Hey gang:

Here is one more place to reference the AWSF Annual Meeting agenda for 2009 in Port Townsend.

Cheers!

- Ross Fuqua

A round of congratulations to our good friend Christina Barr! Read the official press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: James Frey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, (702) 595-9409
Email: frey@unlv.nevada.edu
Website: http://www.nevadahumanities.org

CHRISTINA BARR APPOINTED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NEVADA HUMANITIES

Reno, Nev., Jan. 8, 2009 – Christina Barr, program outreach coordinator at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nev., has been named executive director of Nevada Humanities. Barr previously served as folklife program associate for the Nevada Arts Council in Las Vegas. She will assume her new duties Jan. 15, 2009, taking over from executive director, Judith Winzeler, who is retiring after 24 years at the helm of the organization.

“We are extraordinarily pleased that Christina will join us as executive director,” said Jim Frey, chair of the Nevada Humanities board of trustees. “She brings a strong record of leadership and demonstrates a particularly strong understanding of programming, fundraising and nonprofit administration. We had a very strong pool of candidates, but Christina stood out.”

The Nevada Humanities board of trustees will be honoring Winzeler’s impressive service by reinstituting an annual award and naming it the Winzeler Humanities Award, to be given each year to people and organizations making significant contributions to the support and understanding of the humanities in Nevada. “Judy is the person who has certainly done the most to meet the standards of excellence associated with the award,” said Frey.

“Nevada Humanities is positioned to move to the next level,” said Christina Barr. “I am impressed by the organization’s strategic plan and the new directions in which we are moving. The staff is outstanding. They are devoted to the cultural life of the state, and they want Nevada Humanities to have a positive impact on the lives of Nevadans.”

During her years at the Western Folklife Center, Barr undertook research projects around the West on topics ranging from contemporary Latino culture in Nevada and the Pacific Northwest, to creating social networks through community foodways. These projects encouraged thoughtful engagement of issues important to the region such as the use of natural resources, immigration, rapid change and sense of place. At the heart of Barr’s work has been a strong desire to bring people together to encourage creative expression, strengthen community and invigorate the region’s cultural wealth.

In addition to her work with the Western Folklife Center, Barr has regularly consulted with agencies and organizations around the country. “I have assisted on traditional arts programs, grant review panels and evaluations,” Barr said. “I am currently the chair of the Public Programs Section of the American Folklore Society representing colleagues around the world as we share ideas and research, and develop new initiatives.”

Christina Barr likes to quote author Wallace Stegner who wrote “no place is a place until it has had a poet.” She believes this is especially true of Nevada where poetry has articulated important shared truths and contributed to the state’s sense of identity. “This is the power of the humanities,” Barr said, “to embrace, interpret, reveal and preserve our important cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. I have worked in Nevada’s cities and isolated rural counties, and I’ve met Nevadans from all walks of life, of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, with different beliefs, hopes, and fears.”

Barr holds a master’s in folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. She has also worked as a folklorist for the Nevada Arts Council and the Vermont Folklife Center.

For more information about Nevada Humanities, call (775) 784-6587 or 1-800-382-5023 in northern Nevada; or (702) 895-1878 in southern Nevada. Visit http://www.nevadahumanities.org .

Hey all aspiring folklorists and community scholars,

AWSF is pleased once again to announce that the 2009 Bea Roeder Fund the Future of Public Folklore in the West is now accepting scholarship applications from folklore students, recent folklore grads, and community scholars to attend our annual meeting in Port Townsend, Washington, April 4-9, 2009.  Go to our “Scholarship” page to find out more.

Hello, all— I ran across this blog posting the other day, and am thinking it has relevance to public sector folklore in several ways:

http://posterityproject.blogspot.com/2008/09/civil-rights-history-project-act-passes.html

Beyond the immediate importance of our fearless leaders in Congress acknowledging that not everyone’s history/heritage/traditions are equitably represented in the mainstream public record, this posting (and the blog it’s on) intersects with attention being paid to archives in general, and folklore archives in particular. The Ethnographic Archives Initiative—a project proposed through AFS, and currently seeking NEH funding—promises to be an exciting effort to coordinate archival preservation and access within and beyond the folklore domain. In brief, the EAI is “a long-term effort 1) to create field-wide best practices and infrastructure for access to the multi-format ethnographic collections maintained by academic programs, nonprofit educational organizations, and state arts and humanities council programs in the field of folklore across the US; and, based on those best practices and infrastructure, 2) to preserve, catalog, and provide integrated digital access to the ethnographic collections of these programs and institutions” (cribbed from the proposal via an email Tim Lloyd recently sent out to folks involved in archives).

A final thought on archives/heritage collections that I had while riding to work this morning: maybe we could have something related to this on the program for the April meeting?

John

Well, I have not made good on my promise to update our news twice a month, and so because of upcoming time constraints this will probably be my last attempt for a while. I encourage everyone in our community to post news of your own work or to keep us informed of interesting folklife happenings within your agencies and regions.

• Nick Spitzer, host of American Public Media’s “American Routes” and Louisiana’s first state folklorist, has been appointed to the faculty of Tulane University in New Orleans.
• UNC-Chapel Hill has been awarded two big grants from the NEH and the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve 2350 hours of recorded media within the Southern Folklife Collection.
• The annual Trailing of the Sheep festival is happening October 10-12, 2008, in Ketchum, Idaho. Read a bit about it here or at www.westernfolklife.org.
• Jason Baird Jackson drew my attention to some great documentary film work Jon Kay and Traditional Arts Indiana have been producing, along with the new TAI companion website.
• Australian researchers are following up on some work on children’s games and folklore conducted by an American folklorist Dorothy Howard in the 1950s. Interesting article.
• Maggie Holtzberg’s exhibition, “Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage in Massachusetts,” was recently named a “Critics’ Pick” by the Boston Globe.
• Drag City Records, one of my favorite labels, will be posthumously releasing an album of music November 18 by National Heritage Fellow Nimrod Workman, called “I Want To Go Where Things Are Beautiful.” The recordings will be drawn from Mike Seeger’s fieldwork with Mr. Workman in 1982. Read a bit more here.

Well, I haven’t been as committed to updating our news each week as I initially promised, but I can say that I’ve been enjoying my summer thoroughly. Hope you all are, too. Some of these items have already taken place, but here are some tidbits:

• Alabama folklorist Joyce Cauthen presented a foodways discussion on traditions surrounding the kitchen on July 17 at the Ozark-Dale County Public Library. Folklorists and public libraries — a great combination!
• A real estate company sponsored the Historic Cold Spring Village’s annual Foodways and Folklife Festival on July 19 & 20 in Cape May, NJ. Interesting….
• The Newfoundland & Labrador Independent had an interesting article about the Newfoundland folk-rock group Figgy Duff and their legacy of interpreting traditional music of the province.
• The Somerville (MA) Arts Council held a celebration of Brazilian and Portuguese culture last week, July 23, in Somerville, as a capstone event to recognize the fieldwork of Andrea Allen that aimed at identifying the needs of these and other immigrant communities.
• Following in the Library of Congress’ footsteps, the Smithsonian Institution has begun using Flickr as a means of sharing photographic collections online. I think these emerging partnerships between Flickr and cultural heritage institutions are truly exciting (I am also currently reading Bill Ivey’s new book, Arts, Inc., which has a lot to say about safeguarding public access to these cultural resources), and I promise to devote a post specifically on this topic later this summer, but for now, here is a quick story about the initiative featuring Richard Kurin of the SI’s Center for Folklife & Culture Heritage.
• Joanne Raetz Stuttgen has produced a book about regional mom-and-pop restuarants titled “Cafe Indiana: A Guide to Indiana’s Down-Home Cafes.” I haven’t seen it yet myself, but it sounds like it could be a potential model for other regions. Read a review here.
• Our own Troid Geist of the North Dakota Council of the Arts was quoted in a piece by the Miami Herald concerning the Coucil’s “Art for Life” program – part of a two-year study examining seniors and creativity.
  
• Poetry for the Plains, a benefit for the Northern Plains Resource Council, takes place this Sunday, August 2 in Joliet, Montana, and will feature National Cowboy Poetry Gathering regulars Wallace McRae and Stephanie Davis.
• Finally, congratulations to Sally Haueter Rampe for giving birth to Roxanna Ruth Rampe on July 19!!!
  

The Seldom Scene perform at the Original Stage of the National Folk Festival in Butte, Montana

A stellar lineup of world-class performers, wonderful Montana Native American artists, a large and appreciative crowd, perfect weather, and a very hard-working team of Butte locals made for a fabulous 70th National Folk Festival this past weekend, the first event in a three-year run for Butte.

Assiniboine star quilter Annette Linder and her daughters demonstrated at the festival

The main stage was located directly under the headframe of the Original Mine, with a grassy hillside for seating and a gorgeous view over town, especially at sunset. I’m not sure the photos fully capture how extremely cool an arrangement it was. There were six other stages scattered around Uptown Butte, which made for a bit of walking and some brief strenuous uphill hikes, but festival-goers were game and cheerful about it.

The Original Stage

A group of Salish artists presented on the Montana Traditions Stage

Western folklorists in attendance as presenters, staff, and busmans-holidayers included Alex Swaney, Nicholas Vrooman, Jens Lund, Debbie Fant, Meg Glaser, Christina Barr, Liz Dear, Charlie Seemann, Darcy Minter, Maria Carmen Gambliel, and Andrea Graham. Nick Spitzer, Barry Bergey, and  Jon Lohman also ventured west to join in the festivities.

Andrea Graham, Meg Glaser, Debbie Fant, Christina Barr and Liz Dear backstage at the Wylie and the Wild West concert Friday night (photo by Charlie Seemann)

Check out www.mtstandard.com and click on the “slide shows” or “videos” tabs for scenes from the event from Butte’s daily paper, The Montana Standard. And go to www.nationalfolkfestival.com to see the lineup of artists. The main stage was broadcast live on Montana Public Radio, but I couldn’t find an archive link on their web site.

Next year’s festival is set for July 10-12—I highly recommend you get there if you can.

–Andrea Graham

Yellowstone Public Radio will be streaming live from the National Folk Festival in Butte this weekend, July 11-13. The radio broadcasts will be hosted by Montana Public Radio’s Michael Marsolek and folklorist Nick Spitzer! For a schedule and streaming info, click here.

Some bits and pieces for this week (photo of Texas Johnny Brown performing by Elvert Barnes @ http://www.flickr.com/people/perspective/):

• The
  42nd Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall has officially
  come to an end. If you’re of the sad sort like myself who didn’t get
  to go, I suggest going to either Flickr.com or YouTube.com and doing a search of “Smithsonian Folklife 2008.” It’s pretty amazing what you’ll find.
• The National Folk Festival
  in Butte, Montana, is kicking off festivities this Friday, July 11 and
  runs through the 13th. To get you in the mood, please check out the
  Ranch Rhymes podcast from the Western Folklife Center which most
  recently features Montana poet Paul Zarzyski and his classic poem “Why I Like Butte.” An interview with Paul will air on Montana Public Radio this Friday.
• Texas Folklife Resources has held over a photo exhibit by 25-year-old Chuy Benitez in Austin which documents the cultural landscape of the El Paso and Juarez borderlands. Looks great!

Here’s what’s happening on the folklife front this week:

• The West Valley City Cultural Celebration Center has launched their fourth annual Face of Utah Sculpture Exhibit. We’ve already missed the opening reception, but the show is up through August 20th. Thanks to Michael Christensen for that one.
• The University of Maine will be offering a 400 level course in Public Sector Folklore this coming Fall semester, taught by IU alum Kathleen Mundell. It’s always good to see this sort of course in an academic environment, wouldn’t you say?
• The 58th annual Kutztown Folk Festival happens this weekend, July 5 &6, celebrating Pennsylvania Dutch culture in eastern PA. They claim title to the “oldest continuing folklife festival in America.” Activities will include actors portraying George Washington & Benjamin Franklin, as well as a petting zoo. Hmm….. Strange that I’ve never heard of it….
• The 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival has of course gotten under full swing and will continue through July 6th as well.

There you have it. -Ross