AFS PUBLIC PROGRAMS

BULLETIN

Volume 19, Number One

Spring 2001

Public Programs Section of the American Folklore Society

Published by Programs in Folk Studies at Western Kentucky University

Letter from the Editor

This issue will be our first online Bulletin. By the time you get this in the mail or soon thereafter, this issue and back issues beginning with 16:2, Fall 1998 (the first issue produced at WKU) will be available online. They can be accessed at http://afsnet.org/sections/public/newsletter/. Upon accessing the webpage, users can read it online or click on the first tab to read or print the typeset version.

Response to our recent Public Programs Section mailing has indicated that many section members prefer to receive a hard copy. This is not so much an issue of online accessibility - the great majority of section members do have internet access - but rather of convenience and keeping a permanent record. Printing and mailing a hard copy to everyone in the section is a substantial expense, so the practicality of mailing hard copies will continue to be an issue. Even if we only mailed hard copies to those who requested them, this would not necessarily reduce expenses since we would have to send them first class rather than bulk rate. In any case, we will continue to send hard copies to those without internet access and to institutions such as libraries that keep them in permanent collections.

We have not included a hard copy of the Public Programs Directory with this issue because it is available online at http://www.tapnet.org. When you reach the tapnet web page, click on "American Folklore Society Public Programs Section 2000 Directory." Our section mailing indicated, however, that many section members would like to receive a hardcopy of the directory even if they access the Bulletin online. We will, therefore, plan to produce a hardcopy Directory, perhaps biannually, beginning with Fall 2001.

Once again, we would like to thank all contributors for taking time out of busy schedules to send material to the Bulletin. We are especially pleased to include Bess Hawes' tribute to the late Barbara Rahm.

I would like to thank Amber Ridington, Andrea Graham, Greg Hansen, Holly Oglesbee, Terry Liu, Bess Hawes, Erika Brady, and all contributors for help with the Bulletin. Suggestions for changes or improvements are always welcome. The deadline for the Fall 2001 Bulletin is September 1, 2001. Contributions can be e-mailed, mailed on a disk, or mailed as typed hard copies. If you e-mail a contribution, we prefer an attached file (not in the text of the e-mail), with the name of your program in the file title. We also love photos; please submit captions and let us know if you want them back.

Submit contributions to: Tim Evans, Program in Folk Studies, Dept. Of Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies, Western Kentucky University, 1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green, KY 42101.

E-mail: Tim.Evans@wku.edu

Phone: (270) 745-5897. FAX: (270) 745-6859

Tim Evans, Western Kentucky University

Cover: Barbara Rahm at the Fife Folklore Conference, 1981. Photo courtesy of Utah Arts Council.

CONVENER'S REPORT

Hello from your new Public Programs Section Co-Conveners for the next three years. We appreciate your vote of support that got us elected/appointed to this shared position, and want to thank especially our predecessors, Betty Belanus and Terry Liu, for leaving the section in such good shape financially and programmatically.

The bulk of this report will be a summary of business conducted during the AFS annual meeting last October in Columbus. At that time, the treasury stood at $9,622.89. Since then we have had income of about $4,700, mostly from memberships and auction proceeds, and expenses of just over $2,000, the majority of which were for printing and mailing the Bulletin for this year; therefore, the current balance (as of January 31) is $12,287.30--a tidy sum.

One of the major discussion topics for the meeting was what to do with our money. A request from Betsy Peterson of the Fund for Folk Culture for $1,000 in matching funds for an FFC grant to be used to support participation of community scholars in AFS meetings was approved. Several suggestions were received from the floor, including providing funding for graduate students with an interest in public folklore to attend the annual meeting, continued or renewed advocacy efforts (pending outcome of the presidential election), and funding for independent public folklorists with no institutional support to attend the meeting. The recommendation was to have anyone with a serious proposal write it up for a formal vote of the section. Only one such proposal has been forthcoming, from Amy Skillman for support of grad students to attend the meeting in Anchorage; the proposal was sent to the section membership in March for a vote.

New committees were appointed, or actually self-appointed since they are made up of volunteers, for several section tasks. The 2001 Program Committee is Christina Barr, Betty Belanus and Barbara Lau. The Botkin Prize Committee consists of Sue Eleuterio, Betsy Peterson and Pat Wells. And the Auction Committee is Teresa Hollingsworth and Sally Van de Water. Each of these teams has at least one carryover member from the previous year, to make use of our heritage and collective knowledge more efficiently.

The auction for 2000 was once again a rousing success, both for its entertainment value and its financial benefits. Proceeds of $1,681 were deposited in the section coffers. Thanks once again to Sue Eleuterio and Pat Wells for coordinating and cajoling our participation. At the meeting, Pat Wells suggested that section funds could be used to buy several pieces of folk art from Alaska next year to be offered in a society-wide raffle, in addition to the usual silent auction of books, CDS, foodstuffs, etc. This would mean less toting of large artifacts to and from Anchorage as well as supporting local artists in the area of our meeting. This suggestion will be passed on to the new Auction Committee for consideration in their planning.

Once again, we are very pleased to represent you, our colleagues, as co-conveners of this section, and stand ready and willing to carry out your wishes to the best of our ability. Our contact information is listed below if you need our help with anything. Hope to see many of you in Anchorage!

Andrea Graham and Gregory Hansen

Andrea Graham
Independent Folklorist
1637 Glacier St.
Pocatello, ID 83201
Phone & fax 208-238-8418
andymeg@earthlink.net

Gregory Hansen
Florida Folklife Program
R.A. Gray Building, 4th Floor
500 S. Bronough St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Phone 850-487-2333
Fax 850-922-0496
ghansen@mail.dos.state.fl.us

ISSUES AND QUERIES

Barbara Alyce LaPan Rahm was born February 15, 1946 in Los Angeles, California and died of a sudden brain aneurysm on November 2, 2000 in Sacramento, California. Her life was in full bloom. She was enjoying the prospect of retiring from the California State Department of Health Services in 2001. She was happily planning a move back to the Los Angeles area so as to be closer to family and older friends and to resume field work and perhaps a bit of public folklore teaching. Then, in a way she would have come full circle, with much to report from her complex journeys, and she was full of dreams and schemes about what might come along to do next.

She had earned both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts in Anthropology at the old Valley State College, now called California State University at Northridge. While completing her M.A. she had begun to supervise the field work necessary for a week long summer presentation of California traditional arts at the 1975 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. The following year she completed the planning, coordination, and direction of folklife specialists across the nation for the Regional America presentation at the summer-long Bicentennial Festival on the National Mall.

In 1978, she returned to California and for the next few years free-lanced, initiating and performing the extraordinary variety of community cultural projects nowadays commonly seen as the opening pattern of folk life program development. She directed folk arts presentations in various local festivals, acted as consultant on film, recording, and radio programs, designed and supervised field research projects in Utah, Nevada, California and Idaho. The Idaho Commission on the Arts employed her for several years as Director of their Folk Arts program. While there, believing that a basic knowledge of law would make her a more effective public servant, she returned to school and studied law, earning a Juris Doctor in 1984 from Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles.

In 1988 the California Council employed her to plan and begin the first grants program for traditional and folk artists in that state. Her title was Director of the California Traditional Arts Program. It was the job of her life, and she stayed there for seven years, working on folk arts touring programs, documenting traditional artists and crafts artisans, co-editing the "California Artists: At the Crossroads" booklet that circulated the entire state, collaborating with other California folklorist to increase and strengthen traditional arts programming in every corner. At last, state budget decreases cut her funds and eliminated her position.

She had been married to Danny Rahm; their divorce had recognized their separation but kept them friends. She lived now with her remarkable partner Virginia (Ginny) Maulfair. They shared a pleasant home in Sacramento, many friends, and busy lives. When she was forced to leave the California Arts Council, she applied for other state positions and wound up at the Eligibility Department of Medi-Cal Policy Division where she supervised a lively staff issuing regulations, bill analyses, revised forms, and procedure manuals on the determination of Medi-Cal eligibility for all California counties.

She also "represented the Department in meetings, including legal aid and welfare rights groups." I'll bet those were lively affairs. As just a passing example of how she dug right into the depths of whatever she laid hands to, she conceived of and rammed through the very first regulation ever to provide health benefits for the children of Medi-Cal patients, an idea since adopted by most states.

I first met Barbara as a student in one of my CSUN folklore classes. She developed a thrombosis (premonitory?) in her leg and was hospitalized; we arranged a substitute exam and special seating when she could return to class. After that she was somehow always around, taking every course I taught, helping me carry loads of recordings and films to class, telling me jokes and explaining to me the subtle differences between my generation and hers. I was delighted by her gaiety, her sociability, her practicality, her generous spirit, her crackling intelligence. We worked together the rest of her life, sometimes officially, sometimes just as the good friends we always were. She was sunny but never saccharin, hard working but never overwhelmed. She was grievously ill many times in her life; she never let me see discouragement.

I believe that Barbara Rahm was a key player in the development of what is now known as public folklore, a specialization that has had a difficult birthing, distorted by multiple unscholarly and racist formulations. As a pioneer she had to feel her way slowly, always right out there in the open, vulnerable, and dealing with real problems, real people, real political/cultural complexities, holding always to her standards of authenticity and quality.

Since her death many people have said to me, "You know I just realized that I had been counting on Barbara for that part of this project; now what can I do?" I never know just quite what to say, for I don't either. Like so many others, I had just always counted on Barbara's being there. I suppose we'll just have to learn how to be Barbara's for each other, for I do not know just when another such practical, valiant, joyful, hardy, sophisticated and loving spirit will come to us ever again.

Bess Lomax Hawes

Northridge, CA.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Northern Tier Cultural Alliance Regional Folk & Traditional Arts Gallery Show Opens

Press Release, March 19, 2001

The Lycoming County Historical Society, 858 West Fourth Street in Williamsport, is hosting the Northern Tier Cultural Alliance's 3^rd annual regional gallery show, March 2^nd through April 20^th. From Heart to Hand: Folk & Traditional Arts of the Northern Tier showcases the work of eleven artists and crafts persons from eight counties across Pennsylvania's northern tier. The show offers a colorful mix of traditional works ranging from furniture, engraved glass and fabric dolls to weather vanes and quilts.

Alliance coordinator, Douglas Manger, promises new surprises for this year's exhibit:

"Pennsylvania's northern tier is so rich in talent, it makes the final selections very difficult. We travel the back roads in the months prior to the show trying to find new and different work each year…

…I recently caught a replay of a speech by William Cohen given at the opening of the D-day Museum in New Orleans. Mr. Cohen commented that museums capture our 'ideals and values' offering a place where we 'feel united in memory.' There is certainly a parallel here with our annual show. We offer, not a historical treatment, but a contemporary show with artisans exhibiting their own renderings of work that has been part of the creative fabric in this area for decades; expressions that very much reflect the character of this region. The show then serves as a vehicle to underscore the value of traditional art and craft as a critical anchor in our lives in today's ever changing world"

Featured artisans in the show include Diana Black, fabric dolls, Bradford County; Skip Eckert, longbows, Cameron County; Elmer Huels, glass engravings, Tioga County; Marion Marnatti, quilts, Elk County; Joan Moore, wildlife artist, Sullivan County; Deb Parsons, lamp working, Lycoming County; Bill Roberts, weather vanes, Potter County; and Tom Svec, furniture maker, Clinton County.

An added feature of this year's show is work by master Mohawk bead worker Rose Harley of Bradford County and her two apprentices. Kateri Locey and Nanci Turker of Tioga County were among the eleven individuals in the state awarded a 2000 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts apprenticeship stipend.

Further information about the show can be obtained by calling the Alliance office at 570.662.4663 in Mansfield, or, by contacting the Lycoming County Historical Society in Williamsport at 570.326.3326. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 9:30 to 4:00, and Saturday, 11:00 to 4:00.

PROGRAM/AGENCY REPORTS

NATIONAL

American Folklife Center
Library of Congress

James Hardin

Twenty-fifth Anniversary Year

On January 2, 1976, President Gerald Ford signed the "American Folklife Preservation Act," which created the American Folklife Center. The legislation grew out of an enthusiastic and bi-partisan response to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, first mounted in 1967, and lobbying by a number of dedicated individuals, such as the intrepid folklorist and labor historian Archie Green, who believed that the time had come for national recognition of the importance of folk culture. "We must begin to reach out to very ordinary people doing ordinary things at a quiet level-the Tarheel banjo picker, the rodeo rider . . . . Without their strength, our country will not live," said Green, in his testimony before Congress.

New Online Presentations from the National Digital Library Program

The American Folklife Center's latest online presentation from the National Digital Library Program is called Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia. The new presentation is based on the Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-99), which was coordinated by Mary Hufford. It includes historical maps, interpretive essays, and multiple options for navigating the core collection of field photographs and sound recordings. The site features excerpts from interviews on the region's history and ecology, as well as documentation of community events such as storytelling, quilting, protest rallies, and "ramp" suppers featuring the local wild leeks. To visit this online collection, go to the Center's home page at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/, select "collections available online," and then "Tending the Commons."

"Save Our Sounds": America's Recorded Sound Heritage Project

The Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center are engaged in a major effort to preserve and provide access to the historic sound recordings housed at the two institutions. With an initial grant from the National Park Service, the two institutions are working to raise matching funds. A number of organizations, corporations, and foundations have already contributed, and the American Folklife Center has several pilot projects underway to test preservation technologies.

On December 1 and 2, the Center and the American Folklore Society sponsored a symposium at the Library of Congress called "Folk Heritage Collections in Crisis" to address issues of preservation, access, and intellectual property rights. Participants were asked to develop guidelines and recommendations for managing and preserving our recorded sound heritage, and the Council on Libraries and Information Resources (CLIR) will publish a "white paper" with summaries of the discussions, along with recommendations for the future. For a report on the symposium, see American Folklore Society News (February 2001, vol. 30, no. 1) and Folklife Center News (winter 2001, vol. XXIII, no. 1). Web pages for the symposium and the "Save Our Sounds" preservation project have been developed and are available through the Center's home page.

Veterans' Oral History Project

The U.S. Congress has directed the American Folklife Center to collect and preserve audio- and video-taped oral histories of America's war veterans. The congressional legislation allows for selective acquisition of related documentary materials such as diaries, photographs, and letters. More than 19 million war veterans are living in the United States today (including thirty-five hundred from World War I and six million from World War II), but almost fifteen hundred die each day. The law calls upon the Center and the Library of Congress's National Digital Library Program to develop online presentations of the collections as an accessible resource for the American people. Further, it directs the Center to partner with a wide range of institutions, organizations, schools, and individuals to accomplish the objective.

To accomplish this new assignment, the Center will identify and work cooperatively with a wide variety of organizations and individuals, who are expected to volunteer to help create oral histories for the collection. Among those who have already expressed interest are veterans' service organizations such as the American Legion (with 15,000 posts and a membership of 3.8 million) and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (with 9,500 posts and a membership of 2.75 million). These organizations will disseminate information about the project to their members. The general public, families of veterans, high school students, and community organizations will also be encouraged to participate as field collectors and interviewers. Guidelines for public participation and other useful materials for documentarians are available on the Center's Web site: www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/

American Folklife Center & Archive of Folk Culture
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20540-4610
www.lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/
James Hardin, Editor
(202) 707-1744
jhar@loc.gov

Folk & Traditional Arts
National Endowment for the Arts

Barry Bergey, Director

Rose Morgan, Folk Arts Specialist

The National Council on the Arts Meeting held on March 9, 2001, had as its focus "The Arts and Cultural Heritage." Working groups of the council that met on March 8^th also addressed this theme, including the Chairman's "An American Cultural Bill of Rights" speech at the National Press Club. At the meeting itself, Barre Toelken, of Utah State University, gave a thoughtful keynote address and Mary Louise Defender Wilson, Dakotah-Hidatsa storyteller and National Heritage Fellow from North Dakota, and James Bau Graves, Co-director of the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, Maine, made presentations. March 9^th was a great day to be a folklorist, but then again, isn't every day? Don't answer that.

Guidelines for the coming round of Grants to Organizations have been distributed and soon our 2002 guidelines for Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure and National Heritage Fellowships will be mailed. There are a couple of new wrinkles in guidelines.

In Grants to Organizations there is a new category (separate deadline of May 14^th) called Arts Learning that supports arts learning opportunities for young people both in school and outside the regular school day and year. This granting category is using an outcome based-approach and has its own special criteria related to that, so I would suggest that you look at this carefully and speak with staff before you apply. Non-youth arts education projects or education projects that are multi-generational would still be considered in our other categories of funding, such as Access or Heritage/Preservation.

The Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure guidelines will include a "Local Cultures Infrastructure Pilot Initiative." This will support up to 12 start-up folk arts positions at local arts agencies or community-based cultural organizations. Priority will be given to professional folk arts positions that address the needs of previously underserved geographic or cultural communities, with the expectation that the positions could become self-sustaining within three years. These grants will be made in addition to the one-grant limit for each state under Infrastructure and will be supported by a modest amount of additional money allocated for that purpose.

Announcements about the National Heritage Fellowship recipients will be made in late-May. Please try to join us for that celebration, tentatively scheduled for the week of September 21^st. We are always looking for more National Heritage Fellowship nominations - deadline October 1st this year.

Traditional Arts Growth (TAG) Funds are still available for technical assistance, individual participation in strategically important conferences, and focused "brainstorming" meetings. Please contact Mark Puryear at (202)682-5522 or puryear@erols.com for more details.

Terry Liu is now working in the Partnership Division on special Chairman's initiatives for artists residencies with youth in underserved communities. He continues to maintain the Traditional Arts Program Net web site (www.TAPNet.org) with Mark Puryear. He can be reached at 202-682-5690 or liut@arts.endow.gov.

Please visit the NEA website <www.arts.gov> for the latest news, guidelines, and lists of grants. We are always happy to hear from or to visit with you if you happen to be in Washington. We can be reached at: Barry Bergey - 202/682-5726 or bergeyb@arts.endow.gov or Rose Morgan - 202/682-5678 or morganr@arts.endow.gov.

National Endowment for the Arts
The Nancy Hanks Center
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington D.C. 20506-0001
www.arts.endow.gov

Berry Bergey
(202) 682-5726
fax: (202) 682-5669
bergeyb@arts.endow.gov

Rose Morgan
(202) 682-5678
fax: (202) 682-5669
morganr@arts.endow.org

National Network for Folk Arts In Education

Paddy Bowman, Coordinator

After almost eight years of work and growth, the organizational name "task force" has outlived its sense of immediacy, hence a more inclusive name, the National Network for Folk Arts in Education. A network has room for everyone who would like to be involved, and this network serves public sector and academic folklorists and other scholars, folk artists, K-12 educators, students, and families. City Lore will continue as 501(c)3, and our work will dovetail more with City Lore's folk arts in education program, which Amanda Dargan heads. Amanda and I edit the CARTS newsletter, which is published each spring. This spring's issue focuses on poetry, in tune with City Lore's second People's Poetry Gathering. Email Elena Martinez at City Lore to get on the mailing list, emartinez@citylore.org.

The new CARTS Web site, www.carts.org, is "up," but it requires much more revamping and editing. I need your help in updating information and links. Check under Regional Resources and email corrections and additions for your state or region to pbowman@ix.netcom.com. If you know of resources from recordings to field trip destinations that you think would be helpful to K-12 educators, students, and parents, please annotate your notes with a brief description, ordering information, price, appropriate grade level, maybe even ideas for classroom use. A Web board section of the site will allow for several kinds of online interaction.

Find the Summer 2001 roster of teacher institutes online at www.tapnet.org. Almost 30 workshops and institutes in K-12 educators in folk arts, folklife, and oral history are listed this year. Significant regional and state networks are developing, and the caliber of training continues to deepen. The Mississippi Whole Schools Institute will include a week-long folk arts track. New institutes include a New England regional institute, a folklore and writing initiative in south Georgia, an institute in Idaho.

Indiana University and the American Folklife Center are collaborating with the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community for a Field School on Disability and Community. I'll be on the faculty for the American Memory Fellows Institute at the Library of Congress. The Montana Heritage Project welcomes teachers from around the country. The NEH-funded Local Learning initiative of the Network and City Lore will include collaborations with the 2001 Fife Folklore Conference in Utah and the Iowa Folklife Prairie Voices Institute.

Bonnie Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, authors of FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research, received funding from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation at Princeton University for FieldWorking Online through an Imagining America scholarship grant. The Network on Folk Arts in Education was a grant partner. When it's launched, the site will provide not only resources but a place where teachers and others engaged in ethnographic explorations can meet, learn, and publish. Let teachers in your region know about this.

With AFS Eucation Section conveners Anne Pryor and Robin Cogburn, the Network is planning the annual Saturday education workshop for Anchorage. We hope to tap excellent Alaska education resources, educators, and artists at the meeting and to host an online preconference exploring Alaska education Web sites. Education Section membership is only $7 and entitles you to receive a newsletter that provides good updates of Section members' activities and FAIE issues.

Send me your education-related news and queries. There is some great work going on out there.

National Task Force on Folk Arts in Education
609 Johnston Place
Alexandria, VA 22301-2511
703/836-7499
fax: 703/836-4820
pbowman@ix.netcom.com
www.carts.org

REGIONAL

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation

Amy E. Skillman

Peer Assistance and Mentoring Program

In June 1998, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation received a grant from NEA to support the development and implementation of a Peer Assistance and Mentoring Program for the mid-Atlantic region. The program, developed by the Institute for Cultural Partnerships during a two year period ending June 2000, sought to strengthen the infrastructure for folk arts in the region through a program of consultations that connected resources across state lines. The program built on the success and strengths of the Mentoring and Professional Development Program for Folklife and the Traditional Arts, administered by the New York Folklore Society, and took that model to a regional level.

As anticipated, the development of the program has greatly enhanced MAAF's understanding of the needs affecting individuals and organizations involved in the folk and traditional arts in the mid Atlantic region, as well as the substantial resources that exist in the region to address those needs and the potential impact that small grants can have in supporting the development of a regional infrastructure for traditional arts. Below is a brief summary of our findings. For a copy of our final report, please contact Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, 22 Light Street, Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21202, or call (410) 539-6656. The document will inform future folk arts programming at MAAF and we hope that it will be of assistance to other organizations as they seek to provide similar kinds of support to their respective constituents.

Impact of the Program

The program resulted in 21 effective consultations. Individuals and organizations enhanced their capacity to preserve, practice and present traditional arts through consultations ranging from technical and artistic training to program development and long-range planning. A total of 27 mentor or consultants--including 12 artists and 8 folklorists--worked with a 120 people through participation in one-on-one consultations, group workshops, and other types of exchanges. 103 traditional artists had the opportunity to share experience and expertise with each other through our program.

Grants directly benefitted a broad spectrum of constituencies in the region. All but one of the consultations took place across state lines. Eleven of the consultations involved travel of either applicant or consultant within mid Atlantic states, while five of the consultations involved the applicant's travel outside the mid Atlantic region or the consultant's travel to the mid Atlantic region from elsewhere in the United States.

Key Lessons Learned

Although our analysis is based on a small group of organizations and individuals, we believe the lessons learned can be applicable to the broader field.

Needs

Not surprisingly, we found that individual artists have a need for training or consultations in specific folk art forms, including storytelling, dance and music performance, woodcarving, pottery making, and fiber arts. Some of the artists sought consultations to further their capacity to develop K-12 curriculum and in-school activities.

On the other hand, applications from folk arts organizations suggested a need for consultations that address the needs of individual staff, of ongoing and new programs and projects, or the organization as a whole. We found that community-based organizations need funding to consult with individuals and organizations involved in folk arts programming to learn how to develop cultural programming for their respective communities.

Resources

Traditional artists have attained a high level of mastery and are able to provide guidance and support to others in areas that range from technique, building a repertoire, and aesthetics to self-management, concert planning, and touring. Folklorists and folk arts organizations in the region are able to provide expertise in areas such as research methods and techniques, curriculum development, cultural programming, and organizational development and they are ready to serve as resources to other folklorists, folk arts organizations and community-based organizations. A number of community-based organizations are capable and ready to serve as mentors to other organizations in folk arts and cultural heritage programming for specific populations. Complementary programs exist at the state level that can that can work together to support peer-to-peer consultations and mentorships across the region.

Impact of Small Grants Programs

Individual artists and ensembles report that the consultations -- in spite of their limited scope and duration -- provided opportunities for substantial professional development. Folk arts and community-based organizations were energized by the consultations and the ability to share ideas, models, and best practices before they had to commit to a particular project. Consultants who participated in the program found that serving as mentors to individuals and organizations provided them a great opportunity for personal development and networking.

Recommendations

We recommend that future initiatives of this nature provide a minimum of three years for

these kinds of programs to get off the ground. Continued program support is needed to ensure that peer assistance and mentoring programs successfully reach their intended constituencies and realize their proposed goals. Funding deadlines should be set about 2 or 3 months apart to have flexibility and responsiveness. Funding levels and matching requirements should remain flexible to allow for the specifics of each consultation. Monitoring and review strategies need to be implemented that periodically assess the granting process as a whole, particularly the effectiveness of outreach, technical assistance, and the application review process. Assessment instruments need to be developed to monitor the impact of the consultations nine months to a year after the consultation has been completed. Program officers should collaborate with local and state agencies providing similar kinds of grants to coordinate their efforts in serving constituencies across the region. Better understanding of funding opportunities that exist in each state will allow applicants to make more efficient use of existing resources. Likewise, results of the consultations should be made public to ensure that important resources are shared and emerging initiatives continue to be supported.

Delmarva Folklife Project

Audio Driving Tour of Traditional Culture on the Delmarva Peninsula

The Delmarva Folklife Project (DFP), an initiative of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, is producing a series of audio tours and guidebooks featuring the folklife and traditional expressive culture of the Delmarva Peninsula. The proposed guide will be modeled on a successful series of guidebook/cassette tours produced in Washington and Utah. Our objective is to produce a series of six tapes that encourage the traveler to cross political boundaries to explore the local culture of the three states represented on the Delmarva Peninsula.

These guides will highlight the traditions, people, places, and sense of place that make the region unique and distinctive and is aimed at valuing these resources and enhancing the educational experience of the many visitors to the region about these cultural assets.

The tours are based on the ethnographic fieldwork and research the Delmarva Folklife Project has conducted over the past three years. During the course of our fieldwork, we identified and documented a comprehensive range of traditions existing on the Delmarva Peninsula. The individuals in our documentation include watermen, hunters, trappers, taxidermists, decoy carvers and makers, boatbuilders, model makers, seafood workers, quilters, musicians, and gospel choirs, among others.

Among the artists and tradition bearers, are excellent "talkers" and poets. Their voices - telling stories, explaining techniques, describing experiences, and making music - represent traditions embedded in personal experience and everyday culture on the Peninsula. More than mere technique, skill, or information, these forms of traditional culture are precisely about the ways people and communities organize their daily lives, shape meaning in their worlds, and contribute to a distinctive sense of place. These tours will thus offer an important opportunity to interpret the cultural and historical traditions in context, illuminating the meanings and significance they hold for the tradition bearers as well as the communities and the region in which they live. As an educational tool, the tours will address serious cultural issues through the arts and the culture of place.

While the product is primarily aimed at the cultural and heritage tourists who are interested in educational experiences it will also appeal to; 1) travelers to the region who are returning to visit with family members, such as for the popular family reunions during the summers; 2) permanent new residents to the shore desiring to better understand and appreciate the heritage of the region they have adopted; and 3) the long-established residents who will have an authentic self representation of their history and traditions.

These audio driving tours are funded in part by the Maryland Historical Trust, the Maryland State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. We anticipate availability in late fall or early winter of 2001.

Appalachian Views

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) , in collaboration with the Institute for Cultural Partnerships, is pleased to introduce Appalachian Views, a new traveling exhibits program featuring the folk arts and cultures of people living in the Appalachian mountains. This program seeks to create national visibility for traditional arts and artists from the region through the combination of high quality exhibits and artist residencies that foster community interaction and dialogue.

Our roster of six traveling exhibits is offered to museums, educational institutions, and community organizations in the mountain region for a nominal fee. A special feature of the program is to provide grants to each exhibit host to support 3 to 5 day residencies with traditional artists. We will work with each host site to select the artist and residency that best fits their audience needs and interests.

Features of the program include:

• Easy to install, juried exhibits
• Grants for 3-5 day residencies with traditional artists
• Gallery guides and promotional materials package
• Rental fee of $800 per month includes shipping
• Available July 2000--June 2002

Appalachian Views is made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds' Community Folklife Program, administered by the Fund for Folk Culture, and other corporations, foundations and individuals. For a detailed catalogue of available exhibits, contact the Institute for Cultural Partnerships, 3211 North Front Street, Suite 104, Harrisburg, PA 17110. 717-238-1770 or skillman@culturalpartnerships.org. Exhibits currently available include

Extraordinary People in Ordinary Places

Since 1976, the Vandalia Gathering has been held on Memorial Day weekend in Charleston, West Virginia. A celebration of West Virginia's extraordinary contribution to old-time music and dance across the country, the festival provides participants an opportunity to discover and enjoy the cultural richness of the Mountain State.

Created by the West Virginia State Museum, Extraordinary People in Ordinary Places introduces viewers to traditional arts in West Virginia through the photographic portraits, audio and video recordings, and musical instruments of its most celebrated practitioners, the winners of the Vandalia Gathering Award.

The exhibit features 19 photographs, text labels, and video/audio components, all mounted on free-standing panels and pedestals.

Over & Under, Around and Through

Through the quiet delicacy of a Shaker basket, the directness of an Appalachian white oak basket, the unifying symbolism of a Cherokee river cane basket and the strong winding spiral of an African American sea grass basket, this exhibit examines the relationships of basket shape to function and the influence of culture on design.

Over & Under, Around & Through was created by the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. The exhibit provides an opportunity to explore the connections, crossovers, exchanges, and cultural paths of southern baskets and basket makers with attention given to the ways that natural materials and resources have been used to express human creativity.

The exhibit features 13 baskets with display tables and 6 laminated panels with photographs and interpretative text. Complementary materials include a Teacher's Guide to Basket Weaving.

Tricks of the Trade

This exhibit is a thought-provoking and imaginative approach to educating people about traditional arts of the northern Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania and about the role of informal apprenticeship in transmitting and conserving folk arts skills and knowledge within cultural communities.

Developed by the Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation, Tricks of the Trade offers interactive activities designed to engage audiences in a process of exploration about the relationship between master and apprentice and the artistic traditions that thrive in diverse cultural communities throughout the Appalachian mountains. It provides viewers an opportunity to explore and value diversity by recognizing the many cultural traditions that exist in the region.

The exhibit features four sets of free-standing laminated photo-text panels with activity centers and an accompanying Treasure Hunt guide.

Working the Woods

This exhibit gives voice to the often unrecognized and unacknowledged wisdom of people who walk among the oak and ash, the spruce and fir each day. Their perspectives can be heard in their talk about the forest and in their creative expressions - their stories, poems, and handwork - and in the artful ways they accomplish their everyday labors.

Working the Woods was developed by curators Margaret Yocom (Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum and George Mason University, Fairfax, VA) and Kathleen Mundell (Maine Arts Commission) and funded by the Maine Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the United States Forest Service Initiative.

The exhibit features 20 full-color laminated panels with photographs

A Rural Life Drawn and Carved

Over the course of sixty years, traditional artist Lavern Kelley (1928-1998) meticulously rendered into artistic form the tractors and trucks, work horses and rigs, and scenes of seasonal farm life in Otsego County, New York. Through his drawings, wood carvings, photographs and excerpts of his diary, this exhibit presents Mr. Kelley's personal vision of his rural world.

Developed by independent curator Sydney Waller, A Rural Life Drawn and Carved explores how a community memorializes its everyday life through the creativity of the individual artist and offers viewers an opportunity to value local oral history, traditional practices, memory drawing and arts.

The exhibit features 10 wood-carved trucks, 16 framed hand drawings, and 8 photographs with interpretative text.

Good Fences, Good Neighbors

Featuring artistically compelling historic photographs from glass plates made by T. R. Phelps (1872-1952) in Washington County, Virginia during the early 1900s, this exhibit focuses on the rural setting and vernacular architecture of the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia with fences as the connecting theme.

Created by Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia, Good Fences, Good Neighbors examines the changing uses, materials, and construction of fences through time. It offers an opportunity to go beyond the notion of fences as boundaries to explore the ways in which people define and shape their space, the impulse for creativity in everyday objects, and the aesthetic of the handmade.

The exhibit features 30 wall hanging, framed quality prints with interpretative text labels.

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
Amy Skillman, Program Officer
22 Light Street, Suite 300
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 539-6656 fax: (410) 837-5517
amy@midatlanticarts.org

Southern Arts Federation

Teresa Hollingsworth,
Director, Traditional Arts & ADA Programs

Joint Mid Atlantic and Southern Folklorists Retreat

The Southern Arts Federation (SAF) and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) hosted the first joint retreat for Mid Atlantic and Southern folklorists, March 2-4, 2001. Sixty-two folklorists (and several of their family members) gathered at Harrison's Chesapeake House on Tilghman Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The retreat theme, Collaborative Ethnography and the Folklorist's Tool Kit, provided participants with the opportunity to evaluate and improve their photography, creative writing, and broadcast quality recording skills.

Many participated in the pre-retreat "Photography as Ethnography" workshop led by Harold Dorwin, staff photographer for the Smithsonian Institution. Glenn Hinson and Peggy Yocom led this year's reading and discussion session which addressed "Collaborative Ethnography." Barry Bergey and Robert Baron shared updates from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

On Saturday afternoon, award-winning fiction writer, Faith Spellman Holseart, led the "Creative Writing" professional development workshop. Bob Stone (Florida Folklife Program), Barry Dornfeld (Center for Applied Research), and Van Williamson (National Public Radio) served as panelists for a discussion about "Broadcast Quality Recording." Fieldtrips included a visit to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, a tour of a local oyster shucking house, a walking tour of Tilghman Island, and a visit with Captain Wade Murphy.

In addition to attending planned sessions and workshops, participants found time to explore Tilghman Island, enjoy wonderful meals featuring regional delicacies, and "network" with their colleagues. To view photographs from the Retreat, please visit SAF's website, www.southarts.org.

American Traditions

SAF recently received notification from NEA regarding funding to complete the American Traditions Professional Development Training Program. Thirty Series I graduates from the Classes of 1999 and 2000 will be invited to participate in American Traditions Series II training, October 1-2, 2001 in Louisville, Kentucky. American Traditions training will be provided as a pre-conference program of the annual Southern Arts Exchange.

Later this spring, SAF will collaborate with the Distance Learning Lab at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to produce three, four-hour CD ROM presentations of selected American Traditions workshops. Workshop topics will address "Marketing Traditional Arts & Audience Development" (for traditional arts presenters), "Traditional Arts Residencies" (for traditional artists), and "Working with Managers & Agents/Marketing Yourself as an Artist" (for traditional artists).

Southern Arts Federation

Teresa Hollingsworth, Director - Traditional Arts & ADA Programs
1401 Peachtree Street, NE, Suite 460
Atlanta, GA 30309-2788
(404) 874-7244 x 14
fax: (404) 873-2148
thollingsworth@southarts.org
www.southarts.org

Western Folklife Center

Meg Glaser

Voices of Youth

We recently completed a second round of the Voices of Youth program which provided a ten-month photography and sound recording internship to eight local teens. Aural historian Jack Loeffler, and photographer Bruce Hucko, acted as instructors on the project helping the interns create a photographic exhibit and cd of radio vignettes dealing with life in the rural West. The interns' work focused on ranchers, miners, teenagers, Native Americans, insiders, and outsiders, and how living in the rural west makes a difference in locals' perception of the world. The Voices of Youth photographic exhibit is currently traveling and the cd has been distributed to radio stations throughout the West. To see photographs and hear sound recordings created by the Voices of Youth interns, visit www.westernfolklife.org/voy. This program was made possible through the support of The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Bretzlaff Foundation.

Ranch Communications

Developing out of the Digital Technologies Workshop at the 2000 Cowboy Poetry Gathering, six women from Elko County's ranching community were selected to take digital audio and photographic equipment, along with I-Macs, back home to use on their family ranches. Over the past six months these women have been guided by instructors Rodger Newbold, Mike Adams, Richard Burton, Hal Cannon, Taki Telonidis, and Teresa Jordan, as they create audio slide shows on various aspects of contemporary ranching. Offered through the generosity of the R. Harold Burton Foundation and Richard Burton, the results of the participants' work were shown at the 2001 Gathering and will soon be edited on video and available on the Internet.

Western Folklife Center Archives

Reflecting the larger mission of the Western Folklife Center, the Archives collects materials in all formats that document traditional lifeways and expressive arts in the Great Basin region and the American West. The Archives is also responsible for documenting the administrative history of the Western Folklife Center including its exhibits and programs. During the past year, combined grant funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Dick Burton Foundation enabled us to begin an audio preservation program for our aging recordings on magnetic tape. Additional support from the Burton Foundation has permitted much needed renovations, expanding both work and storage space for the Archives. Development of the Archives' organizational framework continues, and refinement of in-house databases is making it increasingly easier to locate materials. We greatly appreciate the support that is allowing us to establish a valuable regional repository for users in the West as well as for an international audience via the World Wide Web. For more information please contact the archivist, Steve Green, at 775-738-7508 or email sgreen@westernfolklife.org

Western Folklife Center
Debbie Fant, Meg Glaser, Charlie Seemann, Janette Watts
P.O. Box 888, Elko, NV 89801
(775) 738-7508 fax: (775) 738-2900
dfant@westernfolklife.org
mglaser@westernfolklife.org
cseemann@westernfolklife.org
jwatts@westernfolklife.org

STATES

ALABAMA

Alabama Folklife Program,

Alabama State Council on the Arts

Joey Brackner

Spirit of Steel Workshop

On October 3^rd, 2000, Sloss Furnaces Museum presented a public program for teachers and the general public featuring the ASCA-sponsored book and recording, Spirit of Steel. The program featured presentations by the book's essayists Ray Funk, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Maggie Holtzberg, and Joyce Cauthen. There were musical performances by the Four Eagles gospel quartet, fiddler Jim Cauthen and bluesman Bo McGee. These lectures were recorded and put on our website by Steve Grauberger and can be heard at: www.arts.state.al.us/actc/spirit_program/introduction.htm

The Alabama Folk Heritage Award

Bo McGee will be given this year's Folk Heritage Award on May 5^th at the Governor's Arts Awards in Montgomery. Bo is a talented and well-known blues harmonica player and vocalist from Greene County. He was a partner with Whit Wells in the duo, Big Bo and Little Whit until Mr. Well's retirement. Bo has been very active in the Alabama Blues Project, a blues-in-the-school effort based in Tuscaloosa.

The Alabama Studies Symposium

The Alabama Studies Symposium will be held in Montgomery, Alabama on July 20-21, 2001. This biennial effort is a production of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, ASCA and the Alabama Historical Commission and offers school teachers and the general public presentations of current research about Alabama in Art History, History, Folklore, and Archaeology. This year's keynote speakers will be Dr. David Mathews, former president of the University of Alabama and past head of the U. S. Department of Education, and Dr. Charles Wolfe, a leading authority on Southern music.

Steve Grauberger and I will host about 15 of the teachers for a pre-symposium workshop on integrating traditional southern music into their curriculum. We will use ASCA- produced and ASCA-funded products as texts. The workshop will be held Friday morning in the boardroom of the ASCA offices.

The Rotunda Shape Note Singing

The State's community of Sacred Harp singers led by Jim Carnes, the Alabama Folklife Program, and the State Capitol curators hosted the fourth annual Sacred Harp singing in the Rotunda of the Capitol on February 3, 2001. It is held annually on the Saturday before the first Sunday in February and can accommodate 200-250 singers. The singing celebrates the four shape-note hymnals currently in use in Alabama and complements a similar Montgomery singing held in the summer at Old Alabama Town

New Products

Sweet is the Day, an hour-long documentary about the Wootten family of Sacred Harp singers is now available on VHS and DVD from the Alabama Folklife Association. Jim Carnes and Erin Kellen made the film with support from the NEA, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The film also has an extensive study guide booklet written by John Bealle. Sweet is the Day was supported by both NEA and ASCA grants money. For more information, call Joey Brackner, 334-242-4076, x-225.

"Spirit of Steel": Music of the Mines, Railroads and Mills of the Birmingham District includes essays and a 21 song CD exploring gandy-dancer tunes, fiddle music, blues, labor songs and gospel quartet singing in the context of industrial Birmingham in the early twentieth century. This book and CD is not for sale but will be given to those who join the Sloss Furnace Association. The Alabama Folklife Program, the Alabama Humanities Foundation and the Birmingham Regional Arts Commission supported the project. For more information, contact Sloss Furnaces 205/324-1911 or Joey Brackner 334-242-4076, x-225.

The 2001 issue of Tributaries is available. The Alabama Folklife Association and ASCA jointly publish this annual journal of Alabama folklife research. This issue features two reviews and these three articles: "I'm Not Handy, I Had Mine Made: Christmas Curb Lights as Expression of Individual and Community Aesthetics" by Ann K. Ferrell, "As Long as Time Lasts: Ritual, Alliance, and Cultural Survival in Creek Indian Origin/Migration Narratives" by Larry Ellis, and "Hearts of Steel: The Story of John Catchings, Joe Gelders, and a Ballad by Joyce Cauthen". Tributaries is available from the Alabama Folklife Association for $8. Order from Jackie Ely, Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, 410 North Hull St., Montgomery, AL 36104, 334/242-3601.

Grants

First grant period in FY2001: Folklife Project grants were awarded to: The Alabama Folklife Association ($4500) for support of a documentary book and CD about Judge Jackson and the Colored Sacred Harp, Artemis Media Project ($4000), for a radio production about vernacular music traditions, the Batting Brigade of Florence for a quilt show and accompanying educational materials, and the Poarch Creek Indians ($4000) for support of the annual Pow-Wow celebration, the Southeast Alabama Regional Arts Alliance for support of an African-American shape note television program, and the Sloss Furnace Association in support of an education program related to the Spirit of Steel book and CD.

Second grant period in FY2001: Grants were awarded to: The Alabama Folklife Association ($4500) for support of the Tributaries journal, and Artemis Media Project ($4000), for television production, "Voices from Slavery".

Third grant period in FY2001: Grants were awarded to: the Helen Keller Festival ($3000) of Florence in support of a blues and gospel stage at their festival, Rural Members Association ($5000) in Aliceville for traditional arts workshops for children, the Society of Folk Arts and Culture ($3000) of Eutaw in support of their Folk Roots Festival, and the University of West Alabama ($2500) for an exhibition about Alabama graveyards and associated lore.

Apprenticeship grants for FY2001 include: William Bailey of Poarch for Creek Indian stomp dancing , Calvin Bodiford of Luverne for old time music, Jerry Brown of Hamilton for traditional pottery, Daniel Carwile of Athens for fiddle music, George Connor of Aliceville for blues music, Allen Ham of Marion for traditional pottery, William Ivey of Ider for fiddle music, Floyd Jackson of Demopolis for traditional basket-making, Bo McGhee of Eutaw for blues harmonica, Robert Muse of Florence for banjo music, Lureca Outland of Boligee for quilting, Sudha Raghuram of Montgomery for "Bharatanatyam" Indian dance, Robert Jerry Rogers of Eastaboga for fiddle music, Enoch Sullivan of Saint Stephens for bluegrass gospel music, and Gary Waldrep of Albertville for bluegrass music.

Alabama Folklife Association Web Page: www.alabamafolklife.org will be launched in late spring and will have information about the Alabama Folklife Association (AFA) and its offerings. The AFA produces and distributes documentary products about Alabama folklife. Information about the Alabama Folklife Program and the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture will continue to be available at: www.arts.state.al.us/folklife/

Alabama Folklife Program
Alabama State Council on the Arts
201 Monroe Street
Montgomery, AL 36104-1800
(334) 242-4076, ext. 225
fax: (334) 240-3269
www.arts.state.al.us/folklife/
joey@arts.state.al.us

CALIFORNIA

Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) / Fresno Arts Council

Amy Kitchener

The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) was formed in 1997 by a consortia of traditional artists, administrators and curators at California Arts Council's Asilomar Conference in response to the state's lack of coordinated activities resulting from the seven-year vacuum created when the Traditional Folk Arts Program at the California Arts Council (CAC) was downsized in 1990.

With funding support from NEA, CAC, and FFC, ACTA has engaged in several statewide projects including reinstatement of an apprenticeship program, launching of a website, and conducting surveys and needs assessments with an eye on developing a sustainable infrastructure for a state folk arts program.

Apprenticeship Program

The California Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is funded by the NEA and the CAC. The Fresno Arts Council administers this program. Currently, ACTA is in the middle of the second round of the program and has another proposal before the NEA to extend the program another two years.

The grant of $2500 to pay master artist honoraria, supplies and travel supports a period of intensive learning for individuals who have shown a commitment to, and a talent for, a specific artistic tradition. In the first year of funding, 20 pairs of artists engaged in intensive one-on-one learning. Fifteen pairs are participating in this, the second year of implementation. The masters, selected by panel, reflect a microcosm of California's unique artistic heritage and represent the geographical and ethnic diversity of the state.

The Website (www.actaonline.com)

The website (www.actaonline.org) serves as the primary informational vehicle for ACTA. In keeping with ACTA's mission, the website is designed to support and foster folk and traditional arts activity in California with information about networking possibilities, programming, and funding for folk and traditional artists, arts administrators and researchers. In addition, it attempts to enrich the experience of the visitor to the site with information about the many forms that folk and traditional arts take and about the artists themselves. Articles featuring traditional artists with descriptions of the techniques and intricacies of their art form, announcements of events and presentations, and reports of folk and traditional arts activities around the state all have sections on the website. The website also profiles the grantees of the California Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and NEA National Heritage Fellows of the NEA. It is designed to build, educate and serve a broad traditional arts constituency in the state.

Future plans for the website include the addition of "real audio" and "real video" features. Future recipients of the TAAP program will continue to be listed and profiled on the site, and several artists per year will appear in the "Features" pages. Folk culture specialists working throughout California can submit announcements, articles and reviews of workshops, exhibits, performances, and other related events, as ACTA attempts to network with and engage more members of the folk and traditional arts community in its activities. For the foreseeable future, the website will serve largely as an informational vehicle for ACTA and for publicizing the presentation and performance of traditional and folk arts in California.

Infrastructure Project

In progress is a project to strengthen statewide infrastructure for folk & traditional arts through the 1) compilation and analysis of existing data on the state's folk artists; 2) formulation of a new fieldwork survey plan of action; 3) implementation of new discovery research; and 4) creation of a centralized database of traditional artists; and 5) submission of a detailed report with recommendations that will facilitate the development of future programs and activities in California. Phase II of the infrastructure project includes strategic planning, technical assistance to traditional artists, and further development of internal and external communications.

Funds from FFC also support gatherings of experts and strategic planning to help develop an infrastructure appropriate to the unique situation of California. In the past two years ACTA has coordinated and convened a series of meetings to inform the development of ACTA and a five-year plan for the field in the state. Both artists and administrators have participated in these meetings.

Collaboration with Los Angeles County Arts Commission

To help with the implementation of the infrastructure project, ACTA has contracted with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to complete work on the Los Angeles and Southern California portions of the project. In February, 2001, a search committee selected Lisa Richardson to fill the position of Folk and Traditional Arts Manager at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Her duties for ACTA include new discovery research in Los Angeles, compilation of database, and development of a technical assistance plan for folk and traditional arts that can be applied statewide.

Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) / Fresno Arts Council

Amy Kitchener, Director
1245 Van Ness, Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 237-9813
fax: (559) 237-9734
www.actaonline.org
akitch@telis.org

Los Angeles County Arts

Commission

Lisa Richardson

Folk & Traditional Arts Program Manager

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission is pleased to announce the addition of a new program focusing on Folk and Traditional Arts. The program is being funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for Folk Culture's California Traditional Arts Advancement Program with support from The James Irvine Foundation, and the Alliance for the California Traditional Arts with support from the NEA and the California Arts Council. Our new Folk & Traditional Arts Program Manager is Lisa Richardson. Lisa recently moved back to L.A. after spending 10 years in Louisiana where she did extensive fieldwork in the Cajun and Creole communities, was associate producer of Nick Spitzer's radio program "American Routes," music director for public radio station KRVS, V.P. of programming for Festival International, and grant writer for the Performing Arts Society. She received a BM in piano performance from Oberlin Conservatory, and an MA in ethnomusicology from UCLA. Her master's thesis was on the rare tradition of female French ballad singers in South Louisiana. She produced a compilation recording featuring these singers that will be released this year. With Terry Liu, she produced the radio series "Sound Traditions," profiles of traditional musicians in Los Angeles. She will be working with the most diverse community in the nation here in L.A., coordinating and developing activities throughout the county, and acting as a resource for artists and organizations. You can reach Lisa at lrichardson@bos.co.la.ca.us.

Los Angeles County Arts Commission
Lisa Richardson, Folk & Traditional Arts Program Manager
500 W. Temple St., Room 374
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 974-1343
lrichardson@bos.co.la.ca.us

CONNECTICUT

Connecticut Institute for Community Research (ICR), Hartford Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program

Lynne Williamson

Since the Fall 2000 report our work here has concentrated on three projects, with another one quietly continuing behind the scenes.

Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

The Rhode Island/Connecticut joint apprenticeship initiative has expanded to include Massachusetts this year (and next). Eight master artist/apprentice pairs are currently working together, with a number of new groups represented. Here's the list, with the master artist name in bold:

Somaly Hay (CT)/Linda and Tath Heng (RI) - Cambodian court dance

Ksenia Pokrovsky (MA)/Marek Czarnecki - Byzantine iconography

Joao Monteiro (RI)/Raquel Figueiredo (CT) - Cape Verdean dance

Seija Floderus (RI)/Anita Smiley (CT) - Finnish weaving

William Streeter (MA)/Kathy Parulski (CT) - Traditional bookbinding

William Cumpiano (MA)/Graciela Quinones (CT) - Puerto Rican instrument making

Raouf Mama (CT)/Abigail Jefferson (RI) - West African storytelling

Raimundo Neves (RI)/Joao dos Santos (CT) - Portuguese accordion playing.

The Finnish American Historical Society in eastern Connecticut has already found two more looms to add to its equipment, and the weaving classes have inspired some older weavers to come forward. A success story from one of last year's apprenticeships: Peter Xiong of Connecticut's Hmong community was able to participate in his cousin's wedding, after learning some of the wedding ceremony songs from Rhode Island master Pa Koua Vang.

Polonia w Connecticut: Polish American Traditional Arts

We partnered with the Polish Studies Department of Central Connecticut State University to explore the cultural heritage and artistic expressions of Polish Americans in Connecticut. After several months spent interviewing members of Polish communities to learn more about their practice of traditions, the project team collected art works and objects either made or used by Polish Americans in Connecticut. Our exhibit opened to the public on December 7, 2000 with a celebration featuring food from Hartford's Polish National Home as well as music presentations by Gorale singer Wladyslaw Furtak from Ansonia, the Gwiazdeczki Dancers from Ss. Cyril and Methodius School, and the Greater Hartford Polish Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. The Institute for Community Research is situated in the area of Hartford's original Polish settlement; from my office window I can see the spire of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Church and Groton Street, where the church school is located. The Church, along with the Polish National Home across the street, are important centers of community activity and draw visitors from all over the state and region. These institutions, their members, and Polish Americans living nearby are our neighbors, and we wanted to open our gallery to their cultural expressions. We've had more visitors - from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey as well as local - than for any other exhibit here.

The results of our project show that Polish customs and traditions survive to a surprising extent in Connecticut's Polonia. Sometimes in the course of research into historical and anthropological texts we would read that this tradition has died out in America, that custom is no longer part of Polish American life, or that second and third generations have abandoned most practices beyond having children perform folk dances at occasional festivals. These statements certainly underestimate the degree to which people retain traditions in many instances and settings in Connecticut.

Hidden Treasures: Works by Connecticut Folk and Traditional Artists

The Connecticut Commission on the Arts invited me to curate an exhibit on folk art in their glass-walled gallery on the ground floor of the United Technologies Building on Main Street in Hartford. This highly visible location provided a terrific opportunity to showcase traditional artists whose work is rarely seen. I included twenty-seven artists from a wide variety of ethnicities, media, and occupations, and could have added many more. This was our answer to George Will, as the beauty and excellence of these pieces was stunningly obvious. Office workers and people passing on the street were enticed into the gallery by the color, the warmth, and the unusual nature of the art. While we were setting up two people came in excited by Laura Hudson's vibrant quilt, telling me how their grandmothers made quilts like that, and wondering how they could learn to do it. Apprenticeship candidates, I thought, and gave them Laura's number. Visitors were also intrigued by two mannequins, one in Hmong ceremonial clothes and the other in a Cambodian court dance costume. But beyond exoticism, the exhibit brought forth the presence of many groups and traditions here, and showed how artists can be involved both in the making of art and the life of their communities. I will abandon all modesty and relate that many people - including Commission staff - considered this the best exhibit ever in their gallery. It has really helped to raise the profile of our program.

After school Programs in Traditional Arts in the Lao, Hmong, and Cambodian Communities

Since October this NEA Creative Links-funded initiative has provided both new and continuation programs to these groups. Classes meet almost weekly in the three highly-dedicated communities. One good result is a new coordination among the groups: the teaching artists will all perform at Lao New Year in New Britain, to be held on April 15. Later in the spring we will host a roundtable discussion to assess the results of the classes and find ways to continue them. The Greater Hartford Arts Council also awarded a small grant for this project.

CT Cultural Heritage Arts Program
Connecticut Institute for Community Research
Lynne Williamson
2 Hartford Square West, Suite 100
Hartford, CT 06106-5128
(860) 278-2044 x 251
fax: (860) 278-2141
icrone@ursa.hartnet.org

GEORGIA

Southern Georgia Folklife Project, Valdosta State University

Laurie Sommers, Director

The South Georgia Folklife Project is in the middle of its third year with NEA Infrastructure Funding, with funding secured at least through August of 2002. I am attempting to secure more permanent funding through proposing an expansion of the Folklife Project into a Wiregrass Heritage Center based at Valdosta State University. This is one of the special initiative funding requests that has been sent to the Board of Regents by the VSU administration.

Since the last posting, the major SGFP activities have included the following:

• Creation of a South Georgia Folklife Project web site. Check it out at http://www.valdosta.edu.music/SGFP
• Collaboration with the Florida Folk Festival on Okefenokee tradition bearers as part of the 2000 festival's folklife area with its theme of traditions of wetlands
• Collaboration with the English Department on the Georgia Humanities Council-funded mini-conference "Understanding Place," held at VSU in October 2000.
• Collaboration with African American Studies on their 2001 Lecture Series at VSU, which featured a performance by the Freedom Singers of the historic Mt. Zion Civil Rights Museum in Albany, Georgia. The group is led by Bertha Harris, one of the original Freedom Singers, who still lives and works in Albany.
• The Folklife of the Georgia Wiregrass exhibition has just opened in Waycross, Georgia, with three additional stops scheduled in South Georgia. Major funding has come from the Georgia Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibit consists of 30 panels of photos and text which interpret the traditional agricultural, religious, and community life of the Wiregrass region of South Georgia (1960s-present), highlighting local customs such as cane grinding, tobacco auctions, country stores, quilting, gospel music and singing conventions, fish camps, and quail hunting."Folklife of the Georgia Wiregrass" is based on two surveys of South Georgia folklife: the first in 1977 by a team from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in collaboration with the Arts Experiment Station in Tifton, and the second since 1996 by the South Georgia Folklife Project at Valdosta State University. In the late 1980s, the Georgia Folklife Program and the Arts Experiment Station of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College created an exhibit of 24 black and white photo-text panels with images from the 1977 survey, curated by Tom Rankin. The current exhibit uses selected panels from this earlier exhibition, in combination with new panels of more recent black and white photos and color images, to share a visual perspective on continuity and change in Georgia Wiregrass traditions.
• The Okefenokee Heritage Center, in collaboration with the Hoboken sacred harp singing community and the South Georgia Folklife Project received $5885 from the Georgia Folklife Program to develop an interpretive exhibition on the unique sacred harp traditions of Southeast Georgia. The exhibition, titled "Let Us Sing," will feature six photo text panels, accompanying video, and a gallery guide/activity sheet for educators. Exhibit co-curators will be folklorist Dr. Laurie Sommers and sacred harp singer and community scholar Mr. David I. Lee. The exhibit will feature a description of sacred harp; its historical development with emphasis on southeast Georgia; the role and importance of singing schools; singing as a way of life, focusing on the religious, family and community aspects of the tradition; and continuity and change in the "Hoboken" style. The exhibit will be designed for travel and will have its permanent home at the Okefenokee Heritage Center. The formal opening will take place at the OHC on June 15 and will feature local sacred harp singing.
• Connecting Homes, Schools, and Communities: A Collaborative Teacher Enrichment Project Using Folklife and Writing (nicknamed Folkwriting by the project team) grew out of a folklore unit at the South Georgia Writing Project invitational summer institute in July, 2000. Funded by the Georgia Humanities Council, this is a collaboration between the South Georgia Writing Project, the South Georgia Folklife Project (both housed at Valdosta State University), and the Cook County Public School System to enhance writing skills across levels using folklife as the subject matter. The project will create a teacher-tested, self-contained teaching unit, in workbook format with web-based technology links, which will be piloted in Cook County during Fall term 2001. The workbook will be developed for elementary, middle school, and high school levels and will serve as a model for a multi-genre folklife writing curriculum, especially designed for Georgia educators, which links the school with community folklife and a sense of place. Student work will be published on the web and in spiral-bound format, and hard copies will be housed at the respective school libraries, the Cook County Public Library, and the South Georgia Folklife Project/VSU Odum Library resource center (currently under development). At the end of the grant period, participating students in Cook County will plan and present a special event for the community that showcases their work.

South Georgia Folklife Project,
Valdosta State University
Laurie Sommers, Director
1306 University Center
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31689
229-293-6310
FAX 229-293-6387
e-mail: lsommers@valdosta.edu

KENTUCKY

Kentucky Folklife Program

Bob Gates, Brent Bjorkman, Joyce Miller

Being hard-pressed for time last fall during the festival, our submission to the PP Newsletter became postponed. Quite a bit has happened over the past year. The following is a brief overview of the most pertinent and exciting folklife programs recently produced and currently underway in Kentucky.

The Kentucky Folklife Festival 2000

The 4^rd annual Kentucky Folklife Festival took place September 28^th, 29^th, and 30^th on the grounds of the Old State Capitol in Frankfort. This educational outreach program drew nearly 28,000 visitors (including nearly 10,000 students and teachers). In addition to daily folklife demonstrations and performances, three special evening concerts served to highlight the final year of our festival themes, urban folklife of Louisville and folklife of Highway 23. The concerts included a night of Kentucky string performers on Thursday, a night of rhythm and blues from Louisville on Friday evening and a glimpse of performers from the mountain region along Highway 23 or the "Country Music Highway" on Saturday. Highlighting this final night were bluegrass musician Don Rigsby and singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall.

Friday's concert also began with the presentation of the Kentucky Folklife Program's annual Sarah Gertrude Knott Award to James Holloman, founder and leader of the gospel group the Mighty Gospel Harmonizers from Lexington. This award is presented annually to an individual folk artist or musician whose life's work celebrates the living cultural traditions of the commonwealth.

Community / Educational Outreach

The Kentucky Folklife Program is working continually to involve more communities in documenting and presenting their own local traditional cultures. Below are a number of programs designed to foster and encourage the conservation of Kentucky's traditions.

Grant Distribution 2000-2001

With the support of the Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Folklife Program is in the process of awarding more than $47,000 in Folk Art Grants in fiscal year 2001. Included are 16 Folk Arts Project Grants, 5 Tour of Kentucky Folk Music Grants, and 2 Apprenticeship Awards.

Community Scholars Program

The newly developed Community Scholars Program trains individuals to conduct a cultural resource inventory or survey of their community. In October 2000, the KFP helped to organized the first of a series of Community Scholars workshops for individuals living in the Appalachian Heritage Highways region. Individual sessions led by KFP staff members focused on topics such as conducting oral interviews, photographing artists and their work, organizing information in computer databases, and developing community arts programming. The most recent workshop session in Leslie County paired Community Scholar participants with teachers to use family folklore as a vehicle to present folklife to their students. By identifying and documenting their community's unique blend of traditional art forms, these program participants have begun to lay the groundwork for enhanced cultural planning and economic development throughout their region.

The Highway 23 Driving Tour

Since 1998, the KFP has had a hand in documenting the folklife of eastern Kentucky's Highway 23, officially designated "Country Music Highway." A two-year cultural survey of the region identified distinctive traditions and art forms ranging from woodcarving to square dancing to fiddle playing. Now much of these surveys are being used to created a driving tour of the region.

In conjunction with the KAC's Community Arts Program and the Kentucky Department of Travel's Cultural Heritage Tourism Program, the KFP applied for and received a T-21 Transportation Enhancement Grant. These funds will be used to develop a series of audio programs and detailed map enabling tourists to listen to information about the region's traditional and historical sites as they explore three distinct driving loops connected to the Highway 23 area. Folklorists from the KFP, along with Kentucky Arts Council regional reps known as Circuit Riders and local historians, have been collaborating over the last few months to identify local resources to be highlighted for this project. Folklorist Jens Lund of Washington has also been consulting with us on this project.

The Market 2000 March 1-4, 2000

This major annual sales event of the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program, our sister agency within the Kentucky Arts Council, featured arts, crafts, media, and food products created in the commonwealth. Aside from showcasing several traditional artists on the Market 2000's cultural stage The Kentucky Folklife Program took part in a special sales component that benefitted several individual traditional artists. Within the booth entitled The Marketplace, space was arranged to act as a showplace for Kentucky writers, film makers, musicians, and storytellers to sell their publications and recordings. Included here was the works of several traditional artists who made available sampling of CDS and cassettes to both a wholesale and retail crowd.

Governor's Awards in the Arts - Folk Heritage Award

Since 1987, the Governor's Awards in the Arts have paid tribute to outstanding individuals and organizations within the state's artistic community. This year a new Folk Heritage Award was created to honor a particular individual who has made an outstanding effort to perpetuate and promote Kentucky's unique artistic traditions. This year's first Folk Heritage Award went to Western Kentucky Thumbpicker Eddie Pennington. Not only is Pennington a renowned musician (winning the national thumbpicking championship in 1986 and 1987) he remains one of the most vocal proponents of the genre and teaches a host of young players. He has also been an instrumental force in the creation of the Thumbpicker's Hall of Fame in Drakesboro, Kentucky.

The Kentucky Folklife Festival 2001- The Year Ahead

Plans for this September's Kentucky Folklife Festival are already well underway. As in previous years, the festival will feature one of the state's unique cultural regions; this year that region is Highway 31. Also known as Dixie Highway, Highway 31 extends from Louisville through Elizabethtown and Bowling Green and down into Tennessee. We are currently working with graduate students in the Western Kentucky University's Folk Studies Program who are taking a major role in assisting with the development of this theme and its components. Areas being focused on as part of class assignments include documentation of the basket making tradition from the Mammoth Cave area and African-American folklife and music from Bowling Green/Warren County.

Kentucky Folklife Program
Bob Gates, Director
Brent Bjorkman, Joyce Miller
323 Shelby Street, Frankfort, KY 40601
(502) 564-1792
fax: (502) 564-0475
bob.gates@mail.state.ky.us
brent.bjorkman@mail.state.ky.us
joycea.miller@mail.state.ky.us

MASSACHUSETTS

Folk Arts & Heritage Program

Massachusetts Cultural Council

Maggie Holtzberg

Artist Grants:

A new traditional arts category has been added to the Artists Grant Fellowship Program at the MCC, which provides direct support to artists in recognition of exceptional work. We received 26 applications during the first round. They will be reviewed at an April 10 panel meeting. Two fellowships will be awarded at $12,500 and two finalists will be awarded at $1,000. We will introduce a traditional arts apprenticeship program in the summer of 2001.

Tri-State Apprenticeship Program:

This folk and traditional arts apprenticeship program, funded by the NEA, provides small grants to enable masters and apprentices to travel and teach across state lines in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The grant is currently funding two Massachusetts master artists (a Russian Orthodox iconographer and a Puerto Rican cuatro maker) to work with out of state apprentices.

Visibility:

Our partnership with WBUR radio continues. Maggie is now a monthly guest on WBUR's noontime show Here & Now. The program provides a forum to share examples of traditional arts and heritage we are documenting throughout the state. Not only does the show bring in new leads and contacts, it also puts us on the radar of increasingly diverse audiences. WBUR also posts photographs from our fieldwork on their website and provides links to each of the New England state folk arts programs.

Fieldwork:

Recent fieldwork has included documentation of a Russian iconographer, the 400 year old traditional of English change ringing, the Lunar Chinese New Year's Celebration, a Chinese guzheng player, a Yoruba weaver, Lebanese traditional musicians, goose hunting and decoy carving, a steel pan maker, Tibetan Thanga painters, Native quill work, and Madeiran folk music. Helping staff this year are a number of contract fieldworkers: Tom Carroll, Kathy Neustadt, Eleanor Wachs, Jessie Payne, Kathy Condon, Laura Orleans, Kate Kruckemeyer and Patty Thomas. In the two years time since a folk program was re-established at the MCC, we have accumulated:

• A list of 344 individuals, groups and community/ethnic organizations have been identified and 163 of these contacts have been documented.
• Traditional Arts Archive holdings include 2,260 slides, 595 negatives, and 93 tapes.
• Information on individual artists has been entered into a searchable folk database.

Next Steps:

Our goals for the future include:

• launching a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program;

• increasing accessibility to folk arts resources via web content development and other mechanisms;

• continuing to implement ongoing fieldwork efforts with a stable of fieldworkers and photographers;

• developing traveling exhibit of work in the traditional arts featuring some of the grant recipients;

• expanding our presence on public radio programs to include features.

Massachusetts Cultural Council

Maggie Holtzberg, Program Manager, Folk Arts and Heritage
10 St. James Avenue, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA 02116-3808
(617) 727-3668 ext. 254 fax: (617) 727-0044
www.massculturalcouncil.org
maggie.holtzberg@art.state.us.ma

MICHIGAN

Michigan Traditional Arts Program

MSU Museum

LuAnne Kozma, Assistant Curator of Folk Arts/4-H Extension Specialist

Here's an update on some of our current projects:

National Folk Festival

Come join us on August 10, 11, and 12, 2001 at the 63rd National Folk Festival in downtown East Lansing. This is our third and final year co-sponsoring the event with NCTA and City of East Lansing (where has the time gone?). We're looking forward to another amazing weekend celebrating and presenting these awesome artists with an appreciative audience! At this time of year we are busy putting together the program, fundraising, and marketing the festival. Musical artists booked to date are Doc Watson, Barachois, Cherish the Ladies, Shemekia Copeland, Geno Delafose, and Joaquin Diaz. We again will have a food court with vendors serving traditional foods and a foodways demonstration stage with traditional cooks. Also planned are a traditional games tent, a traditional arts demonstration stage, a children's area and stage, a Great Lakes Great Quilts tent, and the Folk Arts Marketplace. Check out the festival website at www.nff.net for more details.

The Folk Arts Marketplace will feature approximately 40 traditional artists in media such as wood, fibers, metals, paper, and other crafts linked to community and family traditions. In addition to selling their work, artists will have opportunities to teach their skills in crafts workshops scheduled before the festival. If you know any artists who might be interested in participating in this event, please contact Sarah Stollak at (517) 432-5123, or stollaks@msu.edu. We hope to see many of you there! For more information contact us at (517) 355-0368.

Michigan Heritage Awards and Apprenticeship Program 2001

Each January the Michigan Traditional Arts Program makes awards to exceptional folk artists through two programs, the Michigan Heritage Awards, and the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. Heritage awards are given in several categories: material culture, performance, and community scholars.

The 2001 Michigan Heritage Award winners are: Oren & Toni Tikkanen, Alpha, promoters and supporters of traditional Finnish American culture; Restore Douglass, Big Rapids, fiddle player; Glen VanAntwerp, Tustin, cedar fan carver; and a posthumous award to dance ethnologist Gertrude Kurath, formerly of Ann Arbor, for her contributions to our knowledge of and the preservation of Woodland Indian dance & culture. These individuals will be honored at a ceremony at the National Folk Festival in August 2001 in East Lansing. Applicants to the apprenticeship program apply as master/apprentice teams. The following master artists and their chosen apprentices were selected for the 2001 Michigan Traditional Arts

Apprenticeship Program:

• Frank Ettawageshik, East Lansing, Joseph Ettawageshik, Traverse City, woodland Indian pottery
• Ralph Mannisto, Northville, Roger Hewlett, Livonia, Finnish accordion folk music
• Katherine E. Mullins-Engelhardt, Mikado, Donna Whiton, Adrian, With of Duchesse Bobbin lace
• Lorri Oikarinen, Cynthia Miller, Calumet, braided rag rugs
• John B. Perona, Calumet, Randy Seppala, Watton, rhythm bones
• Adell Raisanen, Hartland, Jeanne Reeves-Lau, Canton, rag rug weaving
• Patricia Shackleton, Haslett, Jim Anderson, Gladwin, birch bark cutouts
• Julie Sullivan, Eaton Rapids, Jennifer Lantrip, Lansing, braided rugs
• Jacquie Vaughan, Rhoshanda Donald, Lansing, Afro-centric textiles
• Lula Williams, Bertha L. Roberts, Detroit, Louella Thornton, Highland Park, quilting

This program is supported through our partnership grant with Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. For more information about either program contact Yvonne Lockwood at 517-353-9678.

Carriers of Culture Exhibition

The planning for "Carriers of Culture: Contemporary Native Basket Traditions," a national exhibition of contemporary North American Indian and Native Hawaiian basketry continues to gather momentum. Michigan State University Museum, working in collaboration with the California Indian Basketweavers' Association, recently held two planning meetings. The meetings, convened at the Heard Museum during the December, 2000 Tohono O'odham Basketmakers Association meeting and in conjunction with the mid-January 2001 opening of the "To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions" exhibition, brought together selected weavers, representatives of regional and tribal basketweavers across the country, folklorists and other cultural specialists who have worked with weavers, and curators from both the Heard Museum and the MSU Museum to determine the scope of the exhibit, design ideas, and principles to guide the selection of weavers and their work. Both meetings were highly productive and provided solid outlines for the next stages of exhibition planning and production.

Heritage of Baskets Project

MTAP has joined with the over 2000-member Association of Michigan Basketmakers (AMB) in a "Heritage of Baskets Project." Begun by the AMB in 1995, the project seeks to document, preserve, and present the basketry heritage of the state. MTAP staff led an oral history workshop for AMB members who have begun interviewing key members of their 20-year old organization. In addition, AMB has been collecting historical documents related to the founding of their organization as well as documents associated with each of their yearly conferences. Lastly, to form a basket study collection, AMB has commissioned baskets and solicited donations of baskets from individuals who have been key teachers within their organization. The first set of 40 baskets, representing very traditional to very progressive forms, was recently donated to the MSU Museum along with funds to acquire state-of-the-art storage units in which to house them. The project is financially supported by AMB members and a grant from Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. The MSU Museum provides in-kind support.

Michigan Barn and Farmstead Survey Begins

Volunteers have begun surveying the vernacular architecture of Michigan's barns through the Michigan Barn and Farmstead Survey. The Michigan 4-H Foundation received a $8,250 grant from the Michigan Humanities Council to train surveyors and computerize the survey results. An additional $4,000 from Foundation donors will fund start-up kits to 4-H youth groups who register to survey an entire county. Survey teams are registered in eight of Michigan's 83 counties this year. MSU Museum and the Michigan Barn Preservation Network are collaborating partners in the multi-year survey project. LuAnne Kozma coordinates the program; for more information, contact 517-353-5526 or kozma@msu.edu.

Michigan 4-H History Project

MTAP and Michigan 4-H Youth Development are collaborating with Michigan 4-H Foundation to begin a Michigan 4-H History Project to coincide with the national centennial of the 4-H Youth Program in 2002. Planned are an exhibition of Michigan's 4-H history, an oral history project for youth to document 4-H history in their own communities, and the building of an historical collection of 4-H artifacts at the MSU Museum. A $21,000 cultural projects grant from Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs supports the project. For more information contact LuAnne Kozma.

Michigan Traditional Arts Program
Michigan State University Museum
LuAnne Gaykowski Kozma, Assistant Curator of Folk Arts/4-H Extension Specialist
East Lansing, Michigan 48824
(517) 353-5526
fax: 517-353-0676
www.museum.msu.edu/museum/esp/mtap/mtap.html
kozma@pilot.msu.edu

MISSISSIPPI

Pine Hills Culture Program

Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, The University of Southern Mississippi

Carolyn Ware

The Pine Hills Culture Program is almost five years old now and seems firmly established here at the university, which makes all of us at the Center happy. One of our most popular public programs has been Roots Reunion, a concert and live radio show we produce (with lots of help from a community-based programming committee) twice a year at the Walthall Center in downtown Hattiesburg. The show is meant as a kind of sampler of different music traditions in the region. Each two-hour show will typically feature a range of styles such as blues (acoustic or electric guitar or piano), bluegrass, gospel, and old-time fiddling. Almost all of the musicians are from south Mississippi or, occasionally, nearby Louisiana. The show is free and is broadcast live on WUSM-FM, the radio station based on campus. Next week (March 31^st) is the fourth Roots Reunion since the show was established in November 1999. It's been gratifying to see how quickly the show has built an audience; usually we have a capacity crowd of almost 250 historic neighborhood residents, university students and faculty members, bluegrass and blues festival regulars, and others. The Mississippi Arts Commission has been very generous in its support of the show, as has the university. Several local businesses have also helped sponsor the show.

Another new project that kept me busy last summer and fall was writing and then taping a series of short radio programs titled Passing It On: Piney Woods Folklife. The series consisted of sixteen programs, each four and a half minutes long, based around excerpts of folklife interviews in the Pine Hills Culture Program's archives. We covered topics such as folk medicine and beliefs, fiddle music, ethnic identity, ox team driving, shape note singing conventions, hog killing time, Juneteenth, revival, and Piney Woods blues musicians. Most of the field interviews I used were from the Piney Woods Regional Folklife Survey (1997-1999) and our earlier community scholars field school in the summer of 1996. The shows were broadcast statewide on Public Radio in Mississippi, and I've been amazed at how much attention they've brought to the program and to Piney Woods folklife. Soon PRM will broadcast a new series on Mississippi folk artists by Larry Morrisey.

At the end of June, I'll be leaving my position here to teach folklore at Louisiana State University. I'll miss my colleagues here and in other parts of Mississippi, but I'm very pleased that the University of Southern Mississippi appears genuinely committed--despite budgets cuts for state universities here--to continuing funding for the position and the Pine Hills Culture Program in general. The administration seems to realize that the kinds of things the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage does are important forms of community outreach and that we have something worthwhile to offer the university. So I look forward to hearing about the program's growth and many accomplishments over the coming years.

Pine Hills Culture Program
Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage
Carolyn Ware
The University of Southern Mississippi
Box 5175, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39406-5175
phone/fax: (601) 266-6357
carolyn.ware@usm.edu