Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

Handed Down: Nevada’s Living Folk Arts
Art is everywhere. It belongs to everyone who has something
to say and expresses it creatively in words, music, or
the movement of the body, on paper, in wood or leather
or fabric, through celebrations and gatherings, and in such everyday
activities as cooking, using proverbs, or singing a lullaby. The
main difference between folk art and fine or popular art is that its
sense of beauty and appropriateness are rooted in a community,
and its techniques and functions have been passed down through
face-to-face interaction over many generations.
Folk arts are part of a community’s heritage. They have been
shared within that group, whether it is ethnic, tribal, religious,
familial, occupational, or regional, and they express important
values, beliefs, and esthetics of that group. But folk arts forms
aren’t perpetuated automatically or unthinkingly, and it takes
work, time and understanding to keep them alive and vital. That
dedication comes from individuals who actively choose to learn,
perfect, develop and pass on an art form as part of their culture.
The master artists and their apprentices in this catalog are just
such people. The masters are among the very best at what they
do, having dedicated their finest efforts and often years of time
to learning and improving an art form that speaks for them and
their community. They are not always very old—several here are
in their thirties and forties, and in several cases the master was
younger than the apprentice—because it is the quality of the time
they put into their art as much as the quantity, and the understanding
and dedication they bring to it, that makes them masters.
Another characteristic they have in common is their willingness
to share what they have learned with those who show a real
interest in carrying on the tradition. The apprentices represent
the future of those traditions. They have already taken the time
to learn on their own because they realize their identity is tied to
their heritage and they want to take an active part in perpetuating
its art forms. They all talk about passing on what they learn—to
their children, neighbors, and fellow workers—as a responsibility
that comes with choosing to carry on a tradition. As their master
taught them, so will they teach the next generation.
The tradition of teaching and learning through apprenticeship
is a long one. Many trades were, and still are, passed through
fairly formal apprenticeships, where the learner works for the
master in return for being taught the skills of the trade or occupation.
But in traditional cultures almost all learning takes place
through direct interaction, observation and hands-on experience
rather than through more organized schooling. Then, too, there
are whole areas of human endeavor that have never been written
down or codified, and whole encyclopedias of knowledge that are
carried only in people’s heads and hands.
Since 1988 the Nevada Arts Council has sponsored the Nevada
Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program, funding 53 apprenticeships
during the first ten years of the program with the help of
grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Nevada’s Folk
Arts Apprenticeships, although a formal government-sponsored
program, are designed to support teaching in the informal apprenticeship
mode. They are set up so a master artist works with
one or two apprentices, not a whole group or class, to provide the
in-depth sharing of his or her deep understanding and consummate
skill in an art form. And they stress the passing on of traditions
within the group that has created and maintained them.
The money in the program pays the master artist for his or
her time spent teaching, and also helps with such expenses as
purchasing tools or materials, covering travel costs to get materials
or for the participants to get together, and even paying for
babysitting to allow the artists uninterrupted time to work. The
participants in an apprenticeship work at their own pace and on
their own schedule, whatever works best for their situation and
the art form being passed on. For example, Native American basketry
traditions require that willows be gathered at certain times
of the year, in late fall and early spring when the branches have no
leaves. Many craft traditions, such as rawhide braiding, are carried
out mainly in the winter months, when outdoor work is not
so demanding. And often the telling of certain stories or singing
of particular songs is restricted to specific times of year, or associated
with rituals and ceremonies.
Many of the art forms that have been supported through apprenticeships—dances,
songs, crafts, foods, stories—are in danger
of being lost when the few people who know them pass on.
Their knowledge is carried only in their heads and hearts and
hands, it has never been written down or video-taped. Younger
people are not learning like they used to, they can’t spend time
with their elders when they are pulled away by the demands and
complications of modern life. But traditional arts have survived
this long because they have a purpose, because they express who
we are and where we come from, and they help us face the future
with a sense of stability and connection.
The Nevada Arts Council’s Folk Arts Apprenticeships can’t
save endangered traditions—only the people who know and care
about them can. All we provide is encouragement and perhaps
some incentive in the form of modest financial support. As we
can see in the people who have participated in the program over
its first ten years, there is a tremendous range of traditional culture
in Nevada, and many dedicated artists and students willing
to give of themselves to keep it alive. Some of these traditions
have been in Nevada for hundreds or thousands of years (Paiute
songs or buckaroo saddle making, for instance) and some are
as new here as the state’s newest immigrants (Thai dancing and
Polish paper cuts), but if it is being done in Nevada today, we
consider it a Nevada art. From the most domestic—making biscuits
from acorns the Washoe way and weaving willow baskets to
carry babies—to the most theatrical—swirling Mexican dances
and pounding African drum rhythms—they all deserve our attention
and our applause. We are humbled by these individuals’
artistry and their dedication to the cultures, and honored to have
helped, in a small way, to keep those arts alive. Their loss would
impoverish us all; their continuity keeps us healthy.
Andrea Graham
Folk Arts Program Coordinator
Nevada Arts Council
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