Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

Acknowledgements
The Nevada Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program was established in 1988 by Blanton Owen,
the first Folk Arts Program Coordinator of the Nevada Arts Council. He wrote a successful
grant to the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts to support
four apprenticeships, planned and publicized the program, and set up the structure for funding,
documentation and public education that we still use today. Blanton served the state from 1985 to
1990, then went on to work as a consulting folklorist and fieldworker around the west. He died in a
plane crash in 1998, but he left a permanent legacy in this program that allows the artistic legacies
of Nevada’s traditional communities to live on. This publication is dedicated to Blanton’s memory,
and to the memory of two artists in the program who also left this place richer than they found it—
Manuel “Popeye” McCloud, a Paiute singer and elder from the Walker River Reservation in Schurz,
and Steve Kane, a young apprentice Paiute singer from Reno.
The staff of the Nevada Arts Council over the years has been extraordinarily supportive of folk
arts apprenticeships, starting with former Executive Director Bill Fox, who oversaw the initiation
of the program. Current Director Susan Boskoff has enthusiastically supported its growth, saw to
it that funds were found for the program after NEA Folk Arts money disappeared, advocated for
the growth of the Folk Arts Program staff, and championed the exhibit and catalog celebrating the
apprenticeships’ first ten years. Staff members Cheryl Miglioretto and Sharon Prather have been
there the whole time to lend a hand when needed, and contract folklorists and fieldworkers Eliza
Buck, Russell Frank, Jeanne Johnson, Nicholas Vrooman, and Lesley Williams have connected us
with new communities and artists who have become participants in the program.
Thanks are due to a number of folklorists from the Western region who have served a review
panelists for the Apprenticeship Program for its first ten years; they are Carol Edison, Lore Erf, Dana
Everts-Boehm., Debbie Fant, Anne Hatch, Jens Lund, Chris Martin, Bob McCarl, Craig Miller,
Warren Miller, Nancy Nusz, Ronna Lee Sharpe, Dave Stanley, Elaine Thatcher, and Nicholas
Vrooman. NAC Council members who have chaired those panels are Kathie Bartlett, Thelma
Calhoun, Don Clark, Robin Greenspun, Neldon Mathews, Dennis Parks, Roger Thomas, Wayne
Tanaka, and Angie Wallin.
The Nevada Folk Arts Apprenticeship program would not be possible without the leadership and
financial support of the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA’s Folk Arts Program established
apprenticeships in the folk and traditional arts as a model for encouraging and preserving these arts
as a living heritage, passed from person to person and hand to hand. Nevada’s apprenticeships have
always been funded by the state and the NEA, first through their Folk and Traditional Arts Program,
and currently through the State Partnership Program. The staff of the NEA’s Folk Arts Program (past
and present), especially Bess Lomax Hawes, Dan Sheehy and Barry Bergey, have been champions
and friends of our work from the beginning, and we thank them.
Most of all, we thank the extraordinary traditional artists of Nevada, whether they have roots
here that go back generations or they arrived in the state just a few years ago. The Apprenticeship
Program is for them, their ancestors and elders, their children and grandchildren, their friends and
communities. And it is for us, their neighbors and fellow Nevadans.
Written by Andrea Graham, except for the 1888-89 apprenticeship text, written by Blanton Owen.
All text except for the 1996-97 and 1997-98 apprenticeships has been previously published by the Nevada
Arts Council in a series of booklets on the Apprenticeship Program.
Photos pages 6-13 and page 23 by Blanton Owen, all other photos by Andrea Graham.
Original printing: Nevada State Printing Office
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