of you may recall that this same museum produced Folk Roots, New Documentation projects abound in the Roots: Folklore in American Life, in hurricane-affected areas. Laura is involved conjunction with the American Folklore with several, including FEMA's efforts to Society’s centennial meeting in identify traditional cultural properties for Cambridge.) The exhibition will be the National Register of Historic Places mounted in the museum’s 2,700 square and assistance eligibility, Southern foot gallery and will include 100 objects, Foodways Alliance (U of Ms)'s website text panels, photographic images, sound featuring agricultural occupations, vignettes, and several short films. Content Southern Food and Beverage Museum's will be selected based on MCC field exhibit "Come Hell and High Water," research conducted by folklorists from about the impact on food culture, Masters 1999 to the present. MCC Apprenticeship of the Building Arts Festival at the and Artist Grant recipients will be American College of the Building Arts in featured in the exhibition. We envision Charleston, SC begun in response to the exhibition being organized around the
47 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 functional roles traditional art plays in $5,000 each will and up to three finalists people’s lives -- sacred, decorative, will be awarded out of a pool of 19 occupational, celebratory, etc. – and the applicants. context in which traditional art is created and used. The overarching message will Fieldwork Finds: We have received and be that this is beautiful, meaningful, and processed Springfield/Holyoke fieldwork complex art. from Kate Kruckemeyer, including documentation of some spectacular Puerto Rican folk art. Santo carver Carlos Santiago Arroyo’s (Amherst) and a vejigante mas artisan Angel Sanchez Ortiz (Holyoke) will exhibit their work at the Brush Gallery in Lowell this spring.
Teacher Workshop in the Works: Recognizing that Puerto Rican students sometimes disengage from an educational process that ignores their heritage, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, in collaboration with the Springfield Public School System and the University of Massachusetts, is developing a professional development program that will immerse teachers in Puerto Rican culture and generate new lesson plans that incorporate Puerto Rican cultural items. The program, Explorations in Puerto Rican Culture: Professional Development for Educators, centers on a nine-day summer institute, features two follow-up sessions, training St. Michael by Carlos Santiago ArroyoAmherst, of traditional artists to work in the MA. Photo credit: Kate Kruckemeyer classroom and disbursement of developed Traditional Arts Apprenticeships: Six curriculum units. master/apprentice teams were awarded Traditional Arts Apprenticeships this year, Maggie Holtzberg, Ph.D. in grant amounts ranging from $2,000 to Folk Arts & Heritage Program Manager $5,000. The funded masters include: John Massachusetts Cultural Council A. Campbell, Cape Breton fiddle style, 10 St. James Avenue, 3rd Fl Harold A. Burnham, wooden boat Boston, MA 02116 building, Ksenia Pokrovsky, Russian 617.727.3668 ext 254 iconography, Bashkim Braho, Albanian folk dance, Qianshen Bai, Chinese seal carving, and Anita Peters Little, Wampanoag regalia making.
Artist Grants: Our Traditional Arts panel takes place late in March. Two grants of
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M ICHIGAN regional waters and using its resources. Subsequent waves of new peoples to the area introduced new ways of working the MICHIGAN TRADITIONAL ARTS water and using its resources, contributing PROGRAM to a rich and varied maritime heritage. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY Many communities are steeped in MUSEUM maritime history and traditions--hosting fishing contests and tournaments, boat Kurt Dewhurst, LuAnne Kozma, Yvonne regattas, shows, and parades, blessings of Lockwood, Marsha MacDowell the fleet, harbor festivals, fish festivals, and fish fry dinners. Even a location or We had another exciting year of beautiful town's very name indicate the prominence weather and terrific programming at the of water in its history and identity, e. g. 2005 Great Lakes Folk Festival. And Two Rivers, Sturgeon Bay, Marine City, here's news of some provocative new Fond du Lac, and Bkejwanong exhibits, our heritage awards, (Anishnabe for Walpole Island, meaning apprenticeship program, and a new 4-H "where the waters divide"). workshop. Maritime traditions are so widely practiced 2005 Great Lakes Folk Festival featured in the Great Lakes region that almost Maritime Traditions of the Great Lakes everyone, if they have not engaged in activities themselves, has heard maritime- Since the AFS Public Programs newsletter related stories and knows someone who is became an annual, we didn't publish an excellent fisher, an experienced boater, detailed festival information in last year's or who can cook fish in a traditional way. edition. Here's a sampling of our publicity Some people only engage in recreational materials for the maritime program of the maritime activities such as fishing, festival. For a complete lineup of musical boating, scuba diving, or watching performers (with sample mp3 clips to freighters while others make their living play) and other events, see: wholly or in part through maritime, www.greatlakesfolkfest.net. Thanks to all working as commercial fishers, dock our colleagues who collaborated with us workers, freighter captains and crews, on this annual, ever-changing event. ferry and tug boat operators, bait shop owners, shipbuilders, boat builders, sail Maritime heritage often brings to mind makers, sail instructors, charter boat historical events and sites like shipwrecks captains, boating and marina operators, and lighthouses. But maritime heritage is marine suppliers, the Coast Guard and more than just the past. Part of that many more. All who engage in maritime heritage is the maritime traditional skills activities share in enduring customs, skills, and ways of life we continue today. In the expertise and collective wisdom. Great Lakes region basin, these traditions are connected not only to the Great Lakes This year's Great Lakes Folk Festival themselves but also to the literally showcases a sampling of these maritime thousands of rivers, streams, and smaller traditions with artists, cooks, occupational lakes that are part of the landscape. specialists, and other tradition bearers Indigenous peoples were the first to from Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. develop the knowledge of navigating
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Occupational Traditions Tent: Observe boat The Maritime Traditions of the Great builders at work, sailmakers making sails, Lakes program was curated by LuAnne splicers making wire cable and knot tyers Kozma with Yvonne Lockwood, Janet tying nautical knots and splices. Watch Gilmore, and Michael Chiarappa, and commercial fishers show their fishing presented in part with support from techniques and net making skills, and hear Michigan Humanities Council and the their experiences about fishing the Great National Endowment for the Humanities. Lakes. 2006 MICHIGAN HERITAGE Recreational Traditions Tent: Meet traditional AWARD RECIPIENTS artists who make exquisite Great Lakes model boats and fly fishing rods. The Michigan State University Museum Transport yourself to winter on a frozen announces the Michigan Heritage Awards lake and talk with traditional ice fishers (MHA) for 2006, the state's highest who make fishing shanties, fish decoys, distinction to honor individuals who and fishing spears. continue their family and community traditions with excellence. Maritime Kitchen: Listen and smell as commercial fishers, recreational fishers, "The Michigan Heritage Awards are and others fry, bake, boil, pickle, and presented each year to honor master smoke Great Lakes fish, from perch to practitioners in Michigan who continue "lawyers" (burbot) to muskie and pike. See the folk traditions of their families and a Wisconsin fish boil and hear how the communities through practice and Bay Port (Michigan) fish sandwich teaching," explains Yvonne Lockwood, became a community festival. curator of folklife at the MSU Museum and coordinator of the Michigan Heritage Legacy Stage: Hear maritime traditional Awards program. artists swap sea stories, sing historical Great Lakes folk songs, relate their own The following individuals have received personal tales of storms and tragedies on recognition for their achievements: the Lakes, share their nautical know-how, and talk about the one that got away. Performance--Abdul Karim Bader of Farmington Hills, oud (Middle Eastern Michigan Heritage Awards Ceremony: Join in lute) musician honoring the J.W. Westcott Company and Material Culture--Herman Chapman of St. Employees, the famous mail boat on the Clair Shores, model boat builder, Ernie Detroit River, as one of this year's Hawks of Lansing, ornamental recipients. architectural plasterer
Children's Folk Activity Area: Build toy Since 1985, the MSU Museum's Michigan boats, learn to fish and sail, talk like a Traditional Arts Program (MTAP) has sailor, tie flies, and much more! recognized the achievements of Michigan artists in material culture, performance Musical Performances: Hear performers with and community leadership. The honorees ties to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic have been drawn from all corners of the Ocean: the Georgia Sea Island Singers, state and reflect the great diversity of fado singer Ana Vinagre, and Lee skills, ethnicities and backgrounds of Murdock. Michiganders. Some have also been
50 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 honored as recipients of the National -Kelly Church of Hopkins and Cherish Heritage Fellowships awarded by the Parrish of Hopkins, for black ash basket National Endowment for the Arts. making -DJ Krogol of Lansing and Devin Lamb Later this year, the recipients of the 2006 of Lansing, for Highland bagpipe playing Michigan Heritage Awards will be -Ronald Paquin of Sault Ste. Marie and recognized at a public ceremony at the Bernard "Bud" Biron of Brimley, for birch Great Lakes Folk Festival, produced Aug. bark canoe making 11-13 by the MSU Museum in downtown -John Perona of Calumet and Leesa East Lansing. Briggs of Calumet, for bones playing (percussive music, similar to spoons) -Larry Plamondon of Delton and Patricia The National Endowment for the Arts Shackleton of Haslett, for Native and the Michigan Council for Arts and American storytelling Cultural Affairs provide support for the -Les Ross Sr. of Marquette and Mark Michigan Heritage Awards program. For Hamari of Marquette, for Finnish- more information on the Michigan American lumberjack-style harmonica Heritage Award, contact Lockwood at playing MSU Museum, at (517) 353-9678 or visit http://www.museum.msu.edu/s- TELLING OUR STORY WORKSHOP program/mtap As organizations grow and develop over 2006 MICHIGAN TRADITIONAL time, they often generate a remarkable ARTS APPRENTICESHIPS record of community service. While leadership, members and programs The MSU Museum announces the change over the years, an upcoming Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship statewide workshop is designed to help Program (MTAAP) recipients for 2006, a groups document and preserve their program that celebrates and sustains organizational history. traditional arts practices in the state. The "Telling Our Story: An educational workshop Apprenticeship program supports for Michigan community organizations," is set traditional folk arts in Michigan - those for April 28-29, 2006, at the 4-H that are learned informally from one Kettunen Center, in Tustin, Mich. another and are taught within families or a Participants will learn how to employ oral community. In this program, a master history interviewing methods, engage artist works with an apprentice artist for a youth in documentary methods and share period of one year. Past apprenticeships the story of their organization's record of have helped sustain traditions in such service. diverse art forms such as fiddle playing, quill box making, storytelling and rag-rug "Telling Our Story will engage community weaving. Master artists receive a monetary organizations from around the state as we stipend for working with the apprentices explore the role of community service in in their specialized area of traditional arts. the lives of young people and adults and its impact on community life," notes The 2006 Michigan Traditional Arts LuAnne Kozma, 4-H Specialist and Apprenticeship Program's master artists assistant curator of folk arts at the MSU and their apprentices are: Museum.
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Workshop attendees will receive materials, program is sponsored by Michigan 4-H training, and mentoring for community- Youth Development, Michigan State based and youth-serving organizations to University Extension, Michigan 4-H help record and tell their own histories, Foundation, Michigan State University strengthen youth engagement and Museum, University Outreach and leadership, and use historical research, Engagement. communication, and multimedia technology methods. Participants will also EXHIBIT: SIYAZAMA: explore and learn oral history research and TRADITIONAL ARTS, EDUCATION, documentary methods, using the AND AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA "Folkpatterns" curriculum materials February 5, 2006 - June 30, 2006 pioneered by Michigan 4-H Youth Heritage Gallery, MSU Museum Development and Michigan State University Museum. Learn about the Throughout the world art has long been history of community service and service- used as a tool for cultural, social, and learning. economic change. In South Africa many educators and activists used performing After the workshop, participants will and visual arts in the successful anti- conduct interviews with members or apartheid movement. Now arts are being former members of their respective used there to inform and inspire citizens organizations about the role of about the AIDS epidemic. community service projects in the lives of individuals, as well as in organizations and Fighting AIDS within South Africa communities. All participants will presents many challenges. Even though contribute brief written reports based on the post-apartheid government has their interviews in a "Telling Our Story" mandated changes, many communities online journal. continue to experience high rates of poverty and racial discrimination. Perhaps Registration deadline is April 14, 2006. more importantly, strongly maintained Registration for "Telling Our Story" is traditional practices and beliefs, especially $84.50 and includes meals, overnight related to gender roles, inhibit lodging, and all program and instructional conventional approaches to AIDS supplies. (Discounted rate of $ 44 for 4-H education. Despite these challenges, many adult and teens). For more information, community organizations have turned to contact Kozma at (517) 353-5526 or a the arts for innovative AIDS education local MSU Extension office. For a and outreach projects. complete flyer of the program, see the 4- H Website: One arts-based intervention, the Siyazama http://web1.msue.msu.edu/cyf/youth/cu (Zulu for "we are trying") Project, uses lture.html Once at this site, go to 'Training traditional and contemporary artistic & Events.' Click on the Telling Our Story expression to document the realities of Workshop for all registration details. HIV/AIDS and to open lines of communication about the virus. Though "Telling Our Story" is funded in part by a based in South Africa, the project is a "We the People" grant from Michigan replicable model for collaborations among Humanities Council, an affiliate of the artists, educators, and health practitioners. National Endowment for the Humanities, and by the Michigan 4-H Foundation. The
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This exhibition showcases a sampling of EXHIBIT: WEAVINGS OF WAR: the artistic work created by participants in FABRICS OF MEMORY the Siyazama Project and explores the January 22 - June 11, 2006 at MSU application of traditional knowledge and Museum skills to contemporary issues, materials, and experiences. The exhibition is a Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory is a collaborative project with Natal landmark exhibition that features textiles Technikon (formerly Durban Technikon) made in a variety of techniques and for that grew out of the South African different purposes by artists--mostly National Cultural Heritage Project, a bi- women--who have incorporated pictorial national project led, in part, by Michigan imagery in their work to communicate State University Museum and MATRIX: their personal and collective experiences Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and with war. Social Sciences Online. Marit Dewhurst is co-curator of the exhibit. Marit is a The exhibition and accompanying doctoral candidate at Harvard Graduate publication are available for purchase at School of Education and Arts Educator at https://secure.museum.msu.edu/MTAPS Museum of Modern Art in New York tore/main.asp.
Funding has been provided by the For more details about Weavings of War, Andrew J. Mellon Fund, National see the Connecticut report in this bulletin. Endowment for the Arts, and, for partial support of the traveling portion of the SMITHSONIAN FOOD EXHIBIT TO exhibition, Michigan Council for the Arts VISIT MICHIGAN IN 2007-8 (Anchor Program). Tour to stop at Dundee, Chelsea, A series of educational activities, lectures, Frankenmuth, Calumet, Cheboygan, films, poetry slams, educators' workshops, Whitehall and other public events are scheduled (LANSING, November 9, 2005)-----The throughout the exhibition. The Michigan Humanities Council will bring educational activities associated with the the Smithsonian exhibit, Key Ingredients: Siyazama exhibit are supported with funds America By Food to six communities in and in-kind services by the MSU Office of Michigan in 2007: Calumet, Cheboygan, University Outreach and Engagement; Chelsea, Dundee, Frankenmuth, and MSU Office of Affirmative Action, Whitehall. In addition, the Council will Compliance & Monitoring; Michigan State sponsor a state version of Key Ingredients University Museum; MATRIX: Center for called "Michigan Foodways" and will Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences assist local communities in developing Online; Michigan Council for Arts and their own kiosks. Michigan Foodways is Cultural Affairs; the National Endowment being produced by the Michigan State for the Arts; Lansing Area AIDS University Museum and funded in part by Network; East Lansing Film Festival; the Michigan Humanities Council and the LATTICE; and MSU Museum Studies Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Program, Affairs.
For more information about Siyazama, see "The Michigan Humanities Council is http://www.siyazamaproject.co.za/ excited to be able to work with the Smithsonian to bring Michigan an exhibit
53 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 about the impact food has on our culture 372-7770 or [email protected]. and heritage," stated Jan Fedewa, Executive Director of the Michigan An opening kick-off event to launch the Humanities Council. "We are also looking exhibit is planned for Thursday, May 24, forward to working with the six selected 2007. The Council will announce the communities to help them develop location and details for the event at a later interactive programs to complement the date. exhibits." Below are the dates and locations for Key Key Ingredients is the newest exhibition of Ingredients and Michigan Foodways, and Museum on Main Street (MOMS), a quotes from local officials regarding their partnership of the Smithsonian Institute selection as an official host site: and the Federation of State Humanities Councils. With photographs, illustrations, CHELSEA: Chelsea District Library. May and artifacts, it explores the connections 25 - July 8, 2007 between Americans and food via the historical, regional, and social traditions of "Hosting a Smithsonian traveling exhibit everyday meals and celebrations. In is a great opportunity for both Chelsea addition to farming, table manners, and our new library," stated Metta history, and markets, the exhibition also Lansdale, Director of the Chelsea District examines the evolution of the kitchen, the Library. "Chelsea has a great agricultural technological innovations that bring us a heritage and we hold one of the longest wide variety of prepared and fresh foods, running and largest community fairs. We and the role of public eateries and food plan to make this a big part of our celebrations in building a sense of programming. We also plan to celebrate community. The six communities hosting our community's connection to Chelsea Key Ingredients and Michigan Foodways Milling (of Jiffy Mix fame) and The will add their own local flavor to the Common Grill, which has quickly become exhibit's larger, national story. Yvonne one of Southeastern Michigan's most Lockwood is curating the "Michigan highly rated restaurants. I am thrilled that Foodways" exhibit. the library is able to bring this exhibit and the national recognition that will The Michigan Humanities Council accompany it to Chelsea." welcomes corporate partnerships as Key Ingredients and Michigan Foodways tour CALUMET: Keweenaw Heritage Center. Michigan. Those interested are July 13 - Aug. 26, 2007 encouraged to contact Greg Parker, Program and Development Officer for "I think this is a great opportunity to the Michigan Humanities Council, at 517- bring a prominent exhibit to Calumet," 372-7770 or [email protected]. stated Kim Hoagland of the Keweenaw Heritage Center. "The Copper Country The Michigan Humanities Council already has a strong interest in traditional welcomes corporate partnerships as Key foods, such as the pasty, and we hope that Ingredients and Michigan Foodways tour this exhibit will generate a lot of Michigan. Those interested are excitement about our heritage." encouraged to contact Greg Parker, Program and Development Officer for CHEBOYGAN: Cheboygan Area Public the Michigan Humanities Council, at 517- Library. Aug. 31 - Oct. 14, 2007
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"We have a major expansion at the in the home. The two main restaurants, Library that will be a great location for the which continue to remain in the same exhibit," stated Lisa Craig Brisson, Key family, continue to serve the family style Ingredients Project Manager for the 'all you can eat' chicken dinners. They Cheboygan Area Public Library. "We plan continue to strive for innovative methods to feature how our local Native American to produce and are proud to maintain the and Polish farming communities, as well traditional homemade tastes. This entire as our small family farms, have impacted community will share in this event as we how we live. Our programs will also focus are all proud to be able to show off our on how whitefish and maple harvesting cooking tradition talents." are important to our community identity. We are excited to bring this important, DUNDEE: Dundee Museum and high quality exhibit to our community " Community Center. Feb. 1 - Mar. 16, 2008 WHITEHALL: White Lake Community Library. Oct. 19 - Dec. 2, 2007 "We're thrilled to be selected as a site for Key Ingredients," stated Meg Heinlen, "Being a Key Ingredients site will bring Secretary for the Historical Preservation our community a greater appreciation for Society of Dundee. "It's a dream come the wide array of food sources produced true to partner with the Michigan in our immediate area," stated Bette Humanities Council and our national Carlson, Director of the White Lake museum, the Smithsonian, to be able to Community Library. "We will be planning bring an exhibit on our national 'pastime' - an interesting array of activities for all ages eating - to the region. We're eager to share from recording oral histories from food Dundee's food history, especially our producing families, collecting old family Native American and German pioneer recipes, cooking demonstrations and food traditions." workshop to teaching kids about vegetable gardening and much more." More information, including a schedule of events, details on local exhibits and the FRANKENMUTH: Frankenmuth statewide kickoff gala, will be made Historical Museum. Dec. 7, 2007 - Jan. 27, available late next year as we approach the 2008 exhibit's arrival in May 2007. Please feel free to call Scott Hirko, Public Relations "Frankenmuth is very excited and proud Officer for the Michigan Humanities to be the recipient of the Key Ingredients Council, at 517-372-0029 ext. 25 or email and the Michigan Foodways exhibits," him at [email protected], for stated Sally Van Ness, Director of the contact information to each of the host Frankenmuth Historical Association. sites. "Frankenmuth is the perfect town for this exhibit. When the settlers came to For additional information on the Frankenmuth from Germany, there was Michigan Humanities Council and its little they could bring with them; however grant programs, please visit: they brought their customs, their language www.michiganhumanities.org or call 517- and their wonderful cooking. This town 372-7770. was built on these three things-the wonderful German cooking still remains Michigan Traditional Arts Program high priority whether you're dining out or Michigan State University Museum
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Michigan State University for check out from the Nebraska East Lansing, MI 48824-1045. Humanities Council’s resource library. Entitled A Treasured Heritage: Mexican N EBRASKA Americans in Nebraska and From the Steppes to the Plains: Nebraska’s Germans from Russia, the kits are multidisciplinary. They each NEBRASKA FOLKLIFE NETWORK contain lesson plans that address Nebraska’s social studies and Gwen K. Meister reading/writing standards as well as the state’s arts learning recommendations. People sometimes think there’s not much Each contains a teacher’s manual with to do out here in the middle of the Great lessons and handouts; images of folk Plains, but this past year has been artists, their work, and other cultural anything but boring for the folk and subjects; interview excerpts; videotapes; traditional arts advocates in Nebraska. artifacts such as games and cooking The Nebraska Folklife Network (NFN) is utensils; reproduction or donated celebrating it’s third birthday this fall. In traditional clothing; books; and music the last year we added two additional recordings. The project is funded by a directors to our board and our combination of support from the NEA, membership and activities have both the Nebraska Arts and Humanities increased substantially. Councils, and the Peter Kiewit Foundation of Omaha. Two more 2005 Highlights Nebraska cultural groups, the Vietnamese Americans and Swedish Americans are the At our May 2005 annual meeting subjects of the 2005-2006 kits and plans celebration we featured a concert and talk are underway to portray Iraqi and Irish by local Lincoln Latino musician Oscar cultures in the following year. Rios. A native of Veracruz Mexico, Oscar is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who A draft of the Nebraska By Heart, folk arts plays many types of Latin American and folklife curriculum was piloted by music. He focuses most specifically on the middle school art specialists in the music of the Andes, which he began Kearney and Lincoln schools during 2005 playing before emigrating to the U.S. An and a project to create the final curriculum educator with the Lincoln Public Schools, as an on-line package, along with a packet he accompanies the Mexican American of promotional materials on it for community dance troupe Grupo Folklorico teachers, was funded for 2006 by a Sangre Azteca and is the founder and Nebraska Arts Council arts education director of the popular musical group Kusi project grant. Taki. Oscar and Kusi Taki have continued to bring Andean music to Nebraska Current and Upcoming Activities audiences since 1993. Major activities include testing and In September the first two of a series of completion of the additional cultural Cultural Encounter Kits (trunk exhibits) encounter kits outlined above, and that the NFN is creating for statewide use launching of the on-line Nebraska By Heart by Nebraska’s upper elementary and folklife curriculum during 2006. middle school teachers became available
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The NFN board of directors will undertake it’s first formal strategic For those of you unfamiliar with the planning this year with a retreat scheduled Dutch Hop, it is a unique style of polka for July 2006. The board will also be music that features both the accordion looking at further expansion of the and the hammered dulcimer, usually number of board members and additional supported by trombone and electric bass fund raising strategies. these days. Dutch Hop polkas are played to a faster tempo and the dance includes a The board of the American Historical slight hop and sometimes some extra foot Society of Germans from Russia stomping that aren’t present in other (AHSGR) has invited me to give a polka styles. The River Boys’ spouses have presentation on the making of the cultural promised to demonstrate the dance along encounter kit on Germans from Russia in with the music and we’re all looking Nebraska at their annual international forward to a great time. Hope to see some conference that will be held this August in of our DC folklorist friends there! Thanks Lincoln. They have been so pleased with to all of you for your support and advice the project that they have requested a and to the great, hardworking NFN board copy of the kit for their headquarters and members and volunteers who have helped museum to use in its educational us do our work this year. programming. The presentation will also include a demonstration of the kit and it’s Gwen K. Meister materials for attendees from other states 5620 Hunts Drive who might wish to make similar ones for Lincoln, Nebraska 68512 use by their own chapters of the Phone/fax: (402) 420-5442 organization. [email protected] Last, but certainly not least, I’m N EVADA particularly proud and excited to announce that the Scottsbluff Nebraska- based Dutch Hop polka band, the River NEVADA ARTS COUNCIL, FOLKLIFE Boys have been chosen as one of the acts PROGRAM to appear in the American Folklife Center’s “Homegrown” performance Jeanne Harrah Johnson series this year. Their performance is currently scheduled for June 21, 2006. Folklife Apprenticeship and Folklife Band leader and accordionist Robert Opportunity Grants “Bob” Schmer has been playing the Dutch Hop, which is the traditional dance The Nevada Arts Council’s Folklife music of Germans from Russia, around Apprenticeship Program, funded in part western Nebraska and eastern Colorado by the National Endowment for the Arts for decades. His former band, Bob Schmer Challenge America, provides support for and the Polka Playboys featured the late twelve master traditional artists to teach Albert Fahlbusch, a master hammered technical skills and cultural knowledge to dulcimer maker and player from apprentices to maintain their art forms. Scottsbluff who received an NEA This year panelists Kathi Figgen, Karen Heritage Fellowship in 1984. The Krieger and Meg Glaser recommended, Playboys were honored with a Nebraska and the Nevada Arts Council’s Board Governor’s Arts Award in 1992. approved grants to Jake Brown, Tuscarora
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(rawhide braiding, twisting and knot demonstrations and workshops on tying), Xian Na Carlson, Gardnerville Washoe, Shoshone, and Paiute storytelling (Chinese ancient fan dance), Sue Coleman, and songs, basket weaving and tule duck Carson City (Washoe basket weaving), decoys, and a presentation by the Mariano Gonzalez, Las Vegas International Ballet Folklorico of Reno. (Paraquayan harp music), Ixela Gutierrez, The Folkife Program also supported Las Vegas (Mexican Folklorico Dances), Native American traditional artists to Vinton Hawley, Wadsworth (Paiute participate in a Summer Teacher’s cradleboard making), John Mincer, Fallon Institute at Pyramid Lake Museum, and (Western silver engraving), Natalie Pruc, Reno’s Japanese Taiko drummers to be Las Vegas (Ukrainian embroidery), Elaine performance artists along a hiking trail in Smokey, Schurz (Paiute winnowing tray the Sierra Nevada mountains near Summit and cone/burden basket), Rulan Stands, Lake. Fallon (Native American star quilts), Antoinette Stanton, Las Vegas (African The Folklife Program was awarded a and Afro-Caribbean dances),and $20,000 grant from the National Genoveva Trujillo, Las Vegas (Peruvian Endowment for the Arts to expand its “tunantada” dances). educational programming. The funds will support the creation of a web-based roster The Folklife Program provided three of twenty traditional craft and performing grants of $1500 to traditional arts artists, and the creation of educational organizations. With these funds, the materials on traditional arts. The artists Assyrian-American Association of Las will provide presentations in schools, Vegas purchased the materials to make museums, community centers, libraries traditional dance costumes for their and other venues and the educational performances; the Reno-Sparks Indian materials will be distributed at each Colony supported elder speakers of program site. Native languages to participate in the Great Basin Language Conference, and The Texture and Weave of Traditional the Great Basin Native Basketweavers’ Art Exhibit Association brought Native Americans from throughout the state to provide In conjunction with Nevada Arts basket demonstrations to a wide audience. Council’s Artist Services Program, the Folklife Program curated a traveling Folklife Education Initiative Programs exhibit (for Nevada) and accompanying education packet titled, The Texture and In its first expansion into southern Weave of Traditional Art. The exhibit Nevada, and with assistance from the pieces mix the visual art and craft of Clark County School District, a Mexican Nevada’s historic and ancestral paper flower maker and master Ukrainian communities, including Native Americans pysanky creator presented lecture- and ranchers, with pieces created by more demonstrations to over 1100 fourth and recent residents, those from the Ukraine, fifth graders in Las Vegas, following an Poland, Iran and Peru. The exhibit began introduction to the folklife of Nevada and touring this fall and has booking through the West. Many of northern Nevada’s October, 2007. Folklife Education programs were co- sponsored with the Nevada State Museum, in Carson City. These included
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Tahoe: These Are Your Neighbors Photographic Exhibit This year's festival will also feature some of folk music's finest artists including our Images of Lake Tahoe’s Washoe basketry, headliner, renaissance blues man himself, Austrian and Hungarian decorative arts, Guy Davis, as well as standout fiddler, Jay brilliantly colored quilts, and flamenco Smar and even New Jersey's best folk dancers were featured in a traveling artist of 2004, Spook Handy, according to photographic exhibit, “Tahoe: These Are the annual Makin Waves Awards show. Your Neighbors” which made stops at the Other great acts that will appear are Incline Village-Washoe County Library, Masters of the Celtic Harp, Grainne the Zephyr Cove-Douglas County Hambly and William Jackson, John Library, and the Tallac Historic Site Roussos and Friends, the young blues (California). The exhibit was an outcome singer-songwriter Ian Thomas, highland of the Lake Tahoe Basin folkife cultural bagpiper Frank Watson, and much more. survey, co-sponsored and supported by the Western Folklife Center and National In addition, the annual juried craft market Endowment for the Arts Challenge will consist of approximately 100 vendors America Program. Anthropologist and as well as a folk music marketplace, which photographer Penny Rucks conducted the will offer an extensive variety of goods for fieldwork and created the exhibit with the sale including performer CDs. For Folklife Program staff. children, there will be a designated activities area with face painting, games, Jeanne Harrah Johnson, Folklife Program crafts, along with music and storytelling. Coordinator The event will also have an array of Nevada Arts Council Korean foods, as well as traditional 716 N. Carson St., Suite A American foods, such as hot dogs, cotton Carson City, NV. 89701 candy and the perennial funnel cake which (775) 687-7103 will be available to fulfill any taste [email protected] preference. www. NevadaCulture.org Presented by Douglass College and produced by N EW JERSEY the American Studies Department at Rutgers, the New Jersey Folk festival attracts more than 15,000 people annually. It is sponsored in part NEW JERSEY FOLK FESTIVAL by the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission, the Institute for Korean-American The New Jersey Folk Festival Culture and the Asian American Cultural Celebrates its 32nd Anniversary Center at Rutgers University. For more information, call (732) 932-5775, email April 29th, 2006 [email protected], or visit the festival website at http://njfolkfest.rutgers.edu. The New Jersey Folk Festival plans to showcase the Korean-American experience, past and present, through verbal, musical and artistic traditions such as traditional Korean paper folding and Korean calligraphy lettering.
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N EW YORK collections/repositories in New York State. Using a circuit rider approach, a professional archivist is working directly NEW YORK FOLKLORE SOCIETY with folklore collections and their creators to assist with arrangement and Ellen McHale description, collections management, and other archival “best practices.” The New York Folklore Society continues to hum along, having affirmed its To conclude this project, we will be direction and mission through a lengthy holding a one-day symposium, “New strategic planning process. The strategic Approaches to Accessible Folklore and planning process reaffirmed our Oral History Documentation,” on June 9, important role as a service organization 2006 (location to be announced). In this for the field of folk and traditional arts symposium, we will explore the up to date and we continue to develop new technology regarding digitization, access programs to further this role. to archival materials, and documentation innovations. Dr. Michael Frisch, FORUMS AND PROFESSIONAL Professor of History and American DEVELOPMENT Studies at the State University of New In October 2005, NYFS sponsored a very York at Buffalo will be the keynote successful forum on working with speaker. We welcome attendees from immigrant and refugee artists. The forum outside New York State. There will be a which was “standing room only” took nominal registration fee. place at the Brooklyn Arts Council with presentations by Laura Marcus and Bill COMMUNITY SCHOLAR FIELD Westerman. We will be repeating this SCHOOL theme in another forum which will be The New York Folklore Society plans to held in the spring of 2006 in central New launch its first community scholar field York State. school to take place in the second half of 2006. With support from the Folk Arts Also in October, we sponsored a forum Program at the New York State Council which brought together individuals and on the Arts, we will provide training in organizations involved in the re- fieldwork documentation, presentation, examination of the New York State Canal and archival arrangement and description system, including the Erie and Champlain for community scholars working within Barge Canals. This forum was organized and documenting their own communities by Steve Zeitlin of City Lore, Inc., and in New York State. Daniel Franklin Ward, folklorist, Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Ellen McHale, Executive Director P.O. Box 764 ARCHIVES Schenectady, NY 12301 With support from the Documentary (518) 346-7008 Heritage Program of the New York State [email protected] Archives in 2005/2006, the New York Folklore Society is providing technical assistance to ten folklore
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LONG ISLAND TRADITIONS more rules. Such is the quandary for folklorists working in historic Nancy Solomon preservation.
Arts in Education: We are in the final In that same vein, we are working to stages of producing a curriculum for 7th- preserve a historic boatyard that caters to grade social studies teachers on using wooden boats, large and small. The traditional and vernacular architecture of property owner is trying to convert into a Long Island to teach history. During the marina, while the boatyard manager is past 3 years we have developed units and struggling to save it. We have been asked class projects focusing on Native by the Village of Patchogue to deliver a American architecture, African American presentation at its Village board meeting. slave and freedmen housing, English and Meanwhile we have learned, to no one’s Dutch farms and barns, general stores and surprise that the regional office of the places of worship. The publication will be NYS Dept. of Environmental available through our web site in early Conservation issued a permit to remove summer, or by purchase in June 2006. its historic railways tracks without consulting with the state historic As always we continue our 4th-grade preservation office. maritime folk arts and ethnic folk arts program. A student magazine on each unit has been prepared and distributed to the students, which include first-person narratives, artist biographies, student worksheets and vocabulary exercises. The participating schools have been receptive to student writing projects, and are committed to integrating the programs into their English Language and Social Studies curriculums. John Remsen Sr. is the recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts apprenticeship grant to teach his Historic Preservation: We have son traditional garvey boat building, as seen in the published guidelines for local historic photograph. Photo by Nancy Solomon 1996. house and property owners in Great Neck Plaza on how to preserve their historic Apprenticeships: We have received an site and meet the requirements of the local apprenticeship grant for traditional garvey landmark commission. A historic district boat builder John Remsen Sr. of Freeport and various individual properties have to teach his adult son John the fine points been designated including several 1950s of this traditional bayman’s boat, one era moderne-style buildings as well as common on the south shore of Long institutional sites such as churches and Island. There are no other boat builders post offices. It was an interesting process; who design and construct these boats, on the one hand some saw us as the which can reach shallow bay waters where “design police” by local property owners, baymen harvest eels, killies and other bait although we took great pains in the for their livelihood. The grant will help publication to avoid this image, and on support 14 weeks of intensive boat the other hand others felt we should have building, insuring that this critical
61 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 occupational tradition will continue into TRADITIONAL ARTS IN UPSTATE NEW the next generation. YORK
Public programs: We recently Jill Breit completed a series of library programs in
Freeport in an effort to reach the parents th of the students who are involved in our 4th In preparation for TAUNY’s 20 grade arts-in-education programs. In anniversary in 2006, a major focus of addition we continue to work with the activity in 2005 was taking stock and East Meadow Library and the LI looking ahead to the future. In the past Children’s Museum on a series of 12 months, TAUNY has broadened presentations by traditional ethnic and membership on its board of directors, occupational artists. Participants include added two part-time staff positions and baymen Cory Weyant and John Remsen created a plan of action for the next five Jr., farm women Vivian Youngs and Liz years. Having completed her M.A. in Grossmann Rung, and klezmer ensemble Folk Studies at Western Kentucky Kapelye. University, Jill Breit returned to TAUNY as Program Director and Project Jones Beach Windfarm: The regional Folklorist. Alycia Miller-Lynch joined the Long Island utility company has proposed staff as TAUNY’s first-ever Development building an offshore wind turbine farm Director. approximately 3 miles from historic Jones Beach and in the fishing grounds of Long The year began with the splash of being Island. We have asked the utility to featured in both a national popular conduct a full environmental impact study magazine, and a popular regional and to provide alternatives for this magazine. Holiday Cooking, a special controversial project. So far the court of publication of Better Homes & Gardens, popular opinion is on our side. ran a 14-page feature about TAUNY’s award-winning cookbook Good Food, New Offices: During July of 2005 Long Served Right. It was a special opportunity Island Traditions moved from its cramped for TAUNY to showcase our research on office to a spacious 500-square foot office North Country foodways. The piece with a waterfront view of Port included a range of recipes representing Washington harbor. We now have a various ethnic groups in our region. space for guest researchers and can view Adirondack Life, a widely distributed our archives with ease. The westward periodical about life in the Adirondack facing view provides glorious sunsets, Park, published a photo essay produced along with plenty of distractions on many by Varick Chittenden and Martha Cooper days. We invite all our colleagues to come about the annual ice harvest in New and visit us! Bremen, New York. The firemen Nancy Solomon responsible for the ice harvest received a Long Island Traditions 2004 North Country Heritage Award 382 Main Street from TAUNY. Port Washington, NY 11050 (516) 767-8803 In 2005, TAUNY awarded North Country (516) 767-8805 fax Heritage Awards to fungus artist Nellie [email protected] Staves, model boatbuilder James Kincaid, www.longislandtraditions.org and family band The Fraser Clan, and
62 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 added their portraits to our North TAUNY also made steps towards building Country Wall of Fame. We continued to an arts-in-education program by holding promote the work of artists on the Wall of its first summer institute for public school Fame through radio pieces produced by teachers, focusing on how to use folklore TAUNY and aired on North Country in the classroom. Amanda Dargan and Public Radio. Collaboration with our George Zavala from Citylore came to local public radio station has been an Canton to share the successful strategies excellent way to take our programming to they have used in classrooms. The a large audience. institute included field trips to local landmarks. Another major program this year was a day-long tribute to boatbuilder J. Henry Rushton and the legacy of wooden boats he left behind.
After cutting blocks of ice from Crystal Bond all day, members of the New Bremen fire department take an icy dip at the annual New Bremen Ice Harvest. Photo: Martha Cooper. Visitors to TAUNY learn about the organization's programs and services in the new orientation exhibit. We also had the chance this year to Photo: Mark Dye. arrange for the work of three North Country artists to become part of the Exhibits at TAUNY this year included permanent art collection at the American metal sculptures by welder Richard embassy in El Salvador. The three pieces Merchant, a look at contemporary were a fish sculpture by carver Floyd Mohawk art based on traditional motifs, a Bissonette, a model of an Adirondack new permanent orientation exhibit, and Guideboat by David Kavner, and an the ever-popular end-of-year gingerbread Alabama Star Quilt by Emma Yoder, house contest and display. Several Barbara and Salome Hershberger. workshops were also in the line up, including one on painting scenes on One highlight of programming this year miniature wooden paddles, a 1000 Islands was a concert TAUNY hosted at an old souvenir tradition. opera house in the St. Lawrence River town of Clayton, New York, hosted by Nick Spitzer. Called “Northern Roots: An Traditional Arts in Upstate New York Evening of Traditional Stories & Songs”, 2 West Main St. this was a great occasion to make friends Canton, NY 13617 among the summer residents of the 1000 315-386-4289 Islands. We were very pleased that Nick fax:315-379-0784 agreed to make the trip north; he was a www.tauny.org perfect host for the event.
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O HIO Culture classes and from applied science Food and Nutrition courses partnering to identify foodways traditions of northwest BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY Ohio. The findings will then be used by two community groups: a local historical Lucy Long center and museum for exhibits and programming on local food traditions; and NW Ohio Latino Music Project a consortium of city arts and economic This multifaceted project has included the development agencies to develop a production of a documentary recording culinary tourism trail of northwest Ohio. and video of a traditional conjunto Project director is Lucy Long with Chris musician now living in Toledo. Jesse Haar (Family and Consumer Science) Ponce, a native of Texas, grew up in a Also connected to this project is a musical family, toured and recorded with summer teacher's institute on "Food and numerous musicians, including such well- Identity in the Midwest" planned for July known names as Flaco Jimenez, Ry 10-14, 2006 and sponsored by the Ohio Cooder, and Peter Rowan, and settled in Humanities Council. 1979 in Toledo, Ohio. There he has turned his music towards contributing to Bowling Green State University the local Latino community, playing Center for Popular Culture Studies regularly at a local Latino cultural arts c/o Department of Popular Culture center and for political rallies for social 108 Popular Culture Building justice. A superb and innovative musician, Bowling Green State University he is committed to preserving traditional Bowling Green, OH 43403-0190 conjunto and Tejano styles. In 2005 we Office: 419-372-2981 produced a documentary recording of his FAX: 419-372-2577 music that has now apparently climbed to E-Mail: [email protected] Number one on the Tejano radio stations in San Antonio. We also nominated him for an Ohio Heritage Award, which he P ENNYSYLVANIA received in a public ceremony in July of 2005. We are currently completing a HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF documentary cd of his life and music. Project directors for the CD are: Lucy PENNSYLVANIA Long (International Studies/American Joan Saverino Studies, BGSU) and David Harnish (Ethnomusicology, BGSU). Neighborhood Heritage Tours Project Project directors for the video are: Lucy Long and Tony Howard (producer, Philadelphia's interpretive resources focus WBGU-TV27) on its 18th-century historic past, but there is a need to create interpretive resources that reach Food Traditions in the Midwest beyond the historic district and preserve This project is funded by the Partnerships and represent an ethnically for Community Action, BGSU. It diverse Philadelphia story. Working involves undergraduate and graduate collaboratively with neighborhood students from humanities-based Food and partners, HSP is currently in the midst of a community-oriented planning
64 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 project to develop tours and pathfinders everyday work and special projects. Some exploring two neighborhood artists and grassroots groups are also using clusters: Northern Liberties/Latino and our space for monthly gatherings and as a Southwark/Queen Village. These part-time office. We’re real happy here! neighborhoods are the two earliest (And I have a window, after 19 years! We destinations for immigrants coming to invite you to visit.) the city for over two centuries into the present day. Our project partners-- We now have modest exhibition space. neighborhood associations, local Our two current shows are both West churches, and businesses-are eager to Philadelphia-related. If these walls could talk establish greater visibility for their is an installation of the actual collaged communities and their histories and are walls of Bill and Miriam Crawford, local enthusiastic about the future collaborative activists. (For many years, Bill owned New possibilities that might bring both more World bookstore on 40th Street where regional and broader tourist many people, folklorists included, populations into their neighborhoods. By remember buying their first “Third the end of May 2006 HSP will World” and radical publications.) Bill took have finished the planning grant project to pasting up progressive posters, flyers, and in November 2006 we plan to and memorabilia in his dining room walls submit a multifaceted implementation at home, and over 40 years, the walls proposal for this project that will became a remarkable assemblage, and an expand on ideas and outcomes of the impressive collection of social change planning grant, including a wireless ephemera. These are very special local system for delivering the tour guides to memory walls: they spark conversations tourists. and arguments (which we love), and we are privileged to live with them as a The Historical Society of Pennsylvania permanent installation in our new place. Joan Saverino, Education Specialist 1300 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19107-5699 [email protected] phone: 215-732-6200, ext. 246 fax: 215-732-2680
PHILADELPHIA FOLKLORE PROJECT
Debora Kodish
Hard to know where to start, as it has Procession to the river, at ODUNDE, late 1980s. been so long since I have managed to Photo: Thomas B. Morton. report in. Over the last two years, the For the 30th anniversary of ODUNDE, an Folklore Project acquired and rehabbed a annual African American community small West Philadelphia rowhouse, which festival, started by people in the vanguard is now our home. We have developed a of the movement to reclaim African schedule of monthly weekend open culture, we curated We shall not be moved, houses, technical assistance workshops, photographs by West Philadelphia and artist salons, in addition to our photographer Tom Morton, selected from
65 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 his 30 years of documentation. (You can We are still actively working with see the entire exhibition on our website: grassroots folk cultural workers and www.folkloreproject.org). We are closing traditional artists as part of our technical the exhibition by giving away the photos assistance efforts. (We’re not funders: in exchange for peoples’ stories about we’re allies and we work closely with what the photos (and ODUNDE) mean. people to help them develop their own While we have just launched this effort, projects and organizations. We are proud we are already moved by peoples’ that we’ve helped people to raise more wonderful accounts—as you might expect than $2.256 million dollars in funds over considering that the ODUNDE festival the last 19 years, for their own projects.) annually draws together 300,000 people. Emerging issues here relate to the digital This is a way for us to return photos to divide; only about 30% of the people we places where they will continue to evoke work with most intensively have ready stories, and to gather and convey access to the Internet. We have been meaning. We’ll be gathering peoples’ experimenting with approaches and stories in many ways (recording, supports. This summer we hope to firm writing/letters, emails); the project will up a range of next steps to address artist end (and the photos will be dispersed) on needs here. April 1st with an open mike storytelling contest. Feel free to take a look at the It will be our 20th anniversary next year, photos and to add your account: the and we’re thinking about how to project is open to all, near and far. encourage conversations about the state Accounts, stories and testimonies will be of folk arts, and about the impact and preserved both in the ODUNDE and vision of our work (thinking broadly PFP archives, and will likely be a resource about what the “our” is), especially in for an ODUNDE history. these terrible times.
Over the last year, we have also produced This is a quick summary. If you want to two documentary videos. Plenty of Good know more visit our website Women Dancers (about little-known local www.folkloreproject.org, or let us know African American women tap dancers: it to put you on our mailing list took us 10 years to clear copyright. Quite pfp@folkloreproject,.org. a story). And I choose to stay here about local women fighting the city’s use of eminent Debora Kodish domain (and other laws) in taking their Philadelphia Folklore Project homes, and flattening their “blighted” 735 S. 50th St. neighborhood. Blight is in the eye of the Philadelphia, PA 19143 beholder, as you would imagine. 215.726.1106 p 215.726.6250 f And this past fall, we worked with our [email protected] friends at Asian Americans United to www.folkloreproject.org open the Folk Arts - Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS), a new multicultural charter school for kids from K-5 (adding a grade each year). We are shifting most of our folk arts education efforts there, and a team of terrific artists are now teaching there.
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RIVERS OF STEEL NATIONAL seven counties and add an eighth county HERITAGE AREA to our service area. Two interns from the Mennonite Urban Corps’s PULSE Doris J. Dyen, Director of Cultural program assisted with Rivers of Steel’s Conservation cultural conservation work during 2005: Julie Throckmorton-Meunier, Cultural Resources Ben Boss and Ryan Falcone. Specialist During 2006 Rivers of Steel will be Folklife at Rivers of Steel during 2005 serving as a co-host for the annual included a number of highlights. We meeting of the National Trust for Historic produced and aired five new half-hour Preservation, which will be held in programs in the “Tradition Bearers: Pittsburgh from October 31 to November Voices from the Rivers of Steel National 5. We’ve submitted a number of Heritage Area” series (on Italian bobbin proposals for educational sessions (panels, lace and band music, Jewish wedding forums) and field sessions (themed tours customs, Balkan dance music, Asian art and site visits), many of which highlight traditions, and blacksmithing and folklife in the region. Hopefully we’ll see glassmaking). We published Shaped by other folklorists here as well! Steel, a 31-track audio CD of music and stories from southwestern Pennsylvania Doris J. Dyen, Director (available through our web-store). We of Cultural Conservation collaborated with local organizations in Julie Throckmorton-Meunier, Homestead to produce “Adapting Africa,” Cultural Resources Specialist an exhibit of African and African-inspired Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area wearable art by local dressmaker Dosina The Bost Building Dee Blemahdoo, an immigrant from 623 East Eighth Avenue Ghana. We provided technical assistance Homestead, PA 15120 to western Pennsylvania’s first National phone: 412-464-4020 ext. 45 Heritage Fellowship awardee, Croatian fax: 412-464-4417 tamburitza musician Jerry Grcevich. www.riversofsteel.com
In addition to these special initiatives, S OUTH DAKOTA ongoing activities included providing publishing two issues of our Cultural Conversations newsletter, continuing work SOUTH DAKOTA ARTS COUNCIL on our driving guide website and our online folklife directory, holding our Dennis Holub, Andrea Graham annual FolkArtShare peer mentoring event for folk artists and folklife The South Dakota Arts Council’s organizations (the 2005 theme was how to Traditional Arts Program continues to recruit volunteers and use their help make small strides forward, with the help effectively), and assisting tradition bearers of NEA Infrastructure funds. Our throughout our region with program Apprenticeship Program is ongoing, with planning and funding strategies. We also five apprenticeships funded per year. In began two fieldwork-based projects that the last two years we have funded will address long-term heritage Damascus knife making, Finnish weaving, development issues in four of our present Dakota quillwork, leather carving for saddles, Polish wycinanki, Missouri Valley
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style fiddling, and Lakota beadwork, in Rapid City featured the shirred wool buffalo horn spoon making, and hoop rug maker, another Hardanger dancing. Two of the buffalo horn spoon embroiderer, and the local Sons of apprentices, teenage girls, have won prizes Norway dance group. The exhibit’s final for their work at Lakota youth art shows. stop will be at the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen in April.
Folk Auto, Milbank, SD. Photo by Andrea Graham.
Our plans for the next several years include fieldwork on woodworking traditions around the state and the preparation of another traveling exhibit on that topic. After that I think we’ll be looking for other kinds of projects besides exhibits—perhaps developing educational Norwegian wool spinner Torleiv Kampen talks with a materials or other web-based information young visitor to the South Dakota Art Museum to make South Dakota traditions more during the opening of the “Fabric of Community” widely known and available. exhibit. Photo by Andrea Graham.
Last September we opened an exhibit of South Dakota Arts Council traditional textiles called “The Fabric of Dennis Holub, Executive Director Community,” a joint project with the 800 Governors Dr. South Dakota Art Museum at South Pierre, SD 57501-2294 Dakota State University in Brookings. Art 605-773-3131 forms include Mennonite and Lakota [email protected] quilts, Norwegian Hardanger embroidery, www.sdarts.org Finnish weaving and knitting, rag rugs, shirred wool rugs, crochet, and Andrea Graham, Traditional Arts Norwegian and Czech costumes. At a Program Coordinator family day event at the museum we 1637 Glacier St. brought in a Finnish weaver, a Norwegian Pocatello, ID 83201 wool spinner, and a Hardanger 208-238-8418 embroiderer to do demonstrations. A similar event at the exhibit’s second stop
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U TAH Arts. Eleven performing groups entertained audiences totaling 2,500. The season began with an evening of South UTAH ARTS COUNCIL FOLK ARTS American music and dance from Peru and PROGRAM Argentina. Later concerts included a solo performance of cowboy music by Brenn Carol Edison, Craig Miller, George Schoemaker Hill, dancers from European, Asian, and Native American communities, and the The year 2006 marks the 30th anniversary season culminated with a presentation of of the Utah Arts Council’s Folk Arts performing artists representing the Program! Many hours in 2005 were spent African Diaspora. Salt Lake Capoeira planning for this celebration in hopes the presented the music/martial arts/dance landmark occasion will bring more heritage of Brazilian slaves followed by attention to traditional arts and artists and performers of the Sudanese Kakwa Tribe increase the public’s understanding of who are recently-arrived refugees in Utah. folklore as a discipline of study. In Besides attracting a regular following, addition to crafting the upcoming season many locals and out-of-towners stumble of activities, we continued with our onto these outdoor concerts because ongoing activities as listed below. Liberty Park is becoming a popular tourist destination. Sponsors of the 2005 concert ANNUAL PROJECTS series included Target Corporation, KUED-TV, KRCL-FM, KCPW-FM, and The Living Traditions Festival: In May our first AM radio station X-96 (in the 2005, we scheduled folk artists for the Simmons Radio Group.) twentieth annual “Living Traditions: A Celebration of Salt Lake’s Folk & Ethnic Folk Masters at the State Fair: On the Art” in downtown Salt Lake City. first Saturday of the Utah State Fair in Produced by the Salt Lake City Arts September 2005, we presented our day- Council, this free three-day event attracted long folklife festival, Utah Folk Masters. over 40,000 visitors with continuous Throughout the day six master-apprentice music and dance, crafts demonstrations pairs from around the state, all recipients and ethnic food presented by 600 artists of Apprenticeship Project Grants, from some 40 local ethnic communities. demonstrated their traditional crafts for As always the festival provided an visitors. Two Duchesne County important fund-raising opportunity for blacksmiths worked outside the Pioneer the 20 ethnic organizations that sell Building and attracted crowds who then traditional food to support their local art came inside to enjoy familiar crafts like programs. More than 2,500 students saddlemaking, horsehair hitching and attended a Friday morning edition of the quilting as well as more exotic ones like festival sponsored by the Utah State Navajo basket making and Armenian lace Office of Education. All artists were paid making. In the evening, we presented by the Salt Lake City Arts Council. Our dance performances by members of the only expenditure was staff time. Cambodian community from Logan in Northern Utah. Approximately 3,500 Mondays in the Park Concerts: This past visitors enjoyed this one-day event that summer we presented six free concerts featured thirty Utah artists. during July and August, 2005, in front of the Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk
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Days of ’47 Culture Fest: For the past of “business goals” for the Folk Arts several years we have provided technical Program, which are as follows: assistance to the Days of ’47 organization which annually sponsors the largest 1. Educate the public about Utah’s parade in the state. A few years ago they traditional arts and artists tried to reach out beyond their traditional Mormon-based constituency to create 2. Contribute to the state’s economy by events reflecting the larger diversity of hiring and creating opportunities for Utah culture and we assisted by providing artists artist contacts for their “Culture Fest” during the annual Pioneer Days 3. Contribute to the quality of life in Utah observances. This year, our participation by designing programs, opportunities and became a more formalized partnership as initiatives that nurture traditional arts, we assisted in organizing crafts increase awareness and appreciation of the demonstrations for a one-day ethnic variety of artistic heritage in the state and festival and we organized invoices for help communities perpetuate those them to pay their artists. traditions
YouthCity: This is our third year to 4. Offer tax payers efficiently run partner with the Salt Lake City programs that demonstrate significant Corporation to integrate quality folk arts return on investment education for at-risk students in after- school programs. In 2005, we arranged GRANTS for 29 workshops with traditional artists who worked directly with students in four Apprenticeship Grants: In 2005, six pairs different locations, Fairmont Park, Liberty of artists were selected to participate in Park, Glendale Middle School and Central the Utah Arts Council Apprenticeship City. In this partnership, the Folk Arts project. Program schedules demonstrating folk artists for specific venues and processes 1. Rawhide Braiding , Jeff Freeze the paperwork necessary for payment, but (Snowville) and Shawna Clark (Snowville) the actual payments are made by Salt Lake City. So all our Folk Arts Program goals 2. Horsehair Hitching, Clay Christensen are met through a small investment of (Lehi) and Jennifer Christensen (Lehi) staff time: Government is streamlined through an efficient partnership, students 3. Paiute Beadwork, Brent Tom (Cedar are educated in heritage and tradition, and City) and Tara Marlowe (Enoch) artists are being paid! 4. Navajo Basket Weaving, Peggy Rock The educational benefits are great—not Black (Mexican Hat) and Sonja Black only the students learn, but the (Mexican Hat) administrators also learn about folk arts and hopefully they will be running these 5. Rug Weaving , Arlene Murray (Vernal) programs for years to come. and Annette and Jacinda Parslow (Vernal). Coincidentally the YouthCity project makes a great fit with our new governor’s and new department administration’s set
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6. Classical Cambodian Folk Dancing, 9. Travis Parashonts, assistance to Bounreth Mak (Logan) and Van Wicksal attend Atlatl Native Arts Network Inn Heng (Logan) Conference
Ethnic Arts Matching Grants: From SPECIAL PROJECTS interest money accruing from an endowment, nine $500 Ethnic Arts Utah Traditions 2006 Calendar: We Matching Grants funded the following began the Utah Arts Council Folk Arts artists and organizations: Program’s thirtieth anniversary celebration by producing our fifth annual Utah 1. Sunia Kinikini, Tongan drum making Traditions calendar entitled “Thirty Years and class instruction Exploring Utah Folk Arts.”
2. Japanese American Citizen’s This calendar is designed to be a year-long League, Nihon Matsuri Festival reminder of the importance of cultural heritage and tradition in everyday life. It 3. Somali Bantu Tribe of Utah, contains over 75 full-color photographs, purchase of craft supplies dates of community celebrations and observances statewide, and twelve essays 4. Utah Basque Club, purchase of dance covering representative projects from the costumes Folk Arts Program’s thirty-year history. Though these twelve essays provide just a 5. Khemera Cambodian Dancers, sample of Utah’s diverse folk arts purchase of dance costumes traditions, they suggest the richness and priceless artistry that flourish in cultural 6. India Forum of Utah, presentation of groups throughout the state. Filled with dance concerts images and information from the Utah State Folklife Archives, the calendar was 7. Ogden Buddhist Temple, Japanese sold to the public and distributed for free dance classes with master teachers to featured artists, libraries, teachers, and elected officials. Production of this 8. St. Christopher’s Mission in calendar was funded in part by grant from Navajoland, Navajo Churro Sheep the Charles Redd Foundation. Festival Folk Arts in the Library Series: With financial support from the Charles Redd Center, we initiated a series of folk arts presentations in public libraries around the state. We plan a month-long installation of a traveling exhibit of black and white photography from the State Folk Arts Archive and plan afternoon and evening programs that include lecture demonstrations on Utah folklore, performances by local old-time or mariachi musicians, and demonstrations by crafts workers featuring tatting, rug weaving, horse hair hitching, and
71 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 saddlemaking. To date we have taken this and documented the first Boulder to the Santa Clara Library in St. George Heritage Festival. and to the Weber County Library in Ogden. International Initiatives: The Utah Arts Council has developed new international ONGOING INITIATIVES initiatives and the Folk Arts Program has assisted with developing the Utah/Mexico Audio Archive Digitization Project: Project for Prosperity. We assisted in We continue the process of systematically presenting a concert of Mexican folkloric transferring the old analogue recordings dancers from Zacatecas and hosted US into a digital format and for the past two State Department visitors from folk arts years we have hired professional sound museums in China, Germany, Mexico, technician Cyrus Gardner to coordinate Syria and Vietnam. the transfers. To date, nearly 75% of these recordings have been transferred into Utah Folk Arts Program sound waves and onto two CDs, one to 617 E. South Temple be stored for preservation purposes and Salt Lake City, UT 84102 the second to be used as a working copy (801) 533-5760 for easy access. This important project www.utahfolkarts.org will proceed until all of the recordings Carol Edison have been digitized. [email protected] Craig Miller State Folk Arts Collection: Each year we [email protected] purchase a few more objects for the State George Shoemaker Folk Arts Collection. During 2005 we [email protected] were able to obtain three Navajo baskets, one Navajo woodcarving, a carved UTAH CULTURAL CELEBRATION walking stick and cane, a hitched horsehair quirt, six pieces of whittling, CENTER two wood carved miniatures, and six Peruvian retablos (one full-size and five Michael Christensen miniature) - - all from living Utah folk artists. We also received donations of Introduction Albanian crocheting, a loomed rug and The Utah Cultural Celebration Center is two hand-forged horse-hoof picks made becoming recognized as one of Utah’s by artists whom we have already premier destinations for arts and cultural interviewed. events. The celebration center is the only locally driven arts and cultural complex in Fieldwork: Several exciting projects the Salt Lake Valley, and is perhaps the surfaced this year and one of the most only facility of its kind offering such a exciting was to have the opportunity to unique blend of spaces and objectives. At document the Southern Paiute pine nut the heart of these objectives, the Utah harvest with video, audio and still Cultural Celebration Center seeks to photography. Fieldwork also took us preserve and perpetuate local cultural back to Scenic Byway 12 in Garfield and traditions and to become a home for local Wayne Counties where we recorded arts and artists. It is a place for people of musicians in Escalante and Tropic, all ages to connect to their heritage and videoed the Hole in the Rock Pageant, learn about the traditions of their
72 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 neighbors. A summary of activities, The May event is now an annual at the gallery exhibitions, partnerships, classes, Utah Cultural Celebration Center. educational programs, workshops, and social and non-profit events completed in the last year follow. Clog America Culture Fest Five-time Pearl Award winner Enoch Events (festivals, celebrations and Train joined internationally known folk concerts) dance ensemble Clog America on stage at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center for Day of the Child – Day of the Book Culture Fest 2005. Ninety exotic In April the Utah Cultural Celebration instruments from around the world and Center partnered with the Salt Lake hundreds of years of folk-hymn heritage County Library System, the Salt Lake accompanied the infectious rhythm of Library and REFORMA de Utah to host clogging in the great hall, along with a Día de los Niños – Día de los Libros, or Day western dinner, silent auction and raffle. of the Child – Day of the Book, a day Funds raised helped the popular dance celebrated in Mexico and many Latin troupe travel to complete in Europe. American countries. Children of all ethnic backgrounds were invited to participate in Tradition Bearers Festival the event, which featured Latin American Supported in part by the National and Polynesian folk dances, Brazilian Endowment for the Arts, West Valley Capoeira, Peruvian folk singing, Mexican City’s second annual Tradition Bearers crafts, storytelling and miniature book- Festival was held in late August, featuring making, poetry, music and other fun-filled traditional musicians and dancers, craft activities. Books were also given away as demonstrations, ethnic food vendors and part of the event, which promotes literacy children’s activities. The annual event, and learning. featured in the 2004 NEA Annual Report, provided local folk artists a public forum Fiesta Olmeca to showcase their traditionally learned The second annual Fiesta Olmeca was skills. held in May, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the eight-ton Olmec head Gloria Film Festival gifted to the Utah Cultural Celebration Now in its fourth year, the Gloria Film Center from the government of Veracruz, Festival was held outdoors at the Utah Mexico. The free event featured local Cultural Celebration Center. Films that Mexican entertainment, including “stir the soul, heal the heart and enrich the mariachi bands and folklorico dance world” were featured in the annual event, troupes, ethnic foods, children’s crafts and celebrating the triumph and zeal of the activities, fireworks and salsa dancing with human spirit. An awards ceremony was local sensation La Fusion. also part of the weeklong festival, which featured documentaries, shorts, student and foreign film categories. Cambodian Festival Summer Concert Series Future Hope International organized a 2005 featured the debut of the Utah public celebration for Utah’s Cambodian Cultural Celebration Center’s Summer population featuring traditional foods, Concert Series, held every Monday night dance, and a chance to discuss issues throughout July and August. The important to the Cambodian Community. Wasatch Mountains provided an ideal
73 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 backdrop to the cultural center’s outdoor dance and drumming competitions, group amphitheatre stage, upon which a diverse dance and drumming competitions and a group of musicians, including local special Polynesian military family favorites selected from the Utah Arts appreciation day. Partnerships for the Council’s Performing Arts Tour, event included the Polynesian Association performed. Groups included: of Utah and the National Community Association of the Pacific. • La Fusion with Latin Dance Heritage Vietnamese New Year Celebration – The Year • Blue Sage with Cowboy Poet Don of the Dog Kennington The Year of the Dog was celebrated at the • Junction City Big Band Utah Cultural Celebration Center, • Donegal House Band and Irish continuing a long-standing partnership Steppers with Crawford School of with the Vietnamese Community of Utah. Irish Dance Events for the daylong program featured • Harry Lee and the Back Alley an awards ceremony for outstanding Blues Vietnamese students, the second annual Ao Dai Pageant, and plenty of Vietnamese Jake Shimabukuro Concert food, drinks, games and other cultural Sponsored in part by Westaf, the Utah performances. Funds were also raised for Cultural Celebration Center invited the a planned Vietnamese Memorial statue on public to come enjoy ukulele music by Utah Cultural Celebration Center grounds. Jake Shimabukuro. Jake’s incredible talent featured contemporary sounds on ukulele, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major Awards traditional Hawaiian folk songs, beach The Utah Department of Community and music, classical, rock and blues. Culture sponsored their annual diversity luncheon at the Utah Cultural Celebration Ka Lama Mohala Foundation Program Center in February 2006, honoring those The Utah Cultural Celebration Center community members who help “celebrate partnered with Craig Toyama of Ka Lama unity through diversity,” this year’s theme. Mohala Foundation, helping sponsor their Teachers, volunteers, corporate and annual fundraiser. The event, which takes community sponsors were all recognized, place every other year, featured a and remarks by Governor Jon Huntsman traditional Hawaiian Luau with and Keynote Speaker Thurl Bailey were performing artists and over 700 people in made recognizing Rosa Parks, Martin attendance. Funds raised help pay future Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights dance instructors, facility rentals and Movement. foundation management training, all committed to perpetuating Hawaiian Gallery Exhibitions dance and culture throughout the Salt The Celebration Gallery recently Lake Valley. celebrated its two-year anniversary with its 12th exhibition. Although exhibits Tahitian Fete represented works in both fine and folk The first annual Tahitian Fete helped arts, all of them were the result of wrap up the Utah Cultural Celebration successful partnerships with outside, Center’s fall Polynesian programs in ethnic arts organizations and individuals October. The two-day affair featured representing community aesthetics. dance and drumming workshops, solo
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Russian and Slavic Art Exhibition Polynesian dress, tapa cloth, wood and During Spring 2005 the Celebration bone carvings, featherwork, baskets and Gallery showcased the works of other woven items, fine mats, jewelry and traditional and contemporary Russian and other artifacts from New Zealand, Tonga, Slavic artists. Wood and forged-steel Samoa, Hawaii, Fiji and the Marshal sculpture, delicate Ukrainian batik Easter Islands. All items were created by local eggs, intricately painted Russian lacquer tradition bearers, or were on loan from boxes; watercolors, etchings and other family collections. mixed media pieces were displayed for eight weeks. Los Dias de Los Muertos Altar In November, the Utah Cultural Fiesta Olmeca Gallery Exhibit Celebration Center and Una Mano Amiga Auxiliary arts projects helping kick of the partnered to celebrate Los Dias de Los second annual Fiesta Olmeca community Muertos – The Days of the Dead – one of celebration included Gallery Olmeca, a the more important cultural celebrations visually arresting arts display showcasing in Mexico. A traditional Day of the Dead Mexican and Latino-themed paintings, altar, constructed by the local non-profit sculptures and photography by local and volunteer community members, artists. Featured artists included painter featured colored paper garlands, little Ernesto Apomayta, folk artists Guillermo skeletons performing daily tasks, and and Marla-Lepe Colmenero, painter sugar skulls inscribed with names. Carlos Matamoros M., photographer Deceased loved ones’ favorite foods, Guadalupe Rodriguez, painters Ruby sweets, drinks and harvest fruits, along Chacon and Pilar Pobil, and sculptor with Pan de Muertos, candles, photos and Michael Trujillo. other items adorned the traditional altar.
The Face of Utah Sculpture A Cultural Christmas Presented Summer 2005, The Face of Utah The Utah Cultural Celebration Center Sculpture was an engaging exhibit featuring partnered with many artists for the annual both well-known and emerging Utah holiday exhibit, which featured over a sculptors. The dynamic exhibit dozen trees decorated by local ethnic arts showcased both traditional and organizations. Also featured were contemporary sculpture in a variety of traditional nutcrackers, trains, a warm and techniques, styles, mediums and forms. inviting colonial Christmas scene, The first gathering of its kind, The Face of gingerbread houses and a collection of Utah Sculpture provided over forty Utah crèches from different countries. artists a forum to present Utah culture through sculptural form. Utah Cultural Celebration Center Partners Program Lokahi – All Things are Connected: Polynesian The Utah Cultural Celebration Center has Art and Artifact become a permanent home for many local Along with an ambitious educational and arts and cultural organizations in the past public outreach component, including year. The individual arrangement with weekly family activities and film each group varies, but the overall screenings, the Polynesian Association of exchange program remains the same. In Utah presented the Lokahi – All Things are essence, the Partners Program allows local Connected: Polynesian Art and Artifact exhibit artists to use the cultural center for Fall 2005. The exhibit featured traditional rehearsal, practice, demonstration,
75 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 meeting or other space free of charge in • Fijian Program with Bula Association exchange for event-driven, professional of Utah Dancers services throughout the year. Some • Samoan Program with Kanumu members of the Partners Program include: Productions Dancers • Tongan Program with public film • Ballet Folklorico Citlali – screening Mexican dance troupe • Tahitian Educational Program • Latin Dance Heritage – South American dance troupe Jake Shimabukuro Educational Outreach and • Korean – American Dancers – Ukulele Workshop Korean drumming and As part of his visit to West Valley City and dancing the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, Jake • Vientos del Sur – Southern Shimabukuro presented a ukulele outreach South American music and program and workshop for Junior High dance students. In the outreach program at • Utah Calligraphic Artists Westlake Jr. High, Jake explained the • Children of Moana Roa – Pacific history of the popular Hawaiian Islander dance instrument and gave demonstrations • Chinese Orchestra and Choir showing the innovative new musical • Cultural Arts Board Meetings-- directions he explores. Over 1,000 West Valley City Arts Council, students participated, while nearly forty West Valley City Historical attended the hands-on technique Society, West Valley City Sister workshop held at the Utah Cultural City Committee, Utah Cultural Celebration Center that afternoon. Celebration Center Advisory Board African Drum Workshop Community Partners in Education Master djembe drummer Fred Simpson Creating partnerships between program held a half-day drum workshop for development staff and educational children and adults at the Utah Cultural organizations have also proven to be a Celebration Center. successful model at the cultural center. Indeed, community partnerships are the Brazilian Guitar Workshop backbone of the Utah Cultural Brazilian singer, songwriter and guitarist Celebration Center’s educational mission, Georgia Barretto held a half-day guitar resulting in the following exemplary and percussion workshop for children and public programs: adults.
• Vietnamese Language Classes Granite Schools Classes The Utah Cultural Celebration Center also • Romanian Dancers Educational continued its partnership with Granite Outreach and Exchange Peaks Community Education, offering affordable and educational cultural • Polynesian Educational Programs: programs for the public.
• Maori Program with public film Last year’s highlights include: screening • Hawaiian Program with public film • Brazilian Capoeira Classes screening • Hawaiian Quilt Classes
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• Pacific Island Dance Classes Center continues to develop and expand • Hispanic Dance Classes upon its public programming efforts. By partnering with local arts and cultural Social and Non-Profit organizations and helping promote their Last year the Utah Cultural Celebration events, Utah Cultural Celebration Center Center held many social and non-profit has truly worked from the community events, complementing the full slate of outward instead of creating programming mission-driven arts and cultural exchanges from the top down. By creating a balance held. The following provides a sampling between hosting private/corporate and of the Utah Cultural Celebration Center’s mission-driven arts/cultural events, Utah relationships with local social and non- Cultural Celebration Center staff has profit organizations: created a working system providing the public grass roots quality arts and cultural • Utah Performing Arts Tour Auditions programs. • Folklore Society of Utah Annual Meeting Michael Christensen • Utah Arts Council Town Hall Meeting Folklorist • Utah Arts Council Grant Writing Utah Cultural Celebration Center Workshop 1355 W. 3100 S. • Utah Cultural Heritage Foundation West Valley City, UT 84119 Conference 801-965-5108 Tel. • Salt Lake Convention and Visitors 801-232-0092 Mob. Bureau Conference 801-965-5111 Fax. • Utah Non-Profits Association [email protected] Convention www.culturalcelebrationcenter.org • Centro de la Familia Fundraiser • Brazilian Flag Day Recognition • Chilean Independence Day W ASHINGTON • Utah State Department of Community and Culture Reception • Polynesian Association of Utah FOLK & TRADITIONAL ARTS IN THE Planning Committee Meetings PARKS PROGRAM • Vietnamese Community of Utah Meetings Jens Lund • Samoan Community Council of Utah Meetings The Folk and Traditional Arts in the • Church College of Western Samoa Parks Program (F&TAPP) of the Service Washington State Parks and Recreation • Utah State Office of Education Commission (WSP&RC) completed its Meetings first year of operation in June of 2005 and • Salt Lake County Meetings is now well into its second. It is • Latino Community Information and administered by Jens Lund as Program Education Center Safety Conference Manager and is funded by a three-year • The Children’s Center Annual Retreat Folk Arts Infrastructure Grant to the Washington State Arts Commission Conclusion (WASAC), which then contracts me, as Now approaching its third year of part of a partnership agreement between operations, the Utah Cultural Celebration
77 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 the two agencies, to manage the program Lewis and Clark Bicentennial from an office at WSP&RC’s headquarters Commemoration, it was funded by a in Tumwater, Washington. My position is National Parks Service, NEA, & WASAC still supervised by Jim French, WSP&RC’s inter agency effort, and administered by Administrator of Statewide Programs and Jill on behalf of Northwest Folklife, with Dr. Willie Smyth, WASAC’s Folk Arts additional support by WSP&RC personnel Program Manager, and it now has and me. Programs were chosen by Park additional supervisory help from Kathy Managers from a series of proposals from Hale, WSP&RC Southwest Region folk and folk-interpretive artists, Office’s Parks and Recreation submitted in response to an RFP created Coordinator. under National Park Service direction. For more information on the development of Some funding for my position is also the Arts and Trails series, also please see coming directly from WASAC in FY the Spring 2005 (Vol. 22) AFS Public 2004–05. Apart from the Infrastructure Programs Bulletin. Grant, our programming has been funded by grants directly to the WSP&RC from The Arts and Trails series brought the the NEA. In both 2005 and 2006 following single-event presentations to WSP&RC has also added operations and five parks, Beacon Rock, Cape programming funds from the agency Disappointment, Columbia Hills, Fort Director’s budget and from budgets of Columbia, and Maryhill: WSP&RC’s Eastern and Southwest Regional Offices. In FY 2005–06, Cowboy and wheat-farmer WSP&RC will increase its support for poet/songwriter Dick Warwick, four funding both the operations and the times. programming and the agency will begin to assume some of the cost of the salary of Fisher poet, spoken-word artist, and the position. shadow puppeteer Moe Bowstern, twice. New England contra dance with the For more information on the genesis of Hands4 band, once. and rationale for the WSP&RC’s F&TAPP, please see the Spring 2005 Musicians and music historians Phil and (Vol. 22) AFS Public Programs Bulletin. Vivian Williams’ “Music of the Lewis and Clark Expedition” presentation, five During the April–September 2005 park times. season the F&TAPP was able to present twenty-eight programs in two series, Arts The Dragon Art Studio’s Beijing rod and Trails, and Latino Folk Arts Fiestas. puppet show, with National Heritage Fellows Yuqin Wang and Zhengli Xu, Arts and Trails was a series of twenty- once. one single-event presentations and three mini-festivals held in six Washington state Native American dance by the Wapato parks in proximity to the Lewis and Clark Indian Club of Wapato Middle School on National Historic Trail. It was the result the Yakama Indian Reservation, three of a grant written by Jill Linzee during her times. tenure as Director of Public Programs (Education/Special Programs) of Northwest Folklife, in Seattle. Part of the
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Arts and Trails was able to give Sacajawea State Park three mini-festivals as part of its series: A Native American Heritage Celebration featuring basketweavers and twiners Helen Jim and Valerie Calac (Yakama Nation); dancers Wapato Indian Club (Yakama Reservation) and Three Generations (Seattle Urban Intertribal); storyteller Curtis Du Puis (Chehalis); and Blue Mountain Drum (Plateau Intertribal). An Old-Time Fiddle Festival and Contra Dance featuring musicians of the Washington Old Time Fiddlers Association District Twelve (Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla Counties), including the fiddling Park Manager; Phil and Vivian Williams’ “Music of the Lewis and Clark Expedition” program; a living history presentation by Corps of Discovery Sgt. Patrick Gass (interpreted by WSP&RC Ranger Gary Lentz), Helen Jim, of the Yakama Nation, demonstrates explaining the botany of the Lewis and basketweaving at Columbia Hills State Park, Dallesport, WA. Clark Expedition; and a New England Contra Dance with the Hands4 band. Plateau Native American basketweaving A Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival and twining by Helen Jim and Valerie featuring cowboy and wheat-farmer Calac of the Yakama Nation, three times. poet/songwriter Dick Warwick, cowboy Logger poetry, stories, and songs by Hank poetry and song duo Northfork (Sharon Nelson, Eathyl Rotschy, and Virgil Glenn and George Thomsen), Western Wallace, once. fiddler Justin Booher; Western and ranchero singer Bodie Dominguez; cowboy Finnish-American music on the kantele by singer Don Ohman, and cowboy reciter Governor’s Heritage Awardee Wilho Bud Schaefer. Saari, once. Attendance at the Arts and Trails series Sacajawea State Park Manager Reade has varied from a handful to several Obern is an old-time and bluegrass hundred, depending on the number of fiddler. Since June 2004, and without campers in a park, a park’s proximity to support from the F&TAPP, Reade has population centers, the availability of been hosting an annual Lewis and Clark press coverage, and the efforts of Bluegrass Festival and Dutch Oven individual park staff. Our program’s Rendezvous in his park, which lies at the supervisor Jim French created an audience confluence of the Snake and Columbia survey questionnaire, which we distributed Rivers, just east of Pasco. and collected during the programs and from which we were able to discern considerable data on people’s interest in
79 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 and satisfaction with our programming, local Guatemalan woman demonstrated our efforts at publicity, and general tamale-making to a crowd of local Angla attitudes towards the parks. The program women. Local women from the Latina was translated into Spanish so it could be community showed kids how to make distributed in both languages. traditional Mexican paper flowers. Volunteer support and preparation and In the summer of 2005, the F&TAPP serving of both Mexican and US foods presented three Latino Folk Arts Fiestas was provided by the Oroville High and one concert as part of an ongoing School’s ARC (“A Rainbow of Cultures”) 2005–06 series. All but one event in the Club. series has been funded by an NEA Folk and Traditional Arts program grant. It is At the request of the Park Manager of being administered on contract in the field Wenatchee Confluence State Park, in by bilingual free lance arts administrator Wenatchee, we presented a concert of Laura Fine-Morrison and its fiscal norteño and tejano music by Yakima Valley administration is being handled conjunto Tejano Skyz on the Fourth of July. contractually by Northwest Heritage Large crowds gather in that park every Resources. The series is presenting Latino afternoon of the Fourth in anticipation of music, arts, craft, dance, and foodways in the City of Wenatchee’s evening’s parks in central Washington, which is fireworks because it is one of the best home to a substantial Latino population, vantage points. Mexican food was mostly Mexican and Central American. prepared and served by the committee The rationale is to welcome our Latino that organizes Fiesta Mexicana in a city population to Washington state parks by park every September. This was the first celebrating their culture and to educate event in our NEA-funded Latino Folk non-Latino park visitors about the Arts Fiestas series. It will be followed up richness of their neighbors’ cultures. We by a much larger full-fledged fiesta in the distributed and collected our audience same park on Cinco de Mayo weekend survey questionnaires, in both Spanish 2006. and English, during these events. On August 7 we presented our first fully On Cinco de Mayo weekend 2005, we developed Latino Folk Arts Fiesta in our presented the first event in our series, NEA-funded series at Yakima Sportsman funded by a previous Latino-themed grant State Park in Yakima. The headline group to Northwest Heritage Resources. It was was Bay Area Latin-funk group Los held in Osoyoos Lake State Veterans Mocosos, who were available at a fraction Memorial Park at the US Port of Entry in of their usual cost due to already being in Oroville, on the Canadian border in the Washington for a concert elsewhere in the Okanogan Valley. The over 700 people state. Los Mocosos has a substantial who attended, about 80% of them following in the Yakima Valley and their apparently Latina or Latino, are still our inclusion in our program gave us far more largest audience at any F&TAPP event. press coverage than we would have had Governor’s Heritage Award-winning otherwise. Mariachi bands Los Mariachi Huenachi were the headline Trovadores de Yakima and Arco Iris, the performers. Couples and kids danced to latter from local Davis High School, local conjunto Berinche Norteño. Three performed, as did the excellent Yakima folklórico groups from the Okanogan folklórico dance ensemble Los Bailadores Valley danced in colorful costumes. A del Sol. A local anti-gang-violence
80 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 organization, Yakima Valley Barrios Fellow Eva Castellanoz demonstrated Unidos, supplied Mexican food. National azahares-making and Methow Arts offered Heritage Fellow Eva Castellanoz a hands-on booth for children demonstrated her craft of azahares (wax demonstrating hojalateria (tinware). and paper flowers). A group of Latina women calling themselves Amigas Unidas We plan to continue the Latino Folk Arts set up a hands-on craft demonstration Fiestas series in the 2006 season. We have table as did Allied Arts of Yakima. The scheduled three, one the Cinco de Mayo Yakima County Fire District supplied a weekend event at Wenatchee Confluence fire engine for the kids to climb over. At State Park, the other two at Sacajawea the end of the 100º day the firefighters State Park in Pasco in July, and the third, emptied its tanks as crowds of kids ran our first west of the Cascade Range, in through the spray. The crowd was about Bay View State Park, near Anacortes, in 300, probably 75% of them Latina or September. Laura Fine-Morrison will Latino. With the help of a TAG grant, we continue to be our front-line researcher were able to bring Lucero Arellano, Arts and administrator in the new season. Program Specialist of the California Arts Council, along as our consultant. Lucero In August 2005, with the help of WASAC lent her expertise and native Spanish staff, we submitted a grant proposal to the language in evaluating the effectiveness of NEA for a multicultural series of state our program and advising us on ways to park events featuring a more diverse improve our communication with the spectrum of communities than what we Spanish-speaking community. have already presented, including African Americans and Asian, Middle Eastern, Our third and final 2005 Latino Folk Arts and Slavic New Immigrant communities. Fiesta occurred in Pearrygin Lake State Because all of our 2005 programming Park, near Winthrop, in Washington’s occurred in the Eastern and Southwest mountainous Methow Valley. A crowd of Regions of the state, we will be about 300 attended this event, about 50% concentrating on the Northwest and of them apparently Latina or Latino. The Puget Sound Regions, which are also Methow Valley has a large arts community closer to many of Washington’s major so there was broader interest in our event population centers. We are presently outside the Latino community. A waiting to hear back from the NEA and considerable number of campers were in we are working with Region Office staff, the park that weekend, many of them Park Managers, and community contacts from Germany. Music was supplied by to develop our 2006 series. Mariachi Estrella del Norte of Wenatchee and by Juan Barco and his TexMex Band, In March 2006 we submitted another who are from both the Yakima Valley and grant proposal to the NEA to continue the Seattle area. Señor Barco and his band our multicultural series and to develop a present, as part of their concert, a weekend festival of occupational poets, bilingual musical account of how Barco’s storytellers, and songwriters in a park in farmworker family followed the crops the Puget Sound area. throughout the US during the 1950s and 1960s. Two folklórico dance ensembles In September 2005 the National from the Okanogan Valley participated Association of State Park Directors and the local Annita’s taco wagon served held its national conference in Blaine, excellent Mexican food. National Heritage Washington, on the Canadian border just
81 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 south of Vancouver. The F&TAPP was informed that we will have the exhibit asked to host a session on state parks use May 22 through June 8 at WSP&RC’s Mt. of the folk arts to promote diversity and St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake. connect with communities. With a TAG- Located near the Castle Rock, WA, it is grant, we put together a panel consisting one of several Mt. St. H. visitor centers, of Bobby Fulcher, Park Manager, but it is the one closest to I-5 and the one Cumberland Trail State Scenic Trail and which gets the largest number of visitors. Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State With the exhibit comes some Park and former Regional Interpretive programming funds and WSP&RC will Specialist for Tennessee Division of Parks also supply some of its own money. We and Recreation’s Tennessee Folklife are presently working with MSHVCSL Program; Jon Kay, Director, Traditional staff to develop the programming that we Arts Indiana and former Park Services will present on Memorial Day weekend Specialist and Director of the Florida Folk and on the weekend of June 3-4. Ours is Festival at Stephen Foster Folk Culture the only state park venue in the thirty- Center State Park; Karen Krieger, three scheduled and one of only two Heritage Resource Coordinator of Utah venues in Washington, the other being at State Parks Division; and me. We were a National Forest site. fortunate enough to have the opening plenary session, giving us the opportunity The last weekend of February to address the state park agency directors 2006, the F&TAPP once again hosted of all fifty states, plus Puerto Rico, as well visiting public folklorists and friends and as representatives of BC Parks and Parks family from Washington and other Canada. The two Canadian agencies Western states who were attending the hosted a dinner for the conferees in Peach annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Arch State Park/Provincial Park, a jointly- Astoria, Oregon administered park straddling the border at (www.clatsopcc.edu/fisherpoets). the Blaine Port of Entry. Drinks were Christina Barr, Hal Cannon, Debbie Fant, served on the American side and dinner a Meg Glaser, Spider Kedelsky, Anders few yards (or metres) north on the Lund, Amy Mills, Willie Smyth, and Canadian side. We were warned that it others, and I enjoyed the “historic house” would be a major offense (or offence) to facilities at Fort Columbia State Park, in carry a drink across the line, so we Chinook, WA, just across the river from dutifully surrendered our plastic glasses Astoria. The Gathering was even more before walking to the dinner tent, thereby amazing than in previous years. Men and avoiding any international incident. women of the North Pacific commercial fishing and maritime community shared 2005 was the centennial year of the affection, comedy, political and economic USDA Forest Service and the commentary, danger, tragedy, and drama Smithsonian Folklife Festival featured the in all its forms, in poetry, prose, and song. USDAFS in its 2005 summer program. In Filmmaker Jen Brett Winston shared her 2006 the SI will be circulating a stationary newly-released film “Fisher Poets” exhibit, “Inspirations From the Forest,” (www.fisherpoets.com) and a crew from based on the festival program. Because of the NBC Today Show was on hand to my work with the SFF’s USDAFS cover the events. Centennial program, I was offered the opportunity to apply to place the exhibit Folk & Traditional Arts in the Parks Program in a WSP&RC venue. We were recently Program Manager, Jens Lund
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Washington State Parks & Recreation Gatherings, the first of which was held in Commission September 2003, the second in May 2005. P.O. Box 42650 Last year LE&CC Director Tina Olympia WA 98504-2650 Kuckkahn (Ojibwe) contracted me to (360) 902-8526 interview and photograph the 2005 Fax: (360) 664-0278 gathering’s invited featured artists and Cell: (360) 561-0672 prepare bio sheets on them for the exhibit [email protected] accompanying the gathering. www.parks.wa.gov
JENS LUND, INDEPENDENT FOLKLORIST
In a sense my work at Washington state parks is indie work, since I am on contract, receive no benefits, and pay Self- Employment Tax and Washington State Business and Operations Tax. On the other hand I get to claim all my receipts on the IRS’s Schedule C.
Since the last Public Programs Bulletin I have been involved in the following projects: Northwest Native American Woodcarvers Gatherings. Northwest Folklife. Smithsonian Folklife Festival. National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
The Evergreen State College’s Longhouse Northwest Coast First Nations woodcarver Dempsey Education and Cultural Center (LE&CC), Bob (Tahltan/Tlingit), of Kitselas Indian Reserve, a/k/a House of Welcome Terrace, BC, with Eagle mask, at Spirit Wrestler (www.evergreen.edu/longhouse), is an on- Gallery, Vancouver, BC. campus center that provides service and hospitality to students, the college, and the I can truly say that in my 32 years of surrounding Native communities. Its staff professional fieldwork for hire, this has was instrumental in the development, been one of the most satisfying projects I back in the mid 1990s, of Northwest have ever worked on. The carvers are Native American Basketweavers eloquent, full of wisdom, both Native Gatherings and Association with the help American & general human, incredibly of Dr. Willie Smyth and the Folk Arts creative, sensitive, and full of both Program of the Washington State Arts experience of and wonder about the world Commission. More recently the LE&CC, around them. They are some of the nicest also with Willie’s help and with two NEA and most hospitable folks I have ever grants, has been developing a series of dealt with. It has truly been a privilege to Northwest Native American Woodcarvers work with them. I chose to interview
83 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 them on digital video. In spring 2005, I programs and some participants in other interviewed and photographed David apprenticeships as well. Because of George (Tla-o-qui-aht Band of Nuu- pending duties in Washington state parks Chah-Nulth), George Hill (Spokane), on Memorial Day weekend 2006, Sharon Micah McCarty (Makah), Ed Archie and I will regretfully be forgoing our Noisecat (Shuswap/Stlitlimx), and Andy participation in “Folklife” for the first Wilbur Peterson (Skokomish), and wrote time since 1998. the bio-sheets for their part in the 2005 gathering’s exhibition. In June and July 2005 I spent two weeks as event staff at the Smithsonian Folklife In late 2005, Tina invited me to come Festival, also called “Folklife” locally, in back on the project and conduct more the other Washington. The 2005 festival’s interviews. From December 2005 through “Forest Service, Culture, and March 2006, I have so far interviewed and Community” program celebrated the photographed Pete Boome (Upper USDA Forest Service’s Centennial. We Skagit/Northern Ute), Dempsey Bob presented about 100 participants, the (Tahltan/Tlingit), Randy Capoeman majority of them present or retired (Quinault), Dale Clark (Makah), Greg USDAFS employees. Like many of my Colfax (Makah), Meleno Lovato Western states’ public folklore colleagues, (Apache/Navajo), Corey Bear O’Lague I had worked on some of the research for (Quinault), and Michael Pavel this program in the previous year. Only (Skokomish), with two more planned. The one of my recommendations, Alaska project recruited Jill Linzee to transcribe logger poet, songwriter, singer, and retired the interviews from both groups, as well timber-faller Hank Nelson, was invited to as some that were done by a LE&CC participate, but the event was still great. intern in 2002–03, and to flag highlights Hank enjoyed being the subject of a of all the interviews. I will be turning in a feature article and photo in the “Style” book outline at the end of April in section of the Washington Post. “ ‘Style’ anticipation of the next phase of this most section! Not bad for an old timber beast rewarding project. like me,” said Hank. My main public responsibility was interviewing and For some years I have been working as emceeing on the narrative stage. We all event staff at the Northwest Folklife enjoyed the presence of about 100 Festival in Seattle, mostly stage managing participants from the Arabian Peninsula the narrative stage associated with the nation of Oman, with their combination year’s featured theme and helping some of of Scottish bagpipe, African drumming, the featured-theme artists/craftspersons and Middle Eastern dance, and their with their booth responsibilities, working amazing clothing, art, craft, food, with Debbie Fant and Molly Williams in frankincense, and gentle warmth and more recent years, and with Jill Linzee hospitality. I wish more of them spoke before that. My wife, Sharon Rasmussen, English & more of us spoke Arabic. One has been along as full-time volunteer and day a camel brought up from Texas to as my helper for most of those years. In lend “authenticity” escaped its tether and 2005 the theme was masters and galloped off, full-speed toward the apprentices and “Folklife” (as it is called Capitol, with robed Omanis, Smokey- in the Northwest) featured both hatted US Park Police, and Stetsoned participants in the Northwest states’ state Texans, in cruisers and on golf carts, all in arts agencies’ folk arts Master/Apprentice hot pursuit. My involvement with the
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Forest Service program continues with and fishers found that they had much in Washington State Parks and Recreation common with each other. Commission presentation of the Smithsonian & Forest Service’s “Inspirations From the Forest” exhibit Dave Densmore’s narrative accounts of and interpretive programming at his three days in a life raft in the Bering Washington State Parks’ Mt. St. Helens Sea in winter and of helplessly watching Visitor Center at Silver Lake in May and his only son drown illustrated Sir Walter June 2006. Scott’s famous lines: “It’s no fish ye’re buying—it’s men’s lives!” Although filmmaker Jen Brett Winston was not able to be present, the gathering showed her new and excellent “Fisher Poets” film. My videographer son, Anders Lund, also worked event staff, videoing the fisher poets and other portions of the gathering. He quickly put together a fifteen-minute DVD production, which he dubbed “Scales and Spurs,” in time to show it at the Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria later that month.
Jens Lund 2716 26th Ave. NE Olympia WA 98506 (360) 943-2834 Cell: (360) 561-0672 [email protected]
WASHINGTON STATE ARTS COMMISSION Fisher poet Dave Densmore, of Svensen, OR, and Larsen Bay, AK, at National Cowboy Poetry WA Folk Arts Program Gathering, Elko, NV A P PR ENT ICES HIP /FELLO WS HIP In February 2006 I worked event staff at P RO GR AM A P PLIC ATIO NS Elko’s National Cowboy Poetry Forms are available online and in print for Gathering. My chief responsibility was the 2006-07 Apprenticeship and presenting four North Pacific fishermen, Fellowship Program awards. The deadline regulars at the annual Fisher Poets is April 21. Gathering in Astoria, Oregon. Poets Jon Broderick Geno Leech, Dave Densmore, A P PR ENT ICES HIP P ROG RAM EX HIB IT and songwriter and singer John Van Photographer Fritz Dent has created a Amerongen amazed the crowd with their photo exhibit featuring 72 master artists narrations of drama, humor, irony, from the Program. The exhibit was the persistence, and tragedy, and ranch folks central exhibit at the 2005 NW Folklife Festival and was hanging at Centrum/Ft.
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Warden’s cafeteria D through August Ruby Barmes and Julianna Loli are 2005. It is currently in storage and will working on internship projects. Suzanne tour this summer. Reed and Natalie Pyrooz are working in work study positions. N O RT HW EST H ERI TAGE R ES OURC ES After serving as Executive Director of C D -R O M CO MP ILATI ON NWHR for 10 years, Carla Wulfsberg is CD-rom designer Riley MacLaughlin is turning over the helm to Jill Linzee. Jill nearing completion of an interactive recently retired as a Program Director for program featured over 400 folk artists Northwest Folklife and has great skills in from throughout Washington. The program and project development. We’re content will be centered on the material deeply grateful to Carla for her tireless collected for the 7 Heritage Tours of work on the many WSAC-NWHR Washington produced over the past 8 collaborations and welcome Jill. years. 3000 copies will be made and will be distributed along with teacher’s guides F O LK A RT S I N T HE P ARKS to public schools. Jill Linzee is creating The Folk and Traditional Arts in the teacher’s guides. Parks program, a collaborative project between the WA State Parks and W ASHI NG TO N C ULTUR AL P O RT AL Recreation Commission and WSAC, is in W EBS ITE its 18th month of operation. WSPRC has The purpose of this project is to design promised the program $50000 in support and manage a website that includes for FY06-07 and we await word from the thorough documentation of the varied NEA about our request for $48000 from cultural traditions of Washington. The site them. will have four major components: tools WA Arts in Healthcare for educators-- includes lesson plans and The WAHN website is online at WSAC’s teacher guides for using these web site. Riley MacLaughlin and Natalie resources; research and documentation of Pyrooz created this website featuring over 400 artists working in over 100 art artists who work in healthcare and healing forms; an online version of the Ethnic and resources for better understanding the Heritage Council’s Contact Directory relationship between arts and healthcare. giving information about more than 500 ethnic cultural organizations; and online L ATIN O P RO J ECTS versions of the Washington Heritage We continue to collaborate with WSPRC Tours featuring event calendars, and the Yakima Valley Museum to bibliographies, and information that produce an exhibit of Latino traditional updates, complements, and augments the artists, as photographed by Eduardo printed versions of the Tour guides. Calderon. The website design has been completed. Heritage Tour information input is Highway Heritage Tours complete. Contact Directory information Fieldwork has been completed on our 7th input is complete. Our partner in this tour-- Seattle to Spokane. Riley project, Northwest Heritage Resources MacLaughlin is finishing recording the has received a $15000 NEA grant to assist audio portion while the book is being in maintaining the site. Launch date is designed in house. May 2006.
Assistants, Interns, and Work Study Folk Arts Program
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Washington State Arts Commission finished the film, and we are now Willie Smyth, authoring an interactive DVD. The work Folk Arts Coordinator completed during this New deal project is 234 East 8th still being utilized and is still highly PO Box 42675 regarded. This is a West Virginia Olympia, WA 98504-2675 Humanities Council project. (360) 586-2856 fax: (360) 586-5351 Last year we were able to fund over 70 [email protected] www.arts.wa.gov week-long youth scholarships to our traditional art workshops. While we still sponsor a folk art apprenticeship program, we are scaling it back to just a W EST VIRGINIA few each year and largely replacing it with a folk art scholarship program aimed exclusively at state residents of any age. AUGUSTA HERITAGE CENTER We have developed new guidelines and an application which we are now distributing Gerry Milnes for summer ’06 applicants. It has an April 1st deadline. Our Program produces at least one documentary project per year. We have Our workshop offerings this year will just released a new DVD, “That Old- number about 250. We typically include a Time Sound,” featuring Calhoun County half dozen or so National Heritage musicians, Lester and Linda McCumbers. Fellows on our instructor staff. We are This family lives within a strong finding that more and more people are traditional music area, and dozens of using our web site, rather than our annual neighbor-musicians are included. The film catalog, to get information and to register includes a detour into the fox chasing for workshops. However, word of mouth tradition as it exists in this rugged continues to be our best form of mountain setting, underscored with mock advertisement. chases performed on fiddle and harmonica (“French harp”) by local Two West Virginia congressmen, musicians. Lester’s very traditional Mollohan and Rahall, have secured fiddling and Linda’s singing are heard funding for folk art-related projects in throughout, as well as back-up musicians, their districts. While neither are from our a ballad singer, traditional square dancing, district, we are somewhat involved as a and a discussion of legendary musicians member of an advisory board in one from the area. It also includes footage (Rahall), and a presenter at the other from a 1973 old-time music festival. (Mollohan). The project in the third district is to complete a survey of Working with the local historic society, we traditional, religious, and ethnic music. are producing a documentary DVD on Someone was recently hired by the state the considerable Civilian Conservation Humanities Council to undertake that Corps activity in the state. Numerous project. CCC “boys” have been interviewed. We have covered most of the major sites in Our Old-time Fiddler’s Reunion the state where CCC work exists. We have continues to gain popularity. Each October, a few “new” old-time fiddlers
87 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 are invited, usually replacing a few who The Folk Arts Program at Wisconsin Arts have passed on during the previous year. Board is playing an important role in Every year, a few fiddlers show up who planning for local arrangements for the are unknown and unannounced, adding to AFS annual meeting in Milwaukee in our list of traditional fiddlers in the area October. Two of the three local and state. One unannounced performer arrangements committee members are this year will be the subject of a future WAB staff, Anne Pryor and Rick March, documentary. joined by Ruth Olson of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. As part of Davis & Elkins College, we are members of the Appalachian College We are planning three choices for Association. The “ACA” is currently Wednesday pre-conference tours. The planning a large archival initiative for the tour of Milwaukee ethnic neighborhoods region. This project, if funded (NEH), will will include stops in African-American, increase the accessibility of the Augusta Asian, German, Latino and Polish Collection, our archive. Other archives neighborhoods. The Wisconsin maritime involved are at Berea, Kentucky, Ferrum traditions tour will explore Lake Michigan College in Virginia, Mars Hill in North fishing and water recreation traditions. Carolina, and more. The web site is The third tour will visit the house of already up and running and may be easily Jeremiah Curtin, an early American “googled” at the “Digital Library of folklorist and the Trimborn Farm, both Appalachia.” If our funding comes Milwaukee County historic sites. through, large elements of our sound holdings will become available on-line The Milwaukee AFS dinner/dance in through the ACA web site. 1994 has remained a legendary good time. Augusta Heritage Center We plan to top it in 2006. Once again the Margo Blevin, Gerry Milnes site will be Turner Hall, the headquarters Davis & Elkins College of Milwaukee's historic Turnverein Elkins, WV 26241 gymnastic and cultural society, only one (304) 637-1209 and a half blocks from the conference www.augustaheritage.com hotel. We will feature the classic Wisconsin fish fry but also have other offerings, including vegetarian. The Turners are restoring the large ballroom on the third floor, closed since a 1937 fire. The essential stuff will be done, but some work will still be in-progress, giving historic preservation buffs an inside peek. A Turnverein board member will explain that the room once hosted the national ISCONSIN W conventions of the American Socialist Party; Eugene Debs, Carl Sandberg, WISCONSIN ARTS BOARD Victor Berger and Norman Thomas spoke from the stage. Music for dancing on the AFS Annual Meeting Preparations big wooden floor will be provided by the Tuba Dan Jerabek Family Band, one of the most outstanding Czech-American polka bands in the country. In addition to
88 A FS PUBLIC PROGRAMS BULLETIN S PRING 2006 decades of playing in Midwestern Midwest Folklife Festival. The 2005 traditional venues, they have been festival took place in August at Folklore featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Village Farm in Dodgeville, WI. The Festival and performed in the Czech program featured outstanding performing Republic. and material culture artists from the three states and we were blessed with excellent Wisconsin--Chiba, Japan Cultural weather, despite the fact that a tornado Exchanges passed through the area on the Thursday evening before the Saturday festival. In September, 2005 we hosted once again Over 70 homes were destroyed in a delegation from our sister state Chiba, Stoughton, WI, some only one half mile Japan. As has become usual since 1998, from my residence! the majority of the delegation in this fabulously successful cultural, educational In August 2006 the Midwest Folklife and scientific exchange program was Festival will take place in Bishops Hill, comprised of traditional artists--ikebana Illinois, a small village with strong flower arrangers, dancers, shamisen Swedish-American traditional culture. players, singers, and a small ensemble from the percussion-flute orchestra Sawara Bayashi. Other members of the delegation were bio-mass energy specialists and university educators.
The group spent just over one week in the Milwaukee area, staying with host families at night, and each day the performers and artists demonstrated their skills in several Milwaukee and Wauwatosa public Otherwise, the Folk Arts Program at the schools, at the University of Wisconsin- Wisconsin Arts Board continues to fund a Milwaukee and at the Cedarburg Cultural small number of organizational projects. center. A few organizations around the state, such as the Chippewa Valley Museum, the We are now in consultation with our Cedarburg Cultural Center, Folklore Chiba counterparts to determine the Village Farm and the Milwaukee County Wisconsin traditional artists who will Historical Society, have developed high travel to Japan this fall. In 2006, our quality folk arts programming, supported group will perform on October 7-8 at the by Arts Board grants. famous Sawara matsuri, a spectacular traditional festival. Sawara is a town so Anne Pryor noted for its well-preserved traditional Folk and Community Arts Specialist architecture it is nicknamed "Little Edo" Wisconsin Arts Board (Edo is the historical name of Tokyo). 101 E Wilson St, 1st Floor The rest of the itinerary is still TBD but Madison, WI 53702 we should be back just in time for AFS. Phone: (608) 266-2513 Fax: (608)267-0380 Wisconsin will continue to collaborate http://www.arts.state.wi.us with the Iowa Arts Council and the www. portalwisconsin.org Illinois Arts Council to produce the
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WISCONSIN TEACHERS OF LOCAL I am thrilled to be on board at the CULTURE, THE CENTER FOR THE Wyoming Arts Council (WAC) where I will build on the recent work of Marirose STUDY OF UPPER Morris, Art Access Specialist, and begin MIDWESTERN CULTURES & THE the work of Dennis Coelho (1980-1985) WISCONSIN ARTS BOARD and Tim Evans (1987-1995) anew.
The Wisconsin Teachers of Local Culture, the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures and the Wisconsin Arts Board are offering Here at Home: A Cultural Tour of Wisconsin for K-12 Teachers from June 23-30. The eight-day tour will offer teachers a chance to experience directly the diverse cultures of Wisconsin through on- site guided tours, interaction with local residents, and community-based presentations. The tour will circle the state visiting such places as a Ho Chunk bison ranch in southwest Wisconsin, a Hmong blacksmith shop in La Crosse, the Moquah Homemakers' community center for a Slovak luncheon, Belgian-American settlements in Kewaunee County, the Wisconsin Black Historical Society in Milwaukee, and a walking tour of Mexican murals in south Lee Call of Afton, Wyoming, Rock Springs Cultural Milwaukee. Faculty, which includes Survey, 1985,photograph by Carol Edison. This Debbie Kmetz of WTLC, Ruth Olson of photograph, along with many moreimages, fieldnotes CSUMC and Anne Pryor of WAB and worksheets, was donated back to the Wyoming supplemented ArtsCouncil by Carol Edison as part of the recovery by other UW faculty members, will be on process of starting upthe Wyoming Folk Arts the bus with the teachers during the Program after an eleven year hiatus. tour. This is the first of two years for this project funded primarily by Marirose nurtured the program over nine the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin years of dedicated work and support and Wisconsin Idea Endowment from UW- beginning December 5, 2005, WAC now Madison. has a full time staff person in addition to designated program funds for Folk and YOMING W Traditional Arts. I am indebted to Marirose for her efforts. The design of WYOMING ARTS COUNCIL the program and its priorities, with support from an NEA Infrastructure Anne F. “Annie” Hatch, Grant, provides me with a substantial and Folk & Traditional Arts Specialist thoughtful guide for my first year. Marirose Morris, Art Access Specialist
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I describe my first few months’ work as “administrative archeology” as I am very Fieldwork busy combing through old boxes, file What a treat to set up a new office and records, field notes, and recordings to archives! I am researching equipment recover, record and cobble together the options and archive software. I recently history of Folk Arts programming in purchased a Nikon D70s camera (it is ‘in Wyoming. Fellow folklorists including the mail’). I must now select an audio Carol Edison, Tim Evans, Dennis Coehlo, recording system and am nervously and John Dorst have been generous in looking at the Marantz 660 or 670 or the providing copies of their field notes, Tascam HD-P2. I haven’t begun materials, rolodexes and memories to this researching microphones! I hope to effort. purchase PastPerfect software to manage my fieldwork and resource materials. Grants Consequently, since I don’t have the Wyoming has $26,000 to grant through fieldwork equipment, I have yet to get out two categories outlined below: into the field and my list of ‘must interview ASAP’ contact list grows daily. Apprenticeship Program Grants: WAC Two Wyoming institutions, the Buffalo funds four grants of $1500 each year. Bill Historical Center (Cody) and the Old Since only one application came at the West Museum (Cheyenne), have official November 25, 2005 deadline, immediate needs for ranching, cowboy applications will be accepted on an and Native American contacts for their ongoing basis through May 19, 2006 or current programming and I hope to assist until all funds have been awarded. This is them in those efforts. However, a nice opportunity to offer artists as I consultation with cultural specialists and begin building contacts. folklorists shows that Hispanic folklife as well as occupations other than cowboy • Jerry Curcio (Riverton) will teach and ranching need attention. I intend to Bev Sarchett (Thermopolis) identify funds for fieldwork to offer American overshot coverlet internships through the American Studies weaving Program with John Dorst at the University of Wyoming in Laramie for the Project and Festival Grants: WAC has next year and will look ahead for more $20,000 to fund for Folk Arts projects extensive statewide fieldwork in 2007 and ($1,000) or Folk Arts festivals ($2,000). beyond. Funds are distributed through an ongoing first-come, first-served basis. Goals Approximately 18 grants are awarded each In the next year, I hope to: fiscal year. • set up a monthly email • Young Musicians (Evanston), correspondence called children’s summer workshop, wyofolknews similar to the Visual $575 Arts and Literary Arts programs at • Wyoming Highlanders (Jackson), WAC August Highland Games, $2,000 • establish regular features at the • Wyoming Fiddlers’ Association local NPR station on Wyoming (Casper), Old-time Fiddlers folklife Contest, $2,000
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• build my contacts of artists up from 100 • create two new grant categories -- $500 professional development for folk artists and modest $500 project grants for groups without federal non-profit status. Both of these categories require new funding for the state which is under review in February 2006 • begin intensive fieldwork and evaluate what projects, programs and grants to develop • establish the Wyoming Arts Council Folklife Special Collection of materials, resources, and fieldwork
Yikes, I better stop with this list, before it gets too out-of-hand! Thanks in advance for all the help from colleagues around the country!
Stop by and visit when you get a chance!
Wyoming Arts Council Anne F. (Annie) Hatch , Folk & Traditional Arts Specialist 2320 Capitol Ave Cheyenne, WY 82002 307-777-7721 www.wyomingartscouncil.org [email protected]
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