Making sure folk and traditional arts don't just survive in Arkansas, but thrive, is part of the mission of Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts, or AFTRA, a statewide public folklore program of the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections Division. Lauren Willette, folk arts and engagement specialist with AFTRA, says the program manages three mainstay projects.
Willette: Our apprenticeship program, which I'm here to talk about. We have a community scholars program, where we go into different communities around the state and teach people the tools to preserve community history and stories and things like that. I also have a web series that I do. We do some documentation projects around the state. It's a lot of fun.
Kellams: The mentorship project, this takes masters of a craft, matches them with younger people who are in the midst of learning the craft?
Willette: Well, we actually, we don't match apprentices and mentors. Mentors and apprentices need to come to us as a team, for this. So they need to have already known each other and be working together. And actually, it doesn't have to be an older person and a younger person, it's open to pretty much all ages. Someone under 18 needs a guardian to do signing, if they're awarded. But those that pair would come to us together and apply for this program, and then we would provide funding to both of them, more to the mentor artists, for about six months worth of training. And we ask that they share some progress along the way, like through photos or maybe a short video. And then, within the communities that they live in, they do some sort of showcase of what they've learned, or presentation or something like that at the end.
Kellams: What sort of crafts are covered in this?
Willette: So we would define folk arts very broadly, meaning that it grows from the community upward, and the people in your community would say, yeah, Kyle's the best biscuit maker around, right? So it could be something simple like that, like foods, like biscuits and things like that. But also we would love to see quilts or blacksmithing. We've had jewelry making, we've had cast metal, we've had herbalism, sorghum molasses, and lots of different, it's open to a lot of different types of crafts. I should also mention Bowie knives have been something that we've seen in our program.
Kellams: I'm curious, have you collected stories from the teams that come in, how they initially might have found each other?
Willette: Sure. That varies from team to team. Sometimes they do just randomly meet, like in a coffee shop or something. Most of the time, apprentices meet the mentor artists they want to work with through taking some sort of class, or going on a tour of that person's studio, maybe something at a local state park, something like that. And then just getting in conversation with that, as the apprentice, with that artist, and asking, hey, do you have classes and things like that? Just sort of taking those types of first steps to get to know each other.
Kellams: Do you find that the mentors do already kind of have some teaching experience, or is it sort of a mix?
Willette: Typically, the mentors have at least some sort of teaching experience, or at least experience in, they might not, mentors might not always frame it as teaching, but they've certainly shared their knowledge with people in their communities. And so sometimes it's just about finding that person that would maybe, maybe they wouldn't think of quilting or making biscuits, or even doing cast metal as a form of art, but that is a tradition that does have many artful components, right? That is being passed down through our state, and we want to see these traditions that Arkansans in their communities say, hey, that's important to us, and we want to see it keep going.
Kellams: I guess ideally, some time from now, 10, 20, 30 years, someone who is a mentee right now shows up in this program as a mentor.
Willette: Absolutely, and that would be really, really cool, to see an apprentice become the mentor artist. And what I will say is, there is a sister program, well, actually all states have a state folk arts program, but we work closely with Missouri, and they have had that happen, where they have a long standing, like 40-year program. So we hope to see ours grow and to have that happen for sure.
Kellams: I wonder if the internet in the digital age has helped some of these people connect, because I think if it was the 1980s or '90s and you were interested in blacksmithing, depending where you were growing up, you might not be able to be physically close to a blacksmith.
Willette: Sure, and you know what, actually, I'm glad you brought that up. One of the things that we offer is for part or all of these lessons to happen virtually, if that is what needs to happen. That came about because this program was launched during the pandemic years, and so, of course, we had to find virtual means to let people engage in these traditions. So part or all of the training could be virtual, although we do have a strong preference for face to face, or at least some face to face.
Kellams: So the application process is open now. What does someone have to do?
Willette: So the first step would be to visit folklife.uark.edu/apprenticeships and look through the guidelines. It's always a great idea to go ahead and email me, and tell me, hey, this is the tradition that we have, and see if there's any ways that I can help. And my email is willette@uark.edu. But we have an intent to apply, that is just a really short questionnaire online that is due by August 31, 2026. And anyone whose traditions that they're upholding fits within our umbrella will make it through that portion and be notified that they can then fill out the application online, on that website that I mentioned. We have the guidelines, a sample form there that people can download as a PDF and see the questions and go ahead and start working on those. And then between September 9 and September 30, anyone who has been accepted through that intent to apply can, will then fill out their applications. We hire an outside panel to choose who gets awarded, so as the facilitator of this program, I'm really free to help the teams create the best packet that they possibly can, and I really love to help people do that.
I do want to mention that although the mentor artists can live outside the state, and sometimes you might have a mentor from Missouri who wants to work with an apprentice from Arkansas, across that state line or something like that, but the apprentice does need to be in the state of Arkansas, and have plans to be in the state of Arkansas. We want to see these traditions upheld in our state. And I'll also mention that family members are welcome to apply with each other. So if a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle wanted to pass down a familial tradition, we're really happy to see those types of applications, because the family unit is where traditions start and are often passed down. So we're happy to help that process as well.
Kellams: Basket making.
Willette: Yes.
Kellams: Clogging.
Willette: Yeah, yeah, we've had Irish dance, we've had Indian dance, so far clogging would be really cool to see. Yeah, it could be storytelling, it doesn't have to be a physical product, it can be something that's more intangible.
Kellams: All right, a couple of questions for you, the academic. Do you think there are any folk traditional arts that maybe have vanished?
Willette: Folk arts are constantly evolving, so the way that someone might have made a quilt a hundred years ago is probably not going to be the same that we see now. But I would hesitate to say that something has just completely disappeared. One, I can't be the expert of sure tradition, but two, we have mentor artists like Sage Holland, who's a flame, a lampwork bead maker, and she and her husband have studied, by trial and error and looking at different beads from ancient traditions, they have been able to replicate ancient beads that no one had living memory of. And Clarke Buehling, a banjo player from here in Fayetteville, and Sage and Tom are from Fox, Arkansas. But Clarke, he is self-taught and worked with other people in the banjo community to learn carousel music and 1800s minstrel music, which again, no one had in their living memory. So they certainly evolve, and it's probably, those two examples are probably not the same as they would have been at the time period when they were started. But people are so passionate about these things, and we do see a revival and an evolution.
Kellams: And then a second question for you as an academic, is there a time when something that is, I guess, newer or modern or contemporary, begins to transition into a traditional art?
Willette: Sure, I think that's more based on the community, and we would call something a traditional art based more about how it is actually shared between people. So this program is not meant to fund like a typical class might look like, but more a one on one thing. So I would say some contemporary traditions that we would label as folk art would be something like street art or sign painting, maybe if someone was doing neon bending, things like that. Slam poetry could be considered a folk art because it is community-based. So I don't know if that totally answers when does it move into a tradition, but there are certainly contemporary things that we would consider traditions.
Kellams: Do you have examples of people who have been part of this program over the past few years?
Willette: So I'm going to do my best to remember where everyone's from. So we've had Carol Powers, who's from Northwest Arkansas, I think around Fayetteville, who did sorghum molasses. We've had Becky Dahlstedt, she's from Mountain View and did pottery glazing, but she is a wonderful potter. Pat Bergmann has worked with us, and she is a metalsmith who makes jewelry, from Yellville. We've had Allison Williams, and Allison does ballads and old-time banjo. We've had Sage Holland, who I already mentioned, with flame work beads. Bayard Blaine is a local luthier who's been in our program working with an apprentice. Marisa Cook is an Irish dancer out of Little Rock. And that is a lot. I've definitely left some people out. Pete Howard did fiddle with Piper Hart here recently, here in Fayetteville. So I'll stop there, but that was a pretty good list.
Kellams: Well, thank you so much for coming in.
Willette: Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Lauren Willette is folk arts and engagement specialist with Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts, a program of the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections Division, with support from the Arkansas Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. More information about AFTRA and the apprenticeship program can be found at folklife.uark.edu.
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