Storied Objects from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
1967-2017
50 Festivals, 225 programs, 800+ objects, thousands of participants, millions of visitors
Explore the rich history of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival through our material culture collection. Each object holds a story of community, tradition, collaboration, and conversation, bringing to life the spirit of the Festival as a celebration of traditional cultural heritage.
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Festival objects shine a light on Festival history
From chainsaw carvers to Southern potters, religious scroll painters to silversmiths, participants in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival have created a remarkable array of storied objects as they’ve discussed their cultural traditions with the public. Sometimes, near the end of a Festival, they present these objects as gifts to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The resulting material culture collection has grown to more than 800 objects. Unplanned and unexpected, it is beloved by staff. It is also essentially unknown—a hidden treasure within a research unit of the Smithsonian. Yet thanks to the memories of staff, the eloquence of the artists, and the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives—there is much to learn from these storied objects.
Matteo Valderrama, 2015 Perú: Pachamama program.
Photo by Brian Barger, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Melissa Darden, 1996 The American South program.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Bamboo craftsmen, 1985 Mela: An Indian Fair program.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
John Neilson, 2009 Wales Smithsonian Cymru program.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
A young family member works on María Teresa Gonzáles’ dance skirt, 1987 Cultural Conservation and Languages: America’s Many Voices program.
Photo by Ricardo Vargas, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The fifty selected objects were made by traditional artists from around the world during more than thirty Festival programs. Instead of presenting one object from each year, we looked for objects that tell a good Festival story. What added something can we learn about a particular object and its maker because of its Festival origins? It turns out quite a bit!
—Erin Younger, Exhibition Curator
Center director Michael Mason receives the poi pounding board, 2013.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Sun Lixin presents his porcelain bowl to Erin Younger (left) and Marjorie Hunt (right), 2014.
2012 Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt
2013 One World, Many Voices: Endangered Languages and Cultural Heritage
2014 China: Tradition and the Art of Living
2014 Kenya: Mambo Poa
2015 Peru: Pachamama
2016 Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration
Region
All
Africa
Asia
Caribbean
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
North America/U.S.A.
Materials
All
Clay
Fabric/Cloth
Glass
Grasses/Reeds
Leather/Rawhide/Horn
Metal
Paper
Plastic
Stone
Wood
Type
All
Artwork
Building Components
Ceremonial Objects
Containers/Serving Vessels
Costumes
Decorative Objects
Musical Instruments
Needlework
Program Centerpieces
Publications
Sports Equipment
Tools & Equipment
Toys & Models
Watercraft
Transatlantic Salmon
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Graham Stewart described the silver vessel he made at the 2003 Folklife Festival as a “simple salmon shape so kids could understand straight away what I was making.” His modest manner belied his reputation as one of Scotland’s leading silversmiths.
A small silver vessel in the shape of a fish. The fish’s tail curves upwards with fine lines etched into it, and the body of the fish is textured with stamped scales. The eye of the fish has fine detailing and the mouth sits just below and to the right of the eye. At the bottom of the fish body, there is a base.
A bowl to symbolize the migration of the Scots
The salmon gravy boat was well suited to the varied decorating techniques Stewart wanted to demonstrate during his time at the Festival—the scales, tail, and head all required different tools. The piece took on a special meaning after he decided to finish the bowl back home, as he explained in an interview during the Festival:
“I’ll take it back to Dunblane to make it into a vessel. Rather than bring a lot of flames and dangerous equipment here, I’ll finish it there and then send it back over as a record of the event… I’ve been calling it the ‘transatlantic salmon.’ I thought the fish symbolized the migration of the Scots over to North America. This bowl started in Washington, goes back to Dunblane, and comes back again. It symbolizes migration, a meeting together, and a great event!”
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Stewart remained true to his word and sent the bowl back. It now rests in a display case along Curators Row in the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s office. When I contacted him prior to the fiftieth anniversary in 2017, he retained fond memories of participating in the Festival and agreed that like many before him, he developed a strong mutual admiration of the other program participants—and learned a great deal from them. He also admitted that the experience of listening to Scotland’s finest musicians all in one place was a thrill of a lifetime. His experience of following the music can thus be seen as mimicking the migration story of his bowl by traveling halfway across the world (and back again) to hear the great musicians of his homeland.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Graham Stewart begins work on the salmon gravy boat.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The construction of a Bhutanese temple (lhakhang) on the 2008 Festival grounds started with a cultural negotiation—it needed to be modified to accommodate an accessibility ramp. This was a foreign concept to the builders, but they quickly embraced it. This section of railing was removed for the ramp and later donated to the Center.
The 2008 Bhutan program introduced Festival visitors to a little known part of the world at a time when Bhutan was transitioning to a constitutional monarchy. The lhakhang was the centerpiece of the program and became an irresistible draw. Its architectural elements were created in Bhutan, packed and shipped to America, and then carefully assembled into this country’s first authentic Bhutanese building. When completed, monks welcomed visitors into the temple. Its interior dazzled, and visitors knew they had entered a special place when they passed over its threshold.
Artisans paint the interior pillars of the lhakhang in Bhutan.
Photo by Dorji Yangki, Smithsonian
An interior wall section is assembled before shipping to the U.S.
Photo by Dorji Yangki, Smithsonian
The section is set into place on the National Mall.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
As the 2008 Folklife Festival drew to a close, a sudden thunderstorm struck. As retired Festival director Diana Parker recalls, “The rain came out of nowhere… it poured! And then there it was: a double rainbow right over the temple. The Bhutanese told me, ‘Of course! It’s a blessing at the end of this endeavor.’”
Rainbow over the temple and Smithsonian Castle.
Photo by Alana Ackerman, Smithsonian
Visitors often wonder what happens to the large temporary structures erected each year during the Festival. In the case of the lhakhang, prior arrangements had been made to move the building to the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. Why there? A devastating fire had destroyed the original buildings nearly a century earlier, and the campus was rebuilt in a style reminiscent of Bhutanese architectural design. University planners were inspired by the April 1914 issue of National Geographic, which featured the distinctive whitewashed buildings of Bhutan, set in a hilly, arid terrain similar to El Paso.
The reconstructed lhakhang now stands at the center of the university’s Centennial Plaza. Its highly decorated exterior and interior have been fully documented and described, and the building is open to the public by appointment.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator and Preston Scott, program co-curator
Images of the reconstructed lhakhang at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Photos courtesy of University of Texas at El Paso
Images of the reconstructed lhakhang at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Photos courtesy of University of Texas at El Paso
Images of the reconstructed lhakhang at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Photos courtesy of University of Texas at El Paso
Images of the reconstructed lhakhang at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Photos courtesy of University of Texas at El Paso
Images of the reconstructed lhakhang at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Photos courtesy of University of Texas at El Paso
Karma Wanghuck oversees the lhakhang’s construction at the Festival.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“As a girl, when I would see the saints in the churches with their tears, I thought they were so perfect that they were human beings transformed into statues… I wanted to reach that perfection.”
Using pebbles from the Mall to add texture to a sculpture
Rosa Jeréz is from Ráquira, Colombia, a town in the Andean Highlands known for its exceptional clay and, consequently, its ceramicists. The main market square in Ráquira is lined with pots, plates, and vessels in the clay’s rich orange hue. Rosa comes from this lineage of artisans. Her mother was a potter, but it was expensive to get her pieces fired, so the family turned to cattle farming and basket making for a living. As Rosa got older she was inspired by the sculptures of saints she saw in the churches. Over time, after much trial and error, she developed her own style and technique for fashioning virgins, churches, and other figures inspired by the faces and clothing of the people she encounters in her daily life.
The artistic value of her work and the Andean characteristics of her virgins are now well known throughout the traditional arts world in Colombia. But this was not always the case. The first time an artisan buyer from Bogotá came to view her work, she told Rosa that her virgins were jarrapastrosas—crude and grotesque. Undeterred, Rosa continued to fill her home with her hand-formed figures. Eventually another buyer came and saw the beauty and artistry in her work. Now she’s been working with Artesanías de Colombia for many years, and her sculptures are consistently shown at folk art exhibitions and craft expositions.
Rosa Jeréz works on the “Virgin of the Mall”.
Photo by Michelle Arbeit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Detail of the Mall pebbles Rosa used to decorate the skirt.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
At the 2011 Folklife Festival’s Colombia: The Nature of Culture program, Rosa hand-molded figures from Ráquira clay for the visitors who would congregate around her. As usual, she looked to her surroundings for inspiration: when it was time to decorate the skirt on the figure shown here, she adorned it with pebbles she found on the pathway near her presentation area. The result is fondly called the “Virgin of the Mall” and was a welcome addition to the Center’s collection, marrying Rosa’s traditions and techniques with the environment of the National Mall.
—Cristina Díaz-Carrera, program coordinator
Rosa Jeréz carefully moves the unfired virgin.
Photo by Michelle Arbeit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
A forty-foot-high effigy of demon king Rāvana rises up on the Festival grounds.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“On the last day of Mela! the effigies of Rāvana were burned. Inside that fire, when the effigies were burned, all the bad things that were inside of us were thrown into that fire.” So sang Banku Patua in West Bengal when showing villagers his painted story scroll of the 1985 Festival.
The story of the victory of Lord Rāma—who rescues his kidnapped wife Sita from the ten-headed demon king Rāvana—is reenacted each year throughout India during the ten-day Hindu celebration of Dassehra. At the 1985 Festival, the drama unfolded in the center of Mela! An Indian Fair.
A melā is a combination bazaar, street fair, and cultural festival that people travel far and wide to attend. At the composite melā in Washington, D.C., visitors were immersed in the sights, sounds, smells, and rituals of regional India. An outdoor “Learning Center” housed a performing space and workshop area devoted to ritual activities. There, Jamil Ahmed, Bal Mukand, Gopal Singh, and others from Uttar Pradesh worked to create the towering effigies of Rāvana and his allies, son Meghanada and brother Kumbhakarna. Visitors watched them carefully split and tie together the bamboo sticks that formed the structure of the flamboyant characters. These forms were then covered with papier-mâché, brightly painted, and embellished with oversized jewels. Once finished, the effigies were laid out on the ground, securely assembled, and raised by ropes to their upright positions.
The three effigies rising up on the Mall, where they will stand until their confrontation with Rāma.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
On the evening of July 5, the epic confrontation between Rāma and Rāvana took place on the National Mall. At the drama’s climax, Rāma shoots a blazing arrow into the demon king, who explodes into flames. It is a noisy conflagration—all three effigies are packed with firecrackers. In the end, good triumphs over evil, and the audience is cleansed in the process.
The epic battle between Rāma and Rāvana begins with the giant effigies being shot by a flaming arrow and ends with a bonfire across from the Castle.
Photographers unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The epic battle between Rāma and Rāvana begins with the giant effigies being shot by a flaming arrow and ends with a bonfire across from the Castle.
Photographers unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The epic battle between Rāma and Rāvana begins with the giant effigies being shot by a flaming arrow and ends with a bonfire across from the Castle.
Photographers unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The epic battle between Rāma and Rāvana begins with the giant effigies being shot by a flaming arrow and ends with a bonfire across from the Castle.
Photographers unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The epic battle between Rāma and Rāvana begins with the giant effigies being shot by a flaming arrow and ends with a bonfire across from the Castle.
Photographers unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Mela! program lives on in people’s memories. Visitors recount their fascination watching figures emerge from the piles of thin bamboo sticks. Staff remember the complex logistics of mounting the finale—in essence a giant bonfire—on the country’s most restricted National Park. Fire trucks, firefighters, and emergency supplies were everywhere. For former Festival director Diana Parker, exposure to the distinctly non-Western practice of destroying something so exquisite for ritual purposes was both transfixing and unforgettable. All that remained was a 29-inch length of singed bamboo, which was used by staff for many years to talk about the purpose of the Festival, including its occasionally dramatic events—and the transience of some of them.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
A bamboo craftsman creates the structure of the Rāvana effigy.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
An artist paints the details of Rāvana’s face.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Smithsonian Castle and Wisconsin program site are front and center on this painted wood plate. With musical notes raining down from above, artist Jean Giese used rosemaling—a Norwegian decorative painting style—to commemorate her experience at the 1998 Folklife Festival.
“Whether expressed through church, tavern, or home, the role of ethnic identity remains prominent in Wisconsin. Fourth- and fifth-generation Americans in Wisconsin are still quite cognizant of their ethnic origins, as pure or as varied as they may be.”
—Richard March, program curator
The 1998 Wisconsin program took place during the state’s sesquicentennial, its 150th anniversary of statehood. By focusing on the rich interplay between climate, geography, and economy—and the state’s rich ethnic diversity—the Festival brought to life a variety of Wisconsin’s regional traditions. Like so many immigrants before them, the Norwegians who arrived in the mid-nineteenth century left behind most of their traditional art practices. It took a few generations for interest in those roots to return, but when it did, rosemaling and acanthus carving, which decorated so many family heirlooms, became the focus of study and revival. Today the swirling floral patterns and abstract designs, whether painted or carved, are clear markers of Norwegian American identity.
Jean Giese credited her father with encouraging her early interest in painting. He was a Norwegian immigrant who supported his family by farming tobacco. He enjoyed woodcarving and allowed young Jean to decorate his carvings. She later attended rosemaling classes at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, and remains active in the Norwegian cultural center in Norskedalen, Wisconsin. She passed on her devotion to Norwegian folk art to her daughter, who took up acanthus woodcarving with her husband. Their daughter in turn has carried rosemaling to the new medium of cake decoration.
Giese’s depiction of the 1998 Festival site realistically positions a red barn and several program tents in front of the Smithsonian Castle. The Washington Monument stands to the west and musical notes fill the sky, suggesting a lively Festival soundscape. After the Festival concluded, the Wisconsin program was restaged in Madison as the Wisconsin Folklife Festival, giving statewide audiences a chance to learn more about their own history and heritage, and honor the many people who preserve Wisconsin’s folklife.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
This split-wood whittling achievement perplexed and enchanted Festival visitors in 1983. Artist William Richard perfected a wood carver’s form that originated in Europe and found a home in northwestern Maine, requiring skill, patience, and razor-sharp knives.
William Richard was the patriarch of three generations of Acadian/French American loggers and wood carvers. He was born in 1900 in New Brunswick, Canada, and moved to northwestern Maine to seek work in the woods. As described by folklorist Peggy Yocom, William Richard’s delicate fan towers are “mind-tricking sculptures” that conjure birds in flight or dancers’ swirling skirts. This carving consists of two fans perched on a vertical shaft that includes two round “balls-in-cages.”
After working several years in logging camps outside Phillips, Maine, Richard married and helped raise five children. He provided for his family by working as a logger and whittling small pieces for sale on the side. In the early 1930s, he learned to make the fan towers through an unusual apprenticeship:
“It was 1933, during the Depression, and to make ends meet, Richard, like many area woodsmen and farmers, made and sold beer and wine to add to the $1 a cord they got for chopping wood. For his efforts, he was arrested by Sheriff Leavitt and slapped into the Franklin County Jail. There he met fellow French woodsman Raymond Bolduc who taught Richard how to make the fan towers, a traditional art form known especially in Finland, Sweden, and Russia. The fans were once made throughout the boundary area of the United States and Canada by woodsmen in winter logging camps…”
—Peggy Yocom, folklorist
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Richard participated in the 1976 and 1983 Folklife Festivals. He enjoyed hearing visitors speculate about his methods: were the balls pre-shaped and inserted into the cages? Were the fans made of Popsicle sticks glued together? In the end, he always set them straight: the fans were carved and bent from single pieces of wood—no glue involved. Although fan towers eventually spread as far west as Oregon, the double-fan tower remained the specialty of Richard and his mentor, Raymond Bolduc. Today, his grandson, Rodney “Butch” Richard continues to carve them, as had Butch’s father, Rodney Richard Sr.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
William Richard works on the fan tower during the 1983 Festival.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“The point isn’t to recreate a sound from the Middle Ages or anything like that,” Ceri Rhys Matthews said about playing John Glenydd Evans’ traditional Welsh instruments at the 2009 Festival. “This is a modern movement. We make our own pipes and learn to play them because we like the sound.”
Wales is a dynamic and resilient nation located to the southwest of England. Its history is filled with upheavals, and its ancient traditions have often been interrupted—not least the creation and use of Welsh instruments and tunes. The fact that these traditions have survived and the genre is thriving is a testament to a long process of adaptation, reimagining, and reclamation highlighted in the Wales Smithsonian Cymru program.
Religious reforms in eighteenth-century Wales sought to discourage the use of traditional Welsh instruments, including the harp and fiddle. At the same time, church hymns sustained choral music and Gypsy musicians kept some of the traditional tunes in circulation. Today older tunes and traditional instruments are played proudly and in innovative ways by the musicians who have been shaping a future out of the past.
The instruments shown here are two that have made a strong comeback: the hornpipe (pibcorn) and bagpipes (piban cŵd). Their history has been traced back to the fourteenth century, but contemporary musicians had to rediscover how to make and play them. Museum collections have helped fill in the gaps: the Welsh National Museum at St. Fagan’s carefully analyzed historic examples for correct measurements and hints at techniques in their creation.
Ceri Rhys Matthews plays a John Evans bagpipe with Linda and Lisa Griffiths during the 2009 Festival.
For the 2009 program, our music advisors recommended John Glenydd Evans to represent instrument making. His instruments are considered some of the best made in Wales. His path to this skill was circuitous but perhaps ordained: he left school at fifteen and apprenticed as a carpenter. A serious accident in 1993 led him to reevaluate his life, and he decided to combine two of his loves in his work: traditional Welsh music and turning wood. The result is a catalog of in-demand instruments for the country’s finest musicians.
—Betty Belanus, program curator
John Glenydd Evans at the 2009 Festival.
Photo by John Loggins, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“Cleater Meaders’s pottery is a wonderful way to highlight not only the work of this important, multi-generation family of Southern potters but also the legacy of Festival co-founder Ralph Rinzler, who was a great admirer of the potters’ skills and a pioneer in bringing national recognition to their work.”
In 1983, Cleater Meaders Jr. participated in the second celebration of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. His cousin, Lanier Meaders, received the fellowship that year, and many in the Meaders family came to the Festival to support him—exemplifying the skill, knowledge, and multi-generational practice behind this distinctive, regional pottery tradition. Cleater made wheel-thrown pots in the crafts tent and talked about making a syrup jug during a filmed segment preserved in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.
Cleater Meaders Jr. describes his actions finishing a syrup jug as Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley looks on during the 1983 Folklife Festival.
Small-scale family-run potteries grew up in the American South during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The majority of their products were utilitarian: butter churns, whiskey jugs, milk pitchers, food storage jars. The Meaders family, headed at the time by John Milton Meaders, began making stoneware in 1893 in the foothills of White County, Georgia. Making pottery was a way to supplement their farming income and also provide storage vessels for themselves. The churn shown here was signed and fired in 1984. After retiring from a career building aircraft in 1978, Cleater returned to potting fulltime at his home in Byron, Georgia, where he used an old treadle kick wheel to turn clay he dug from land he owned in the mountains. In 1983 he built a wood-fired kiln on that land and may have fired the churn there, much as his forebears had done nearly a century earlier.
Even before his work at the Smithsonian, Ralph Rinzler was an inveterate field worker who kept his eyes open for exemplary traditional artists wherever he traveled. His forays down South, especially, exposed him to many regional traditions and fine practitioners who were unknown outside their local communities. Bringing their voices and talents to the fore became his passion—and the mission of the Folklife Festival.
It is no accident that Southern potters are so well known today, along with the music of Dewey Balfa and Doc Watson; they were all people Rinzler brought to national attention at the Festival. This work has gone on now for more than fifty years with the artists front and center: telling their stories, exemplifying excellence in practice, and representing the remarkable diversity of traditional cultural heritage throughout the world.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
With little information on record, we assumed this menacing mask hanging in the hallway came from the 1994 Thailand program. On further investigation, we learned otherwise.
Because the Center is a research unit within the Smithsonian, not a museum, it never set out to build a collection from the Festival. But over the past fifty years, Festival artists and others have generously donated hundreds of objects to the office. Until recently, however, the records documenting them have been informally kept and knowledge about individual objects rested largely within the memories of staff. A simple inventory was started in the mid-1980s, but record-keeping has lagged as the work of producing the Festival takes precedence. Since I joined the Center as a Research Associate in 2014, the material culture collection has been the focus of my work: updating the records, writing labels, and conducting research to help celebrate the Festival’s fiftieth anniversary.
In making the selection of fifty objects to shed light on the Festival’s history, the Thai mask down the hall was an obvious pick: it is large, fierce, and demanding—but no one knew anything about it. “Thailand” is written on the right side, and “Long Live the King” scrawls across the front. This made it easy to think it was from the 1994 Thailand program. But after speaking with the program curator, it was clear that it wasn’t—that program focused on court music and dance, and this type of mask was not part of those traditions.
The mask as it hangs in the office hallway.
Photo by Elisa Hough, Smithsonian
Detail with signature.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Wirayut Natsaengsri at the Festival.
Photo by Nancy Libson, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
In summer 2016, intern Michelle Ibarra took on the quest to identify the mask. She eventually determined it was a “ghost mask” used in the Phi Ta Khon celebration in northern Thailand, and found that its maker, Wirayut Natsaengsri, participated in the 2007 Mekong River program. Her efforts are documented in the article “Searching for the Man behind the Mask.” Today Phi Ta Khon is heavily promoted as a tourist attraction but its origins are ancient and have ties to Buddhism and early agricultural rituals, which the practitioners still honor.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Young artisans work on Phi Ta Khon masks in Dansai, Thailand in 2006.
Photos by Sunee Prasongbandit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young artisans work on Phi Ta Khon masks in Dansai, Thailand in 2006.
Photos by Sunee Prasongbandit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young artisans work on Phi Ta Khon masks in Dansai, Thailand in 2006.
Photos by Sunee Prasongbandit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Wirayut Natsaengsri with two of his masks in Dansai village, Thailand, in 2006.
Photo by Sunee Prasongbandit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Q’eswachaka rope bridge nears completion on the Mall.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Q’eswachaka rope bridge in the Cusco highlands of Peru—rebuilt hundreds of times over hundreds of years by the local communities—was reimagined and rebuilt on the National Mall in 2015. It became both the visual anchor and community center of Perú: Pachamama.
Through time and space, the bridge created a Festival community
“We didn’t plan for this to be the centerpiece of the Festival. It just came to us while we were doing fieldwork. We went down to Cusco and were looking at tradition and change. And here we found this bridge… While it is not used anymore by the alpacas for transportation, people use it as a footpath. But mainly they keep it for its symbolic value. Rebuilding the bridge every year and practicing this ancient knowledge gives them the strength to live with dignity.”
—Olivia Cadaval, program curator
Q’eswachaka bridge in Peru.
Photo by Cristina Díaz-Carrera, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Rope braiders Alejandrina de Mamani and Alejandrina Puma pound the gathered and dried grasses prior to twisting them into rope.
Photo by Vivianne Peckham, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The slow process of creating rope continues with the bridge builders.
Photo by Vivianne Peckham, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Ritual offerings are made throughout the bridge building process.
Photo by Josh Weillepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The handwoven rope bridge has brought together the four indigenous farming communities in the area for centuries. Each has a specialty: the engineers come from one community; the grasses for the rope are gathered and processed by another. There is special expertise in braiding and tying the ropes, as well as stringing them across the canyon.
At each stage, the spiritual leader makes offerings that include coca leaves, potatoes, and corn. When the bridge is finished, the community gives thanks, celebrates with music, special foods, and a corn beverage. These practices were observed on the Mall with only slight modification.
“The whole experience on the Mall was very moving. The Quechua builders understood that being at the Festival was about showing the process. When it came time to throw the ropes between our mountains (two shipping containers) and over our river (the space between), they needed some help. They turned to the Afro Peruvians. These are communities that didn’t know each other, hadn’t ever met, and all of a sudden they are working together. Musician Miguel Ballumbrosio said it was a highlight of his time at the Festival. At the Mall, the bridge itself created a community!”
—Olivia Cadaval, program curator
A unique, multi-cultural Peruvian community came together during the 2015 Festival.
Photo by Josh Weillepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
When the time came to hoist the heavy rope up from the ground, members of the Afro-Peruvian musical group Tutuma joined the Quechua bridge builders to add their muscle.
Photos by Josh Weillepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Quechua builders celebrate completion of the bridge, made in the tradition of the Q’eswachaka bridge in Peru.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Once the ropes were finished, the bridge-building team carried them up the support structure.
Photo by Josh Weillup, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Made by itinerant potters on the fringes of Korean society, large earthenware storage jars—onggi—were “as common in Korea as refrigerators are in the United States.” So wrote Festival director Ralph Rinzler after a research trip to Korea in 1971.
For centuries, onggi were essential to preparing and storing the core staples of the Korean diet: soy bean and red chili paste, spicy kimchi, and more. The low-fired earthenware had a distinctive porosity that allowed oxygen to enter without letting liquids evaporate, aiding the fermentation process required for these foods and condiments. With that trait, onggi persisted for decades after the introduction of commercial wares.
The onggi making industry was little known and poorly documented outside of Korea until the 1970s. On his first trip to Korea in 1971, Folklife Festival director Ralph Rinzler was captivated by the large, lidded jars he saw clustered outside most village homes. He returned the next year to do more research, and again with anthropologist Robert Sayers in the 1980s. Such thorough fieldwork is a mainstay of the Folklife Festival, which featured onggi pottery in the 1982 Korea program.
In the case of onggi pottery, there was much to learn. Rinzler and Sayers started with the lives of the artisans and were surprised to learn that the makers were near outcasts of Korean society. The potters were confined to company housing and frequently had to move as production demands shifted. Ten years after his first visit, Rinzler found that Korea was much changed and many of the rural pottery sites had disappeared or been consolidated. He also noted a serious shortage of apprentices to carry on the tradition. At the same time, collectors began purchasing the older vessels. Commercial food producers continued to use onggi to reinforce the authenticity of their product.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Master artist Alfredo López of Ayacucho, Peru, takes us on a cultural journey through his storytelling shrine, acquainting us with a world of belief, the life of cattlemen, and the customs of communities in the Peruvian Andes.
A skilled storyteller sculpts a cultural journey into Andean life
This large, colorful retablo is exemplary of Alfredo López’s finest work. It holds layers of meaning about his community’s heritage and the details he chooses to depict. He learned to make retablos from his father and grandfather, and today still uses his grandfather’s molds. During the tumultuous 1980s when the militant Marxist-Leninist “Shining Path” insurrection took over the highlands, many families fled the region. López’s family managed to stay, and his grandfather was pivotal in keeping the retablo tradition alive.
Retablos grew from early portable altars carried to South America by Spanish missionaries. Saint Mark—the patron saint of farm animals—became a favorite figure of cattle ranchers and was believed to protect the herds from disease and theft. Thus did the worlds of colonists, missionaries, and indigenous people begin to entwine. The inclusion of cattle with everyday life and religious practice still mark the retablos of Ayacucho—this box included.
—Olivia Cadaval and Rafael Varón Gabai, program curators
On the ground level, community members celebrate the Pukllay Fiesta with an Andean bullfight in the field, surrounded by prayers and blessings.
The second level features the whipping of cattle thieves with community members pleading for pardon. One woman begins preparing a mesa, an offering of thanks to the sacred mountains, floating above them all.
The third level shows the patron saints of animals favored in the region: goats, sheep, cattle, and packing animals. Additional offerings are made of birds and bound calves. People are on their knees praying to give thanks for a good year.
The top level features an Andean celebration of the birth of Jesus. Traditional figures of the nativity are depicted , along with a güeros de Ayacucho (clown) with a white face mask, said to be able to disclose the secrets of others.
Alfredo López at the Festival Marketplace.
Photo by Ronald Villasante, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young Alfredo with his father, standing next to former Peruvian president Fernando Belaunde Terry.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Made of corrugated cardboard and crepe paper, then decorated with paint, tinsel, and flashy jewels, this swan-shaped headdress was worn in The Commonwealth of the Bahamas “Junkanoo rush”—joining more than a hundred other costumed participants.
From an island culture shaped by centuries of migration
Program curator John Franklin opened his Festival essay by challenging the touristic view of the Bahamas as a warm, sunny, winter getaway from the United States. His overview called up the four centuries of migration that have defined the Bahamas’ past and continue to shape its future. It’s a complex story of outsiders coming and going—Spanish, English, enslaved and freed Africans, American tourists, and more recently Chinese, Syrian, and Greek immigrants. Throughout it all have been the traditions of festival arts and performance, known to many outside the Caribbean as Carnival, and in the Bahamas as the Christmas masquerade of Junkanoo. The roots of these pubic celebrations of freedom are tied to West Africa and have been transformed by generations of Afro Bahamians dreaming of and finally experiencing liberation from enslavement.
Junkanoo parade at the Festival, including a Fourth of July float.
Photo by Nicolas Parrella, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Today’s elaborate masquerades combine music, dance, costume, and drama in stunning performances that sustain their participants throughout the year. In the Bahamas, Junkanoo is celebrated in parades that begin in the early mornings on December 26 and January 1 and last for hours. People prepare nearly all year for these judged, thematic performances. During the parades, men and women of all backgrounds coexist in a kind of “time out of time” where satire, protest, and affirmation are safely expressed and acted out.
“It’s a leveler,” curator Diana N’Diaye says. “You may be dancing next to the next prime minister who might be dancing next to a janitor. It’s like, ‘We’re all Bahamian; we’re all here.’” It’s a creative way for individuals to express shared values related to freedom, heritage, and different forms of expressive culture.
Festival “Rush Out.”
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The 1994 Bahamas program included more than a hundred participants from seventeen Junkanoo groups. As in the Bahamas, they staged a “rush out” at the end of the Festival and everyone joined in. While thousands may join the parade in the Bahamas, hundreds did on the National Mall—giving Festival visitors a small taste of the transporting experience of Junkanoo.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“The coffee pot served as the welcoming image for the 2005 Oman: Desert, Oasis, and Sea program,” recalled retired deputy director Richard Kennedy. For him, “it remains a symbol of the success of that Festival in a very charged atmosphere.”
Coffee pots as symbols of Omani heritage and hospitality
The idea for Oman: Desert, Oasis and Sea grew out of what curator Richard Kennedy described as the progressive “disintegration of understanding of Muslim culture” after the events of September 11, 2001. The incoming American ambassador to Oman had seen the Festival’s Tibet program in 2000 and asked Kennedy if the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage might feature a Muslim country. Kennedy brought the idea forward, and the Oman program was born. In Kennedy’s memory, it was a dream program with creative collaborators, strong in-country support, and a positive experience on the National Mall.
The two hand-formed dallah—coffee pots—highlighted here were presented to the Center as gifts from the Sultanate of Oman. For those who might imagine a dark Starbucks brew being poured from the spouts, visitors to the Folklife Festival learned that Omani coffee is very different. Green coffee beans are lightly roasted in a pan over an open fire and ground into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. The coffee powder is mixed with boiling water in the dallah, along with cardamom, rosewater, and saffron. The host then uses the dallahto pour the brewed coffee into small cups called finjan. The resulting beverage is tea-colored and served to guests along with dates and other sweets. No polite guest declines coffee when offered.
Coffee is poured by a shop owner in Oman.
Photo courtesy of the Sultanate of Oman, 2005
Dates and coffee are served at the Festival, illustrating Omani hospitality.
Photo by Rebecca Summerour, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Beyond their function, these pots also represent the rich heritage of Omani metalwork. Crafts have long played an important role in Oman’s economy, and the souks (marketplaces) of the oasis towns house permanent workshops where artisans practice and sell their wares. There is a rich interplay between these production centers and the port capitals that have long functioned as gateways for new ideas, materials, and peoples throughout the region. The resulting craft culture in Oman is a lively synthesis of tradition and change, with discernible Arab, Indian, and East African influences. For the Center, these pots embody the value of direct cultural exchange that created a spirit of friendship, welcome, and collaboration.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The painter of this Tibetan scroll is unknown to us, but the purpose was clear. It was made as a gift. The iconography is unique to the occasion: the 2000 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program on Tibetan culture.
Washington landmarks join Buddhist imagery to help fund a culturally sensitive program
One of the most beautiful objects gifted to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is this Tibetan thangka—a contemporary religious scroll created in support of the 2000 Tibetan Culture Beyond the Land of Snows program. It is one of ten commemorative thangkas commissioned for major donors by the Conservancy for Tibetan Art and Culture, a local collaborator in Washington, D.C. The program title refers to people who are Tibetan but now living outside the historical and ethnographic boundaries of Tibet.
The thangka’s iconography is distinctively blended, not unlike the Festival itself. It features the central figure of Chenrezig—the embodiment of the compassion of Buddha—surrounded by multiple recognizable symbols relating to his core attributes of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Below the lotus platform are more symbols of Buddhism, and below those, clear renderings of D.C. landmarks: the Smithsonian Castle, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol.
This detail shows the Smithsonian Castle, Supreme Court, and U.S. Capitol at the thangka’s lower edge.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
While the thangka was created before the Festival by an artist who did not participate in the program, the work can be read as a foreshadowing of the event in which Tibetans from all over the world—including His Holiness the Dalai Lama—gathered to speak of their heritage, identity, and experiences “beyond the land of snows,” memorably capturing the setting and transformative potential of the upcoming program.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
A Tibetan monk demonstrates thangka painting at the 2000 Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
During the 2002 Silk Road program, the Mall became a modern version of the ancient Eurasian trading route. Visitors could stroll from the towering Nara Gate at the eastern edge toward an open Venetian Piazza to the west. Beautiful Turkish çini plates helped lure visitors into the Ceramics Courtyard.
Mounted in 2002, The Silk Road remains a standout program
Silk Road was the perfect Festival to follow the events of September 11, 2001. Although planning had begun several years earlier, the program’s theme of “Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust” tied past and present together. Yo-Yo Ma, the visionary cellist and artistic director of the Silk Road Project, Inc., was a presenting partner. Through his own travels and work in different musical styles, he was captivated by the legendary trade route and how music traveled and changed along it.
To talk to anyone who attended the 2002 Festival is to hear a long string of superlatives. Richard Kurin, Center director at the time, reported that “more than 400 artists, cooks, musicians, and scholars—Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs—from more than two dozen nations, speaking more than thirty languages” traveled to Washington that year. Program curator Richard Kennedy recalled, “Never before has a Festival been devoted to one topic; never before has a Festival offered such research, conceptual, and logistical challenges… It has been a daunting but exhilarating effort.” Over one million people attended.
Looking east towards the Nara Gate (and Washington Monument).
Photo by Jeff Tinsley
Istanbul Crossroads.
Photo by Claudia Telliho, Smithsonian
Painted Pakistani truck.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Central Asian Textiles in Carpets area.
Photo by Claudia Telliho, Smithsonian
Silk ikat weaver from Uzbekistan working on a hand loom.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Hasan al Kazzan’s family has been in the glass-blowing trade in Syria for 400 years.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Final words are delivered by site designer Rajeev Sethi (standing center left), Silk Road Project director Yo-Yo Ma (seated with cello), and Richard Kurin, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage director (speaking).
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
The Silk Road program remains a singular event in the Festival’s history.
The twenty-acre Festival site was transformed into its own Silk Road crossroads by innovative designer Rajeev Sethi. Visitors could travel east or west between legendary landmarks such as the Xi’an Tower in China or Samarkand Square in Uzbekistan. Crafts flanked the landmarks in material-themed pavilions: Silk Grove, Paper Garden, Ceramics Courtyard. In the courtyard, Turkish ceramicists displayed their wares alongside Chinese, Japanese, and Bangladeshi artisans. Advisor Henry Glassie helped visitors understand what they were seeing in the modern Islamic çini wares:
“Turkish potters at first imitated the blue-and-white porcelain of Jingdezhen [China]. Then in a surging series of innovations, they made it their own in the sixteenth century, adding new colors, notably a luscious tomato red, and pushing the designs toward natural form and Islamic reference.”
Mehmet Gürsoy was one of four Turkish ceramicists at the Festival. His studio is located in Kütahya, where he is known as a teacher and entrepreneur. An online exhibition about his work is included below.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Mehmet Gürsoy stands in front of a display of çini plates in the Ceramics Courtyard.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Ethel Wright Mohamed of Belzoni, Mississippi, became a favorite Festival participant during the 1974 Mississippi program. Ten years earlier, she had turned to embroidery to commemorate life with her husband who had recently died, carrying on an age-old domestic art form in a distinctively personal way.
Envisioning a bird’s eye view of the 1976 Bicentennial program
“The lovely thing about this piece is that it reminds me of people. We brought in a cable car (for Working Americans) and had guys from San Francisco who rang the bells. They all had their own distinctive kind of pattern ring. I can hear those sounds again when I look at this…”
–Diana Parker, Festival director
Working with the Folklife Festival designer to plot the layout of the 1976 Bicentennial program, Ethel Mohamed sketched and then stitched a remarkable prediction of the great American celebration set to unfold on the National Mall. The Festival spanned three months and included a large roster of participants who cycled in and out of Washington every week for twelve weeks. In addition to the core Festival areas, Mohamed stitched lively tableaus throughout: children playing, a couple kissing, a rabbit sneaking lettuces. The final embroidery is five feet long and hews to the plan so well its program elements can still be easily deciphered.
Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley feeds ducks at the Reflecting Pool.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Ralph Rinzler plays on the Main Stage second from left.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Ethel Mohamed works on an embroidery in her tent.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
As a creative endeavor, Mohamed’s memory picture is a beloved object at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and new details are noticed on almost every viewing. Two figures central to the Festival’s history are included: Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley—who enthusiastically supported founding director Ralph Rinzler’s plans to create an event to give voice to the country’s traditional artists—kneels in the upper right corner to feed some hungry ducks. It is a clever nod to his academic field of ornithology. Down front and center, Rinzler plays a fiddle on the mainstage, identified by an “R” on his right sleeve. Mohamed herself sits under a tent, stitching yet another memory picture. This engaging piece is a tour de force of narrative embroidery that not only reflects Mohamed’s special talents but conveys her love of the Festival community that embraced her so warmly each time she came to Washington.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Ethel Mohamed at the 1974 Mississippi program.
Photo by Reed and Susan Erskine, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Recognize this form? It’s an apex stone—the decorative block mounted to the top of a church as the base for a cross. It’s so perfectly carved people often ask if it is cast.
Master stonemason Selwyn Jones, an expert in restoring Welsh architecture, carved this apex stone during the 2009 Festival. By all accounts, he was a highly skilled participant and a captivating presenter. His tent was always filled with people watching him work, asking questions, and trying their hand at chiseling and carving the stone.
Selwyn Jones’s tent was a busy place where he explained what he was doing and encouraged people, especially young ones, to help him.
Photos by Richard Strauss, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Ralph Rinzler plays on the Main Stage second from
Photos by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Wales Smithsonian Cymru program was built around the theme of sustainability. Centuries of tradition, change, and innovation have resulted in Wales’s current reputation as a world leader in sustainable practices. Few things in architectural practice are more sustainable than historic preservation—an endeavor that maximizes the use of existing materials, reduces waste, and helps preserve the identity-giving character of a community and its institutions. As curator Betty Belanus wrote in the program book, “sustainability is built upon the rediscovery and reinterpretation of older practices.” Understanding those traditions instills pride in the past and can hold solutions to challenges communities face today.
With nearly thirty years of experience, Selwyn Jones is adept in many areas of stonework. He first trained as a metal sculptor, then apprenticed with a stonemason. In his own words, he is “passionate about traditional skills” and openly shares his enthusiasm with others. Restoring historic buildings gives them new life, and being part of that process connects Jones directly to the roots of his heritage.
Jones reviews the tools he uses and the apex stone he is carving during the 2009 Wales program.
“Anything to do with stone, we can restore it,” Jones explained at the Festival. This can include taking a building completely down and rebuilding it, replacing a few stones, or—as in the case of an apex stone—replicating the shape and design of that distinctive church feature. The four-pointed apex is made of English limestone, a building material known for its tight, smooth grain that “holds the cut well.” The layout allowed him to work on all sides of the stone. He encouraged both men and women to help chip out stone, noting: “You don’t need physical strength, but you do need patience!” Many who tried their hand at carving stone at the Festival would agree!
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Selwyn Jones at the 2009 Festival.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Among the most important projects undertaken by Festival director Ralph Rinzler was the support and revival of Southern crafts in collaboration with Nancy Sweezy. Jugtown Pottery in North Carolina was central to the story. Decades after first meeting Rinzler, Jugtown potter Vernon Owens crafted this memorial churn to honor his friend.
Revival of Jugtown Pottery and a personal tribute to Ralph Rinzler
When Ralph Rinzler came to the Smithsonian from the Newport Folk Festival in 1967, he brought with him an expanding concept of a “folklife” festival. He had begun inviting craftspeople and artisans to Newport and saw “folklife” as all facets of a community’s culture, music, worship, handicrafts, food, and work traditions. In tandem with folklorist and potter Nancy Sweezy, they formed Country Roads, an organization dedicated to conserving Southern crafts. One of the workshops they supported was North Carolina’s Jugtown Pottery, established in 1921. Sweezy had moved south to work at Jugtown in the late 1960s and through Country Roads helped revive interest in the many potters living in the Carolina region. Country Roads purchased Jugtown in 1968, and Sweezy later authored the landmark book, Raised in Clay.
Ralph Rinzler speaks with a potter at Jugtown in 1966.
Photo by Robert Yellen, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Vernon Owens grew up North Carolina and learned pottery from his father, who learned from his. His grandfather, in fact, was one of the first potters hired at Jugtown in 1921. In 1960, Owens hired Sweezy and later worked closely together to develop new and safer glazes, improved firing techniques, and refined market strategies for their distinctive, functional pieces. Owens bought back Jugtown from Country Roads in 1983 and opened the Jugtown Museum in 1988. There are now more than seventy potteries in the Seagrove, North Carolina area. Vernon is widely recognized for his mastery, and he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship in 1996.
After Rinzler passed away in 1994, there was a memorial gathering at the Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee. Many of his friends from his life in folklore attended. Owens was one of many whose life had been affected by Rinzler’s work, and he crafted a special memorial churn in his honor. It was later donated by Rinzler’s wife to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where it sits proudly in the entry display case among a collection of Southern pots.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Using a chainsaw and file, Rodney Richard Sr. carved a nearly life-size French-Canadian woodsman named Pierre on the National Mall in 1983. Twenty years later, he came back and carved a dog to keep the woodsman company. Together they greet visitors to the front lobby of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The Story +
Maker
Rodney Richard Sr. (1929–2015)
Location
Rangeley, Maine, U.S.A.
Festival Program
1983 French/French-American
2005 Forest Service, Culture, and Community
When life and work combine and carry on
“Mr. Richard’s traditional wood carving grew seamlessly out of his life’s experiences.”
–Peggy Yocom, folklorist and curator
Rodney Richard Sr. (1929-2015) represented the logging heritage of western Maine at three different Folklife Festivals. His father William and son Rodney “Butch” joined him at different times, highlighting the multigenerational skills of the Richard family—born in the woods and carried on in public view.
For Richard, his talent with a whittling knife began as a “little shaver” when he learned to carve from his father. In time, he began using his chainsaw to create larger figures. He was fond of saying, “The chainsaw is just like a jack knife, only a really powerful one!” He eventually became a well-known carver and is part of the legacy of “logger art” that developed around the North American forest industry.
Rodney Richard Sr. talks about learning carving in an interview recorded during the 2005 Forest Service program.
In addition to carving bears and other animals, Richard took care to depict the occupational skills that were so important to the world of work he knew, in part because he saw the old-time knowledge slipping away as new machines and methods replaced the old. Pierre, for instance, rests against a peavey hook, a hand tool used to maneuver felled trees. His sleeves are rolled up, ready to execute his next move. In 2005, Richard returned to the Festival to participate in the Forest Service program, where he carved a small dog to keep Pierre company.
Richard uses his chain saw to carve the dog that later joined “Pierre the Woodsman” in the Center’s lobby.
Photo by Joe Furgal, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Fondly known as the “Mad Whittler” in Rangeley, Maine, Richard co-founded the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum (now the Maine Forestry Museum) in 1979. In 1981, the museum hosted its first Logging Festival, an event that has been going strong ever since. Among the skills the museum highlights are chainsaw carving and whittling.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Rodney Richard Sr. works on “Pierre” at the 1983 Folklife Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
No sooner had staff, volunteers, and interns put the 2016 Folklife Festival to bed than we turned our attention to producing Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration to welcome the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. Tens of thousands from every corner of the United States and beyond encountered the steady backbeat of music over three days filled with reflection and celebration.
On the morning of Saturday, September 25, 2016, amid the peel of ringing bells and thunderous applause, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opened its doors to the public. While the broadcast media focused on the presidents, civic leaders, and entertainment giants who gathered on the museum grounds, another story—stories to be exact—was unfolding across the street. Tens of thousands made their way through closed streets and security checks to witness the museum’s opening and participate in Freedom Sounds. Co-produced by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the museum, the three-day event drew upon the social power of music to explore an enduring paradox: this nation was built on the ideals of freedom and equity, yet for generations it denied African Americans inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Through story and song, Freedom Sounds responded by paying homage to the resistance and creativity of a people as well as those who stood in solidarity with them.
“A clear-eyed view of history can make us uncomfortable and shake us out of familiar narratives. But it is precisely because of that discomfort that we learn and grow and harness our collective power to make this nation more perfect. That’s the American story that this museum tells—one of suffering and delight; one of fear but also of hope; of wandering in the wilderness and then seeing out on the horizon a glimmer of the Promised Land.”
—President Barack Obama, September 25, 2016
The museum’s founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch III, frequently reminds visitors that NMAAHC is a place of joy as well as a site for reflecting upon this country’s painful past. Its exhibitions and programs bear witness to the many ways that African Americans stood with strength, integrity, and yes, joy, even as others tried to bend and break their bodies and spirits. Visitors to Freedom Sounds found this sentiment woven throughout the opening weekend as they listened to diverse sounds of resilience from each of the festival’s five stages. From students and emerging artists to master musicians and superstars, performers shared music of sustenance and inspiration.
An evening concert stretched across the Mall.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage / National Museum of African American History and Culture
It is fitting that those who work on the Folklife Festival would go on to oversee NMAAHC’s public celebration on the National Mall of the United States, a place we have called home for fifty years. Against a backdrop of civic unrest and the clarion call of justice and liberty for all, the very first Festival in 1967 presented similar stories and music. Then, as now, our mission, vision, and values are in deep alignment with the words Martin Luther King, Jr. shared on the National Mall some four years prior to the Festival’s founding. He spoke of creating “the beloved community” as the culmination of diligent and hard work: “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends.”
The graphics used on the site and for staff t-shirts, designed by Josue Castilleja, represent the commitment of staff, volunteers, and interns past and present to demand the best of ourselves as we join others in building a just and creative world. Like our colleagues across the Smithsonian, we hope that our efforts contribute toward healing still present wounds and bringing change where it is still so desperately needed.
—Sabrina Lynn Motley, Festival director
Program co-curator Mark Puryear announces the next act on the Freedom Sounds Stage.
Photo by Josh Weilepp, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage / National Museum of African American History and Culture
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
This Chinelo costume, replete with velvet, lace, and vibrant trim, includes detailed beadwork of legendary figures that inspired the maker: Egyptian goddess Isis adorns the front; a female Aztec warrior kneels on the back. The costume was worn by dancer Karem Rodríguez Pacheco of Atlatlahucan, Mexico.
“For the México program, we worked very closely with specialists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, linguists, and researchers who took us to the sites. The community members became part of defining why it was important for them to come to the Festival. I remember in Atlatlahucan they dressed me as a Chinelo with the costume of one of the members of the troupe. They also taught me the dance step—a little awkward kick meant to poke fun
—Olivia Cadaval, program curator
Karem wears the Chinelo costume donated to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage during this procession on the National Mall.
Photo by K. Fodgen, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Chinelos de Atlatlahucan are a carnivalesque dance troupe that form part of Mexico’s broad repertoire of dramas and masquerades drawing from European and Indigenous traditions. Dressed in elaborate velvet gowns and headdresses from head to toe, masked Chinelos playfully mock the white Spanish colonizers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During Carnival and community fiestas, they joyfully dance through the town accompanied by the local Banda de Morelos.
Watch the Chinelos de Atlatlahuacan perform during the 2010 México program.
The word Chinelo derives from the Náhuatl word tzineloa, which means “hip shake,” a movement intended to make the Chinelo look awkward or disjointed, adding to the ridicule. El brincón, or jump, is a traditional and lively dance, accompanied by a brass band, seen especially during Carnival festivities.
Chinelo costumes are passed on over the years and redesigned over time. This costume was once decorated with a yellow boa. It was last redesigned by Sergio Aurelio Rodríguez and Margarita Rebecca Pacheco, then worn by their daughter Karem Rodríguez Pacheco during the 2010 Festival. The scarf is used with the mask and headdress to protect the forehead and face from being rubbed by the mesh. Beads hang over the face, and a fully beaded and painted back panel is worn like a cape.
Chinelos have become part of the identity of the state of Morelos in Mexico, and Chinelo dancers now perform the dances at various festivals in the United States.
Tian Tian Xiang Shan Gateway on the National Mall. In the foreground, kite maker Zhang Wenzhi sends one of his creations up into the air.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
In Hong Kong, 1,000 bamboo poles and 200 wooden columns were loaded onto a ship bound for Washington, D.C. Six weeks later on the National Mall, five craftsmen lashed these together with nylon ties, forming a giant gateway. At three stories tall and 112 feet long, it was one of the largest structures ever built for the Festival.
Drawing on the skills of scaffold workers and theater builders to create a celebratory gateway
The Tian Tian Xiang Shang Gateway was a flower plaque, a traditional Chinese bamboo structure built for festive and memorial events, such as weddings, anniversaries, and business openings. Lightweight and modular, flower plaques are ephemeral and their materials reusable. Large-scale examples are most common in southern China, especially in Hong Kong.
This installation embodied the intersection of traditional and contemporary arts, vernacular knowledge and scientific engineering. Hong Kong-based artist Danny Yung and his studio Zuni Icosahedron produced the structure in collaboration with master builder Choi Wing Kei.
Yung is a pioneering artist known for experimental work in visual and performing arts. His flower plaque design included traditional motifs and elements, such as the names of all 100+ program participants, along with congratulatory text and greetings. As a creative mash-up, the installation reinterpreted a phrase associated with Mao Zedong, invited contributions from 32 other artists, and incorporated 1,400 bamboo wind chimes, creating a sound dimension innovative for flower plaques.
Master builder Choi Wing Kei, seated with with his team (L to R) Sit Kar Lok, Kan Chung Chi, and Chau Kai Ho.
Photo by Michael Moennich, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Kan Chung Chi (foreground) and Chau Kai Ho use long, thin strips of bamboo to attach a banner to one of the decorative panels.
Photo by Michael Moennich, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The structure in progress on the third day of installation, June 20, 2014. Kan Chung Chi directs the placement of poles from the ground.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
Sit Kar Lok starts lashes together the poles of a new level on the third day of installation.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
(L to R) Nai Tsun Lam, Sit Kar Lok, and Kan Chung Chi survey the progress on another part of the structure on the third day of installation.
Photo by Heather Caverhill, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Choi Wing Kei secures a tie at the base of the structure on the third day of installation.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
Sit Kar Lok, the most experienced craftsman on the team, takes a break while taking in the view of the Washington Monument during the third day of installation. Suspended from his waist are the nylon ties, pre-cut in 7’ lengths, that are used to lash the poles together.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
Artist Danny Yung (left) and master craftsman Choi Wing Kei survey the structure in progress on the fifth day of installation, June 22, 2014.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
The flower plaque team performs a dedication ritual for the structure on the Festival’s opening day, June 25, 2014. L to R: Liu Si (designer and coordinator), Wang Fai Soon (architectural consultant) Sit Kar Lok (craftsman), Chau Kai Ho (craftsman), Nai Tsun Lam (craftsman), Danny Yung (artist, director), Choi Wing Kei (master craftsman), Kan Chung Chi (craftsman), Wong Yue Wai (producer).
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Tian Tian Xiang Shan Gateway on the National Mall as a storm blows in. Visible in the foreground are batik banners made by another China program participant, Yang Wenbin of Guizhou.
Photo by Heather Caverhill, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The flower plaque is taken apart after the Festival and will be repacked to ship back to China.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
On a rainy day, China program team members Jing Li, Joan Hua, and Danielle Wu assist in loading the materials into a shipping container.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
Bamboo and lumber are loaded into a sea container for their return to Hong Kong. The U.S. Department of Agriculture required that the materials be fumigated before arrival and that every bit leave the Mall and the country after its installation.
Photo by Sojin Kim, Smithsonian
Choi began learning bamboo construction from his father when he was thirteen years old. His business is one of a handful in Hong Kong with the skills to work in all aspects of bamboo structure building, including scaffolding, ritual structures, and temporary theaters. He welcomed the opportunity to try something new for the Festival, collaborate with a contemporary artist, and build outside of Hong Kong under different construction requirements.
Preparing for the installation, Yung and Choi consulted with our production staff as well as Smithsonian engineers and fire safety officers, making changes to the structure, design, and materials as needed. A week before opening day, Choi and his team of four unloaded ten tons of bamboo and lumber from shipping containers. With no rigging or electric tools, they built the structure length by length, expertly lashing together the poles with nylon ties, extending it vertically as they climbed. After the Festival, in the same way, but in reverse, they took it down, repacking the materials for return to Hong Kong and use in their next project.
—Sojin Kim, program co-curator
Artist Danny Yung with designs for the flower plaque in his Hong Kong studio.
Photo by Michael Moennich, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“My mother taught me how to make pottery. Now I teach my children how to make pottery. My granddaughter, she makes pottery. We start from the beginning, making a bowl—that’s how we learn.”
The 1992 Folklife Festival commemorated the Columbus Quincentenary, providing an opportunity to reflect on the profound forces that shaped life in the Americas over the preceding 500 years. For the New Mexico program, participants representing Native Americans, early Hispanic settlers, and later immigrants came together to discuss the complex underpinnings of the state’s robust regional culture and land-based lifeways that are anything but unchanging. Santa Clara Pueblo pottery was one of the traditional arts featured in the program and was set up in a large plaza surrounded by adobe structures.
Madeline Naranjo was born in 1916. She traveled to Washington with her daughter Frances, also a potter, and Tessie Naranjo (unrelated), who wrote about pottery in the Festival program book and helped present their work on the National Mall. The pottery area included works in progress and a display of the deeply etched and beautifully burnished pottery for which Santa Clara potters are so well known. Close observers could learn that the lustrous sheen on the surface is achieved by carefully polishing with a small, smooth stone after the pot is formed and carved.
Madeline Naranjo finishes a carved jar at the 1992 Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Madeline Naranjo finishes a carved jar at the 1992 Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“Pottery-making is more than the simple creation of an object from earth. It speaks to a feeling that we are of the earth, that the pot and the person are one…. Generations of Pueblo mothers have taught their children the making and meaning of pottery. In all the 19 Pueblo communities in New Mexico, this connection with clay has been repeated and taught generation after generation.”
—Tessie Naranjo, Santa Clara Puelbo
Pueblo pottery—in its many forms, colors, and surface design techniques—has drawn collectors since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the railroad and later automobiles brought tourists into the Southwest. A local craft art economy grew and remains strong today. The Festival had a robust Marketplace that year, including this beautiful bowl.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Madeline Naranjo carves designs into a wedding vase at the Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Established by Congress in 1846 to promote the increase and diffusion of knowledge, the Smithsonian celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1996. To mark the occasion, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage organized and produced the Institution’s 150th birthday party, which attracted 600,000 celebrants on August 10 and 11.
August 10, 1846, was an eventful day in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Congress enacted legislation to establish the Smithsonian Institution, and President James K. Polk signed the bill that same day. The Institution’s centennial in August 1946 saw only a small exhibition inside the National Museum of Natural History, so hopes were high for something bigger to mark the sesquicentennial in 1996.
Many Smithsonian staffers were initially unenthusiastic. It would be terribly hot in August, Congress would be in recess, and it would cost a lot of money. Nevertheless, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, which already had some thirty years’ experience producing the Folklife Festival, agreed to take on the task. Since the early 1990s, the Center has produced a number of large-scale special events: America’s Reunion on the Mall in conjunction with President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration; Southern Crossroads: A Festival of the American South celebrating the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta; National World War II Reunion in honor of the National World War II Memorial dedication in 2004; First Americans Festival concurring with the National Museum of the American Indian opening in 2004; and Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration for the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016.
Among the gifts received by the Smithsonian for its 150th birthday was this commemorative plaque, created by DeVon Smith (1926–2003) of Wampum, Pennsylvania, which coincidentally was celebrating its bicentennial in 1996. Smith was born five miles from Wampum and served in the U.S. Army during WWII. In 1947, he began a career of professional hitchhiking. He set records for the fastest time to hitch in all 48 states (33 days) and for the most cumulative miles (290,980). In the 1970s, he returned to Wampum, where he bought and sold scavenged items—such as the materials for this plaque, which cost Smith a total of 13 cents. Painted on the plaque are the words, “Opening doors from the past for the future,” which pay tribute not only to the Smithsonian, but also to Smith’s own creative spirit.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Matachines dancer María Teresa González explains how she embroidered her dance skirt: “Each person chooses what he or she likes, something that has special meaning to them. I chose to use the small carrizo (river cane). I use them as beads and to form a cross. It’s a kind of prayer.”
Matachines dancers perform in front of the cross on the Mall.
Photo by Richard Strauss, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The matachines dance is a folk Catholic tradition that honors various saints, religious icons, or liturgical feast days. During the 1987 Folklife Festival, the Matachines de la Santa Cruz de Laredo, Texas, honored the Holy Cross with a procession down the National Mall. Organizer, embroiderer, and dancer Teresita González proudly danced at this once-in-a-lifetime event with the nagüilla, or skirt, embroidered for this occasion with the emblems of the cross and chalice. The nagüilla was trimmed with three tiers of bangles strung with jingle bells and pieces of river cane gathered from the banks of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo. In addition to being a personal identity marker, the nagüilla—with its bells and reeds—is an instrument.
Listen to the sounds of the nagüilla as the Matachines troupe from Laredo, Texas moves through the Festival site.
The troupe followed a decorated cross down the Mall, forming dance patterns in time to the persistent rhythms of the accordion and drum. The ringing bells and clanging of the reeds on the nagüillas accentuated the sounds. Each dancer also shook a gourd rattle. The cadence of the music and energetic stepping drew visitors from across the Festival who eagerly followed the procession.
—Olivia Cadaval, curator
A young family member works on the nagüilla.
Photo by Ricardo Vargas, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Cloth (velvet, corduroy, ribbons), river reeds, bells, sequins
Measurements
38” L x 18” W
Catalog Number
38” L x 18” W
Sweetgrass Baskets
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Traditions can be powerful enough to link oceans. These coiled baskets created by African American basket sewers from the Low Country of South Carolina are part of a deep and unbroken connection to African heritage that dates from the 1700s.
Experienced African farmers enslaved and forced to work in American plantations brought the tradition of coiled sweetgrass basket making to the United States as part of a broader repertoire of farming knowledge and expertise. Baskets were originally created from locally available materials such as bulrush, palmetto, and sweetgrass to winnow rice, hold food, and transport cotton. With diminishing use of baskets in farming, basket sewers in South Carolina continued to make and use baskets for their homes, and eventually to offer them for sale to tourists at outdoor markets. In the 1920s, heritage craft schools such as Penn Center taught these traditional arts as a valuable occupational skill.
National Heritage Fellow Mary Jackson demonstrated the art of Low Country basket sewing at the 1996 Folklife Festival’s American South program. The baskets in the Center’s collection were made for sale in the Festival Marketplace by Marguerite S. Middleton, another well-known basket sewer. Supporting traditional artists by marketing and selling their work was an early hallmark of the Folklife Festival. The 1976 program on the African Diaspora, in fact, was one of the first places sweetgrass baskets were available for purchase outside of the South. At the time, most of the baskets were sold from outdoor stalls along Route 17 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Detail of one of Marguerite Middleton’s baskets.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
As recognition of the tradition’s connections to African heritage and its role in American history has grown, so has the demand for the baskets and their growth into an art form. In a move to protect the source of their weaving materials, basket makers formed the Mount Pleasant Sweetgrass Basketmakers Association to protect the wild sweetgrass. The members work together to keep the tradition alive, advocate for fair prices, and maintain high standards of African American basket making.
These skills are passed on in African American families throughout the Low Country of South Carolina, and the baskets have been become a source of both income and creative expression. They are forceful reminders of an enduring African American history and heritage.
—Diana Baird N’Diaye, curator
Mary Jackson demonstrated sweetgrass basket sewing at the Festival.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Orphan Tower draws you into the venue: a Plexiglas structure that extends more than seven feet towards the peak of the tent, enveloped by hundreds of handmade dolls each unique in its hairstyle, fabric dress, and decorative beadwork. And then you learn what they symbolize.
The 2012 Folklife Festival featured Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt to mark the 25th anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and thirty years of life with AIDS. With the quilt as the anchor, this program commemorated the innovative and resourceful ways communities work to educate people and help them cope with one of the most complex pandemics in modern history.
This was made all the more poignant in the Common Threads tent, which was co-curated by the NAMES Project Foundation and the UCLA Art & Global Health Center. At the center was the “Orphan Tower,” made by the Siyazama (Zulu for “we are trying”) Project in South Africa, an organization developed in 1998 to work with women from the KwaZulu-Natal region. Its goals were to teach women market skills, inform them about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention, and create a means to share information through traditional artistic skills and knowledge.
Beauty Ndlovu and Lobolile Ximba came to the Festival to demonstrate doll making and beadwork. Visitors to the tent quickly learned that each of the 634 dolls on the tower represents a child who was orphaned because of AIDS in Dannhauser, KwaZulu-Natal. With a population of only 5,389 (2011), 634 dolls represent nearly one out of eight children—a staggering number made even more alarming through the use of a child-friendly object.
The dolls were carefully mounted each morning and taken down at the end of the day. A simple system was devised to display the dolls by inserting a thumbtack on each back and slipping it into a slot cut into the Plexiglas.
Photo by Carsten Schmidt, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Orphan Tower came into our possession after a derecho swept through the Festival grounds on June 29, 2012. The severe storm, with wind gusts measuring sixty to eighty miles per hour, destroyed tents, crushed tables, and sent the “Orphan Tower” with all its dolls into the mud. Even after borrowing office space in the Smithsonian Castle to lay out, clean, and dry the dolls with a fan, they could not be restored to their original likeness. The Center negotiated to acquire the dolls and the structure and reimbursed the UCLA Art & Global Health Center so that the women of Dannhauser could make another powerful teaching tool for their community.
—Arlene Reiniger, program curator
Beauty Ndlovu in the Common Threads tent.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Poi—made of taro root—is a staple food in Hawai‘i tied to spiritual and cultural identity. Knowing how to grow taro and prepare poi strengthens Hawaiian culture, language, connection to the environment, and well-being.
The language is how we communicate to our universe
The 2013 Festival’s One World, Many Voices program highlighted endangered languages and cultural heritages. Language embodies nothing less than what program curators called the “human knowledge base”—everything people know about themselves and the world. The program put a human face to the prediction that, without intervention, up to half of the world’s 7,000 languages spoken today may disappear this century.
The recovery of the Hawaiian language is one of the success stories: there are now over 10,000 speakers of Hawaiian, five times more than in the 1970s. As curator K. David Harrison noted, “This was done with great effort, and through the introduction of immersion schools that raised a new generation in the language and traditional arts: celestial navigation, poi pounding, canoe building, storytelling, and hula.”
Cultural educator Earl Kawa‘a and his niece Ka‘ai McAfee-Torco discuss the importance of the taro plant and poi to Hawaiian identity.
Poi pounding involves mashing boiled taro root into a paste called poi. For cultural educator Earl Kawa‘a, the process is much more than making food: it involves Hawaiian deities, taking care of the land, and learning to live a responsible life. He teaches students how to plant and tend the taro, prepare the tools, make the poi, and honor the ancestors—in Hawaiian. At the Festival, he engaged many visitors in helping to carve the poi pounding board.
Michael Mason received the poi pounding board during the Hawaiian delegation’s last performance on the music stage.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
As Michael Mason, director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, was called up on stage by the Hawaiian delegation, a shell lei was placed around his neck, and he was presented with the finished poi board. He recalled:
“Earl made a very elegant speech about the fact that the poi pounding board is the foundation of Hawaiian culture. It’s the base of their culture because poi is the most fundamental food that people have. He then spoke about how language and culture tell people where they come from—and that they need to know this to know where they are going.”
The poi pounding board remains in Mason’s office and is a daily reminder of the gift’s message. It also reminds him of his four-year-old daughter’s enthusiasm at wielding an adze under Kawa‘a’s careful guidance.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Earl Kawa‘a adds his signature—a Hawaiian voyaging canoe—to the poi pounding board.
Photo by Caroline Angelo, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archies
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
What were English rocking horse makers doing at the 2007 Roots of Virginia Culture program? The key is “roots”: Native American, English, and West African descendants participated in the program. In the realm of traditions, both Kent County, England, and Virginia remain “horse country.”
Roots of Virginia Culture marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. By looking at the roots of Virginia’s historic settlement and later growth, Festival organizers and participants took on a particularly big challenge that year. Curator Betty Belanus noted that the first Englishmen who stepped foot on the continent had come looking for a quick route to riches. Instead, they put in motion the creation of a new country set to be shaped by many different cultural traditions. By looking at the Native American, English, and African American roots of Virginia culture, the program brought participants from Kent, England, and Senegal, West Africa. A wide range of arts and cultural practices were presented side by side so visitors could note the similarities and differences.
The parallels remain strong between Kent County and Virginia when it comes to horses. Horses are big business in both, as are rolling hills, good grass, and a supportive local clientele. They are raised for pleasure riding, equestrian shows, and racing in both locales, and well-to-do fanciers have created markets for everything from horse portraits to harness brasses—and, of course, rocking horses.
Twin brothers Tony and Marc Stevenson of Bethersden, Kent, came to their business of creating and selling rocking horses through family. Born overseas, they had seen rocking horses made by their uncle on visits home and secretly hoped to be given one when their family returned to England. The gift never came, but when the brothers decided to go into business together, they followed in their uncle’s footsteps. They have now been crafting exquisitely beautiful horses for more than thirty years and for some distinguished clients, including the Queen of England.
Tony Stevenson visits with a young Festival visitor trying out a rocking horse.
Photo by Harold Dorwin, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Partially completed rocking horse in the foreground.
Photo by Nancy Libson, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The brothers brought some horses to the Festival and also worked on a new one, said to be a dappled grey. Although not finished, the horse was ceremonially presented to the Center, and it is easy to see a friendly horse emerging—even if its dappled coat can’t yet be seen.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Brothers Marc and Tony Stevenson pictured in their Kent County studio.
How a quilt made on the National Mall became personal for the program coordinator
The 1994 Masters of Traditional Arts program highlighted the exemplary skills and artistry of recent recipients of National Heritage Fellowships, the National Endowment for the Arts’ highest award in the folk and traditional arts. Arbie Williams, an African American quilter from Oakland, California, was among them.
Before and during the Festival, we work especially closely with craftspeople to try to ensure the best presentation possible on the Mall, with appropriate supplies, materials, space, and context. Arbie had told us that she would like to make a quilt using pants, one of the many types of quilts she was known for and one that touched on repurposing materials. We had our work cut out for us to make sure she had a sewing machine, the right colors of thread, adequate work space, and a backdrop to show off some of her completed work. And then there was the question of where to get the pants. Not being one to pass up an opportunity to clean out my closet, I happily surrendered an old pair of jeans to this great cause.
Arbie Williams works on the pants quilt during the Festival.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Visitors to Arbie’s tent learned that she grew up in rural Carthage, Texas, and that she learned to sew from her mother, an expert quilter, when she was eight years old. She married young and raised nine children, working at various jobs to help support her family. She moved to California with her family in the 1940s and revived quilt making as her children grew older. She was influenced by other Southern quilters in her use of bright colors, vibrant contrasts, and geometric patterns. She also used her own creative aesthetics to incorporate “accidents” and irregularities into her pieces, putting her unique mark into each quilt.
I proudly display Arbie Williams’s pants quilt on my office wall. It brings me warm and wonderful memories of an amazing woman and quilter, and smiles to everyone who sees it.
—Arlene Reiniger, program coordinator
Arbie Williams with the quilt she made using program coordinator Arlene Reiniger’s jeans.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“We could see that our communities were falling apart. Our kids would grow up, go off, and never come back. There was no opportunity for them to stay at home… But we did have some ideas of maintaining something that we knew: a tradition of weaving and raising sheep in the community.”
—Molly Manzanares, Los Ojos, New Mexico
The Story +
Maker
Teri García
Location
Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, U.S.A.
Festival Program
2003 El Río Traveling Exhibition
Re-establishing connections between the land, sheep, and weaving
Tierra Wools was founded in New Mexico in 1983 as an economic development cooperative. Built around a philosophy of local control of land and resources, it sought to create economic opportunities by supporting local traditions and sustainable resources—reviving the Rio Grande weaving tradition and rescuing the almost extinct Navajo-Churro sheep. Tierra Wools is still located in Los Ojos, New Mexico, and continues to provide weaving workshops, training, and marketing support to local community members. It buys Navajo-Churro wool from local ranchers, and through e-commerce and tourism serves an international customer base.
Churro sheep, a breed restored by a local Navajo-Churro program that started in the 1980s in association with Utah State University.
Photo courtesy of Tierra Wools
The 2003 El Río traveling exhibition grew out of two earlier Festivals: 1998 Río Grande/Río Bravo Basin and 2000 El Río. As a hybrid project, it wove together themes that explored the relationship between traditional knowledge, local culture, and sustainable environments along the great boundary-straddling river. It is also a good example of how the Festival’s work extends beyond the summer programs. Collaborative training and fieldwork are at the heart of this kind of work: community members are trained to be active researchers and use their new skills to shape the content to be relevant to their own communities as well as a broader public. The traveling exhibition opened at the Smithsonian and then traveled throughout the Southwest and northern Mexico for several years. Many of the commissioned objects were returned to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the conclusion of the tour, including this fine Rio Grande weaving by Teri García of Tierra Wools.
García’s personal experience attests to the success of the cooperative’s mission: she has been able to stay in her home community, help raise her family, and develop an economically viable career. “In 1992 I was hired as a finisher at Tierra Wools. Two years later, I enrolled in the apprenticeship weaving program. In 1998 I was recognized as a Master Weaver… Tierra Wools has given me a true appreciation of the art and ability to express my creativity through my weaving.”
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Molly Manzanares (left) spins wool while Helen Manzanares (right) weaves in the Tierra Wools workshop area.
Photo by Don Hurlbert, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Essie Ward was a self-taught painter from Arkansas. Ralph Rinzler purchased a number of her paintings during fieldwork for the 1970 Folklife Festival’s Arkansas program. They later came to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage after his death and several now hang in the conference room.
Ward (1902–1981) had always been interested in art but lived the life of a farmer and mother of seven until an illness in her late fifties left her unable to do heavy work. Around that time, a friend asked her to create a painting from a photograph for him. The scene was of a woman with a churn in the doorway of a cabin. From there, she was inspired to create a series of paintings, fifty-five in all, that highlighted country Ozark life. The series often featured a married couple, Miranda and Hezzakiah, usually shown engaged in farm work. Curator Susan Young of the Shiloh Museum pointed out that in some cases Ward painted Miranda doing the work while Hezzakiah was lounging around.
Folklife Festival founder Ralph Rinzler was no stranger to Arkansas and traveled there to collect folksongs in the 1960s. According to Young, one time when Rinzler was visiting folk singer Jimmy Driftwood at his home, he spotted one of Ward’s paintings and was enamored with it. He asked to meet her, and Driftwood took him for a visit. He then ordered some paintings. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections contains a handwritten receipt from Ward dated 1965 regarding an order of four paintings. The three currently on display in the Center’s conference room are dated 1967 and all feature Hezzakiah and Miranda. Ward had many customers who ordered handmade paintings. Each one, including “Chitlin’ Time,” bore her stamp: a pair of white rabbit ears somewhere in the painting.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“When Doña Gloria Moroyoqui arrived at the Folklife Festival with a beautifully adorned Virgin of Guadalupe, she says, ‘Olivia, we need some music. We have to bring the Virgin down to my stall, to my casita. We can’t leave her back there at the trailer. She’ll get lonely!’”
Gloria Moroyoqui’s close relationship with the Virgin of Guadalupe enlivened the Festival in an unexpected way
Doña Gloria is renowned in her community for the beautiful paper flowers she crafts. When Festival designer Joan Wolbier visited her in Nogales, Mexico, she commissioned a paper flower arrangement for a poster to use with the Borderlands program for 1992. But Doña Gloria’s gift of a framed image of the Virgin of Guadalupe decorated with sparkles and tiny delicate flowers was a surprise.
Gloria Moroyoqui begins her daily procession, this time accompanied by guitar and accordion music (and folklorist “Big Jim” Griffith just behind her).
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
This patron saint of Mexico and the Americas was more than an adorned picture; she was a presence at the Festival that took caring for like any other participant. No later than 9 a.m. every day, my primary responsibility was to find at least one musician to lead a procession to Doña Gloria’s casita—her work stall at the Festival. The same thing repeated at the end of the day: find a musician to lead a procession back to the trailer.
—Olivia Cadaval, program curator
Gloria Moroyoqui carries the Virgin of Guadalupe to her Festival stall.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“Caballitos de totora (little reed horses) are artisanal rafts that come from our ancestors, the Mochicas, the Chimú. They were used to fish, and we still use them this way. I explained how they are made, how they are used, where the net goes, where the fisherman sits. I felt proud to see people’s interest.”
An ancient way of fishing persists—against many odds
As visitors approached the Caballitos de Totora exhibition space at the 2015 Perú: Pachamama Festival program, they were confronted by ten- to fifteen-foot-tall reed rafts, standing just as they would on the beaches of Huanchaco. The totora reeds (bulrush), from which the caballitos were constructed, carried the smell of the northern Peruvian coast. In my mind I was transported back to the day I met fisherman and master caballito maker Ángel Piminchumo and his nephew Matteo Valderrama.
Matteo Valderrama discusses the importance of the reed rafts to himself and his community.
I was part of a five-person research team that traveled to Huanchaco in December 2014 to learn more about this tradition. Building and fishing in reed rafts are practices that date back to the pre-Incan Moche (100 - 700 BCE) and Chimú (900 – 1470) civilizations. Today, tourists flock to Huanchaco to try their hand at surfing the “little horses.”
Ángel met us on the beach, explaining how caballitos de totora are constructed while deftly wrapping a fishing line around two small bundles of dried reeds to make a miniature one. Matteo showed us how to mount the caballito, where we could store our catch, and how to row in and out from shore, as he had done for countless tourists before. The rafts take a lot of strength to carry. They weigh almost 90 pounds when dry, and closer to 150 pounds when soaked with sea water.
A fisherman heads out to sea on a reed raft.
Photo by Carlos Antonio Ferrer, Smithsonian
Chimú vessel depicting fishermen on a reed raft, ca. 1100-1400, Perú.
Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum
Ángel Piminchumo carries a full-size caballito across the National Mall.
Photo by Josh Weilepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Walking around the swamps of Huanchaco where the totora reed grows, we learned that overharvesting has made this once plentiful natural resource scarce. Yet artisans like Ángel have adapted by adding pieces of polystyrene, requiring less raw material per boat, in order to maintain the iconic boats that tourists have come to associate with the Huanchaco coastline. The raft Ángel donated to our collection is specially made in the more traditional way, exclusively with reeds. This caballito, in contrast to most, will not rot away over the fishing season, but will stand in our collection as a symbol of the resiliency of this 3,000-year tradition.
—Cristina Díaz-Carrera, program co-curator
Ángel Piminchumo, master caballito maker.
Photo by Ronald Villasante, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Matteo Valderrama assists his uncle at the Festival.
Photo by Brian Barger, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Letter designer and stone carver John Neilson carries on a long Welsh tradition of working in slate. The inscription he carved at the 2009 Wales Smithsonian Cymru program is both a metaphor for the act of stone carving and a personal creed.
With these words, John Neilson created a demonstration piece to work on during the 2009 Folklife Festival. Not only could visitors watch his steady hand and keen concentration as he carved the letters, but cutting them into slate gave him more to talk about: the history of slate mining in Wales, the creative process of designing letters, and his love of the Welsh language.
To “open a furrow of dust” describes what happens when letters are cut into stone, much like the farmer’s plow opens furrows of dirt in the earth. The words are also a metaphor for following your own path, which Neilson has done since pursuing a career in carving. He first worked as a teacher, then studied calligraphy in London, and finally trained with letter designer Tom Perkins in 1991.
A visitor feels the freshly carved letters.
Photo by John Loggins, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
According to the National Slate Museum, “quarrying slate is the most Welsh of Welsh industries.” By the late nineteenth century, Wales was the primary exporter of slates throughout Britain. Special skills were needed each step of the way: quarrying it out of the mountain, engineering it down steep slopes, then splitting it for use. Buildings, roofs, gravestones, and flooring were all made of slate. The carving came later, adding letters to gravestones, dates and names to buildings, words onto monuments.
Wales Smithsonian Cymru juxtaposed tradition and innovation, shining a light on the government’s sustainable development policies. Neilson’s work spans the spectrum: he uses the same tools as the Romans (hammers, mallets, chisels). Sometimes his work is put to traditional uses such as on gravestones; other times it is intentionally sculptural, laying out letters in a quilt of patterns that anticipates the daily action of light and shadow. His ability to foresee this patterning and control his cuts is masterful. By his own admission, he found his love of letters early: “I do have memories of being at primary school and looking at the lettering the teacher put up on the board, and being a bit critical about the ’A’—I was kind of a lettering nerd even then!” (Shropshire County TV)
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
John Neilson “opens a furrow of dust” in the stone.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Indian Ocean currents, floating trash, endangered sea life, master woodcarving skills, and urban livelihood all combine and come to life in this towering family of Kenyan giraffes made of discarded flip-flops.
The Story +
Maker
Jonathan Lento, Francis Mutua Muvua, Charles Kimeu
This was the question we asked repeatedly in planning the 2014 Kenya: Mambo Poa program. Kenya’s Rift Valley was home to the world’s earliest humans, yet its democracy was only fifty years old in 2014. Forty-three different ethnic groups live—often uneasily—within its boundaries. Festival curators wanted to help visitors understand the textured story of modern Kenya that Kenyans wanted to tell. They ultimately chose a framework of three geographic areas—coastal, pastoral, and urban—and the theme of “innovation and change.”
The Festival is at its best when it illuminates meaningful stories hidden in plain sight. Such was the case when carvers Francis Mutua Muvua and Jonathan Lento of the Nairobi-based Ocean Sole project traveled to Washington, D.C. Their work demonstrates the power of creativity to address pressing social and environmental issues. The Indian Ocean’s powerful currents pull tons of debris to the East African coast, marring the landscape and endangering marine wildlife. Ocean Sole was created in 1983 to address this threat—and create a sustainable future for their employees. The company currently employs over one hundred people and has workshops throughout the country—including remote coastal areas where more than 400,000 flip-flops are collected each year.
Flip-flops washed up on a beach on Kiwayu Island in eastern Kenya.
Smithsonian
Beach scene near a flip-flop collection site.
Smithsonian
Artists work on larger sculptures, gluing overlapping flip-flop soles onto foam rubber bases after the shoes have been washed and dried.
Smithsonian
The final touch: adding eyelashes to a giraffe sculpture.
Smithsonian
The artisans know their subjects well: many have worked on the game preserves and are trained wildlife wood carvers. Now they work in the country’s largest city and make innovative art from recycled materials. After being collected and cleaned, the soles of discarded flip-flops are glued into small blocks and carved into animal shapes or decorative chains. Larger pieces, like the giraffe family, are formed around carved Styrofoam bases covered with overlapping soles that are then carved, sanded, and shaped to the form. It takes three men two full weeks to create a large giraffe.
Francis Mutua Muvua, who was a woodcarver before joining Ocean Sole, told us, “This work is my daily bread.” It has allowed him to afford school fees for his children—and to travel to Washington, D.C.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator and Sabrina Lynn Motley, Festival director
Jonathan Lento.
Photo by Robert Friedman, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Frances Mutua Muvua.
Photo by Robert Friedman, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Maker
Jonathan Lento, Francis Mutua Muvua, Charles Kimeu
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
People living along the far-ranging Mekong River and its tributaries are as diverse as the river is long. For all, however, water is the sustainer of life. Fishing is a mainstay of subsistence within the watershed, and where there are fish, there are fish traps—made in every shape and size.
The Story +
Maker
Boungneng Ouansakdam, Bun Sam Ath, Ca Van Cu, Kalathone Syphounsouk, Kumsing Thongnuea, Ton Nieng, Udom Saengpong
Location
Mekong River Delta: Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam
The greater the biodiversity of a fishery, the greater the variety of traps
Many who visit the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage wonder what kind of baskets these are. A closer look reveals not only distinctive exterior shapes, but interior woven funnels, and a broad range of sizes, each adapted to a specific variety of fish and the particular waterway in which it will be used (still or flowing, deep or shallow). The ingenuity behind the design of fish traps can be easily underestimated.
Photos by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photos by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photos by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Seven fish trap makers from four countries—Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand—participated in the 2007 Folklife Festival program Mekong River: Connecting Cultures. Four years of collaborative fieldwork by Festival curators and host-country specialists resulted in detailed documentation now stored in the Center’s Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. These resources document the impact of development between 2004 and 2007.
The research also helped planners envision how to set up the Festival grounds. At the Festival, the participating craftspeople worked alongside one another and took turns demonstrating trap making techniques and discussing the interplay between biodiversity, natural resources, and their cultural practices. For most, making the traps provided an important supplement to their incomes, and the fish they caught enriched the family diet.
Fish trap makers demonstrate their skills and a young volunteer (center) tries his hand at making a trap.
Photo by Richard Straus, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Construction of the Pak Mun Dam in Thailand began in 1991 and had a profound effect on local fisheries and fishers. “Our lives have been destroyed by the dam,” said one village fisher in an interview. Fish migration was severely disrupted, and the variety of species plummeted. The demand for certain kinds of traps declined as well. Similarly in Vietnam, a change in rice cultivation practice—which led to more annual crops but shortened the time paddies were flooded—diminished the variety of aquatic life that could thrive, leading to increased demand but for fewer styles of fish traps. The diversity of fishing tools offers a visible indicator of the diversity of the local ecosystem—and the quality of life of local residents.
—Frank Proschan, program co-curator
Pan Maneepak works on the interior of a fish trap in Tha Sala Village, Thailand.
Photo by Pham Cao Quy, Smithsonian
Maker
Boungneng Ouansakdam, Bun Sam Ath, Ca Van Cu, Kalathone Syphounsouk, Kumsing Thongnuea, Ton Nieng, Udom Saengpong
Location
Mekong River Delta: Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“My thought,” said Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, “is that we have dulcimers in cases in the museum, but how many people have actually heard one or seen one being made?” This thought helped launch the first Festival of American Folklife in 1967. Program books have traced its trajectory since then.
The Story +
Maker
Staff and guest writers
Festival Program
1968–2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festivals
Festival program books have become treasured mementos
From 1968 to 2013, visitors to the Folklife Festival could pick up a program book and not only find a map of the site and a schedule of events, but could go home afterward and read about the underpinnings and intent of what they had just experienced. Published in advance of each Festival, the books have come to be seen as insightful companions to the annual “cultural conversation” taking place on the National Mall. In 1990, Richard Kurin, then director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, reflected on this living archival artifact:
“(In the early years) the Festival program book included many documentary photographs, recipes, statements by and interviews with craftspeople and musicians. It attempted to bring the many voices of the Festival event to its printed publication. Over the years, the program book has included seminal and informative articles on tradition and issues presented by Festival programs.”
While each program book is distinct, the prefaces and introductions frame the thematic threads of the upcoming year. Many of the themes have persisted, even if the terminology has changed. “Cultural conservation” is later taken over by “cultural resistance” or “cultural sustainability.” The early terminology of voice and validation solidifies into “cultural democracy.” As we journey through these introductory essays, we discover the evolving thematic structure of the Festival and its possibilities for contributing to a better world. The Festival remains faithful to its principles of respect and plurality but has developed a vocabulary to engage governments and world agencies to fight for these principles.
Each program book is also a piece of art. The front covers that feature an artist at work speak volumes about the traditional knowledge informing their skills. When Miss Felicia Caines, a basket maker from the U.S. Virgin Islands was featured on the 1990 cover, a legislator from the islands observed that the Smithsonian had replaced the touristic “sun, sea, and sand” image with that of a local traditional artist—a much truer reflection of the place.
—Olivia Cadaval, curator
Basket weaver Felicia Caines was featured on the cover of the 1990 program book, bringing a different type of visibility to the Virgin Islands.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Maker
Staff and guest writers
Festival Program
1968–2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festivals
Materials
Paper
Measurements
8” W x 11” H
Lily Spandorf’s Festival Sketches
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
A Festival fixture from 1967 to 1998, local artist Lily Spandorf captured the distinctive culture of the annual event by skillfully depicting its energy, color, people, and warmth in beautifully detailed portraits and vignettes.
The Story +
Maker
Lily Spandorf (1914–2000)
Location
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
A Festival mainstay
Festival veterans fondly remember seeing Lily Spandorf on the Mall every year, dragging her iconic granny cart full of art supplies and settling down on her stool to draw. She used an “easel” fashioned out of cardboard so that she could travel with it more easily—a no-nonsense solution for a prolific artist whose work consisted mostly of outdoor scenes.
The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections acquired 756 of her Festival drawings in 2001, shortly after her passing in 2000. While most are stored in the archives’ vault, sixteen drawings and paintings were framed and are on display in the Center’s offices. We pass them every day, and we know them almost by heart. Some are so detailed that one can identify the Festival program featured. There is an intimacy to the drawings; they are a series of moments, based on close observation over a sustained period of time. You can almost see the dancers move.
Spandorf was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1914. An honors graduate of the Vienna Academy of Arts, she left Austria in 1938 to continue her art education at London’s St. Martin’s School of Art. During World War II, she volunteered for the Red Cross in Scotland. She also worked and lived in Italy, where she became interested in painting scenes outdoors. She moved to New York City in 1959 but found the city too vast and hectic. She eventually moved to Washington, D.C., in 1960, where she settled into an apartment in Dupont Circle and lived there until her death.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Spandorf loved Washington but was saddened when historic buildings were torn down in the name of progress. If she caught wind of an impending demolition, she would draw the buildings before they disappeared. Perhaps her attraction to the Festival was part of her desire to capture the soul of her adopted city on paper. Her deep respect for and obvious delight in culture, history, and living heritage is something we are proud to memorialize on our walls—for another 50 years, and beyond.
—Cecilia Peterson, digital projects archivist
Lily Spandorf photographed at her easel in the Mississippi Delta program area of the 1997 Festival of American Folklife.
Courtesy of Arlene Reiniger, Smithsonian
Maker
Lily Spandorf (1914–2000)
Location
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
Materials
Paper, pen and ink, watercolor
Measurements
14” H x 16” W (average)
Catalog Number
Purchased by the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Before there was Twitter, Facebook, or even email to blast out upcoming events, there were Globe posters. As co-owner Bob Cicero says, “They were loud and blaring. We didn’t care how gaudy it looked or how outlandish it looked. As long as it caught your eye, you read it.”
The 2011 Folklife Festival program Rhythm and Blues: Tell It Like It Is! told the stories and featured the songs of how rhythm and blues music became such a powerful influence on American popular culture. In the words of program curator Mark Puryear, it revealed “some of the social and cultural notes that have been played out through the decades.” In addition to presenting performers who made countless contributions to rhythm and blues music, the program also brought forth radio personalities, promoters, and Bob Cicero of Globe Poster Printing.
Founded in 1929 in Baltimore, Globe advertised just about everything, including circuses, vaudeville shows, auto races, boxing, and wrestling matches. By the 1950s, rhythm and blues performances became the company’s mainstay. Using letterpress wood type, silk screens, block printing, and Day-Glo inks, Globe made posters that could be seen from a car going forty miles an hour. Joe Cicero, Bob’s father, began working with the company in 1934 and bought it in 1974. The Cicero family ran the business until 2010.
William Bell and a member of the Stax Music Academy “tell it like it is” through song on the Soulsville Stage.
Photo by Michelle Arbeit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
With a backdrop reminiscent of roadside posters stapled onto telephone poles and pasted on brick walls, the Dixie Cups perform for an enthusiastic audience.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
With a pedigree that hit all the right notes coupled with a desire to attach the right message to the Rhythm and Blues program, we turned to Globe Poster Printing to do the rest. They came up with a poster that was “loud and blaring” and succeeded in promoting the program while staying true to the genre’s aesthetics. They printed over 200 posters, including 175 that were signed and numbered by Bob Cicero. This poster adorned the entryway to the program on the National Mall, embellished the Soulsville Stage backdrop, and was given out to each participant in the program.
The Festival poster was one of the last produced by Globe Poster Printing before they closed their doors for good. Bob Cicero now teaches letterpress at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where sixteen truckloads of wood type, posters, printing cuts, and related materials from Globe Poster Printing reside and are used as teaching tools.
—Arlene Reiniger, program coordinator
Stax Music Academy members perform.
Photo by Michelle Arbeit, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Can an artifact that includes a Styrofoam penguin, a blown glass ship, watch parts, and a plastic-coated wire flower be called “folk art”? Yes, when it represents the work skills and innovative interpretation of participants from the Massachusetts program of the 1988 Folklife Festival joining forces to create a bocce tournament award.
The Story +
Maker
Louis Carpentier, Donato BiBona, Robert DiGiacomo, Peter Erickson, Archie Nahman, Paul Piquette
As a newly minted Festival program curator, I had to overcome a huge learning curve in figuring out how to represent a whole state with approximately one hundred people on the National Mall. With the help of an advisory group, we decided to focus on relatively few Massachusetts communities (ethnic, regional, occupational) as a way to give a rich, if selective, view of the state.
Including Italians was a must; they make up the second largest ethnic group in the state. And where Italians live, so do bocce courts and players. The game is easy to learn, and building a court, while daunting, was not impossible on the Mall. When the Festival opened, it quickly became a center of attention for participants and visitors alike. A friendly competition arose between staff and participants, and a tournament was born.
A tournament needs an award, and who better to make it than the Festival participants working in “industrial crafts”? Their skills in scientific glass blowing, watch making, machine-tooling, and even computer building and repair combined to create this truly unique trophy. It was presented to the winning team who then presented it to Richard Kurin (far right in the photograph below), who would go on to become our director, as a reminder of the “hard-earned success” of the programs.
Friendly competitors approach the court.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
For me, the award is a metaphor for the Massachusetts program itself, and my fond memories of the first program I curated. From the makers of the award, I learned how a theme starts as an abstract idea and then plays out on the Mall; in this case how innovation and tradition work in real life. The participants who crafted the award brought their occupational skills together to craft something whimsical but with amazing depth: old, new, ingenious, playful, and heartfelt. It also reflects the skills they had honed over many years of work in a way they never had before, with fellow Massachusetts residents they had just met. The award tells a story of cooperation, pride, respect, friendship, and humor. A curator could not have asked for a better artifact as a reminder of her first Festival.
—Betty Belanus, program curator
Maker
Louis Carpentier, Donato BiBona, Robert DiGiacomo, Peter Erickson, Archie Nahman, Paul Piquette
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Stone carver and letterer Nick Benson designed an elegant new script for the hand-carved “Smithsonian” inscription he created during the Festival. Doing both the design and physical carving of the letters is a specialty of the John Stevens Shop.
The Masters of the Building Arts program at the 2001 Folklife Festival celebrated the extraordinary artistry of craftspeople in the building arts: stone masons, brick layers, carpenters, blacksmiths, stained glass makers, and more. It also explored the many challenges they face as they work to preserve our nation’s past and build for the future. Dozens of master artisans and their apprentices—138 participants in all—spoke to visitors not only about their personal work and achievements, but how they learned their craft and what inspires them to excel. Collectively, they share a deep appreciation for the aesthetic value and expressive power of technical perfection and take pride in their ability to craft objects of beauty and strength through workmanship and skill. Their deep understanding of raw materials is crucial to their work, as is their careful selection and use of tools and mastery of technique.
Nick Benson at the 2001 Masters of the Building Arts program.
Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Inscription detail.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Nick Benson designed a new script for “Smithsonian,” which he plotted out and carved during the Festival program. He participated in the Festival with two stone carvers from the John Stevens Shop, echoing the way he learned from his father to become the third generation of his family to master both letter design and carving. When Nick’s father retired in 1993, he took over the shop, where he continues to design and carve in the tradition of his father and grandfather with creative twists.
“My style is a combination of my father’s and my grandfather’s, and it’s constantly evolving,” he says. “That development is what keeps the passion alive.”
Since participating the Masters of the Building Arts, Benson has received the highest public recognition for his work in the United States: a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010. His inscriptions and decorative reliefs can be seen on buildings and memorials throughout the country, including the National World War II Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, all in Washington, D.C.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“For most practising mummers, the folk drama is simply carrying on a harmless folk tradition. But looking at it more closely, it is a rejoicing anarchical pagan tale about the death of the old year and the rebirth in spring.”
To go mumming is to “make merry in a mask or disguise.” According to Jim Ledwith, leader of the Aughakillymaude Community Mummers, “rural mummers know that mumming is what their parents used to do each winter coming up to Christmastime… It was all about bringing luck.” The ancient tradition of mumming—performing masked, midwinter folk dramas—was represented by two different groups during the 2007 Northern Ireland program. The Aughakillymaude group—also known as the Fermanagh Men of Straw, consider themselves ordinary folk from rural County Fermanagh who keep on the ancient pastime and enjoy causing a seasonal ruckus by storming into homes uninvited and performing their plays. Ledwith has described the antics of their local group as:
“…a motley troupe tramping the roads at all ungodly hours, bringing luck, diversion, and mayhem to those they visit by re-enacting and performing an ancient midwinter hero/combat folk drama that is heavily pregnant with all the pagan symbolism of a midwinter European fertility play.”
The “Men of Straw” of the Aughakillymaude Community Mummers troupe engage the audience before enacting a short play during the 2007 Northern Ireland program.
The mask left for our office is part of the tradition: a typical mummer’s mask, also called a “straw hat.” Said to be made by elderly farmer Patrick Murphy, it is unplaited (not braided) and crowned by a bushel at the top that is meant to portray fire. Traditionally, a green bough of holly is attached to the top of the mask, “to denote the presence of evergreen amid the surrounding decay of midwinter,” as shown above during a Festival performance. At the end of the season, the straw masks and costumes are burned.
At the Festival, the Aughakillymaude Community Mummers mounted photographs in their tent and dressed a mannequin in a straw costume each day. Straw craftsmen demonstrated how to make the straw hats, and visitors could try on different costume parts. Before performances, the six members of the troupe paraded through the Festival site, followed by a bagpiper or two. Their self-proclaimed goal was to draw crowds for their performance—and the people always came.
MCC 580. Gift of Aughakillymaude Community Mummers
Asymmetrical Bowl
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Porcelain painter Sun Lixin journeyed to Washington, D.C., from China with a perfectly round, un-fired, white clay bowl. The bowl survived the journey and several days of work, until a curious visitor picked it up…
After a visitor picked up the bowl by the rim and two pieces broke off, Sun quickly consoled her. He then set about smoothing the broken edge into an attractive curving line and offsetting the void with a small nip out of the opposite side. By some stroke of good luck, neither the intricate painting of peonies in the center nor the three carved designs on the exterior were affected by the breaks.
Sun Lixin repairs the broken rim of the unfired porcelain bowl.
Photo by Bea Ugolini, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
A sharp blade is used to carve designs on the exterior.
Photo by Maggie Pelta-Pauls, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The finished bowl before firing.
Photo by Bea Ugolini, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Sun had traveled to Washington to participate in the 2014 China: Tradition and the Art of Living program. He is the fourth generation of his family to be involved with ceramics production in Jingdezhen, China—a famous center of porcelain production since the eleventh century. He is a surface decorator who paints and carves. The exquisitely thin bowl he carried to Washington to decorate was made by Yuan Lin Jiang.
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The exterior of the bowl has three carved areas that carry auspicious meanings. The first design combines the Smithsonian Castle (lower right) with the Great Wall of China (winding up from the center), surrounded by “lucky clouds” as signs of good will. The other two are symbols of peace (a dove with an olive branch) and prosperity (a crane with a fish in its mouth).
Another Festival-specific aspect of the bowl is its surface finish. Porcelain from Jingdezhen is renowned for its whiteness and translucence—a result of firing at extremely high temperatures. Sun knew that no kiln in Washington could reach such heights, but accepted an offer to fire the piece because he knew it would not survive otherwise. The result is a firm structure with a non-glossy, bisque-like finish. If the bowl had been fired back home, the designs carved on the outside would be visible on the inside if held up to a light.
Nearly every aspect of this bowl is atypical. Yet it is also typical of a “Festival object” that has been shaped by the unique experience an artist has discussing and completing their work during the summertime program.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Sun Lixin at the Festival.
Photo by Francisco Guerra, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The sound of pestle hitting mortar heralds the daily preparation of meals throughout the continent of Africa and its diasporas. It can still be heard in the countryside and even in some urban neighborhoods, where the familiar rhythmic pounding drifts out from rooftop terraces.
West African food aficionados are the first to note the difference between a mortar and pestle and the electric food processor: the pestle crushes the ingredients in a way that releases their fresh flavors and oils; the sharp blade of the food processor bruises them! The mortar and pestle are essential agricultural tools used to pound grains—especially millet and rice—throughout Africa. They have an obvious connection to the preparation of food but are also connected to music and deeper cultural beliefs. In West Africa, the mortar is said to represent the strength of the family; in southern Senegal, an upside down mortar with the pestle at its base signifies a death in the family.
In communities where the mortar and pestle are in daily use, men do the carving and women do the pounding. Often the women work in pairs, each with their own pestle pounding in the same mortar, alternating in distinctive rhythms that inspire improvised work songs.
Marieme Diene, who participated in the 2007 Roots of Virginia Culture program, was photographed in her home village of NDjillaseme, Senegal, by Festival curator Diana N’Diaye.
Photo by Diana N’Diaye, Smithsonian
At the 1990 Senegal program, woodcarver Abdoulaye “Gadiaga” Sene made the mortar used by cook Maimouna N’Diaye to crush the peanuts for her tigadege (peanut mash.) At the 2007 Roots of VirginiaCulture program, Marieme Diene used a pestle carved by Yoro Kebe to make her dahine (millet ground with peanuts and added to chicken.) Abdoulaye and Yoro are members of the Laobe, an occupational clan of woodcarvers who make and repair wooden tools, furniture, musical instruments, and decorative objects in Senegal and Mali. Maimouna and Mariame are expert cooks from farming families in Senegal’s peanut-growing midsection.
—Diana Baird N’Diaye, program curator
Senegalese woodcarver Abdoulaye Sene created a number of cooking implements during the 1990 Festival, including this grain mortar, which was used again during the 2007 Roots of Virginia Culture program.
Photo by Eric Long, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Mortar: 20.5” H x 13.5” Dia. Pestle: 57” H x 4” Dia. (at ends)
Catalog Number
MCC 678 & 691. Gifts of makers
Brick Mold
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“In the U.S.-Mexican border region, brick making is a revealing “way-in” to the regional culture. The dynamism, spirit, and pragmatism of the people of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin can be seen in the industry…”
“A good brick represents a perfect adaptation for a sustainable border lifestyle.” So wrote Festival collaborator Erin Martin Ross in her 2000 Festival program essay. A good brick should be porous enough to “slow the transfer of heat during the intensely hot summer months,” and at the same time “capture and retain internal heat during the winter.” A good brick also needs be heavy enough to support a two-story building. In other words, the thermal properties of border bricks must meet the practical needs of a border lifestyle.
The underlying themes of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo program reflected the rich interplay of regional traditions, cultural knowledge, and sustainable practices in an area that straddles riverbeds, environmental zones, and countries. Brick making has ancient roots in Mexico, going back thousands of years. In the mid-1960s, the growth of the maquiladora program led to a surge in demand for warehouse-type buildings to house U.S.-owned manufacturing and assembly plants—made of brick. The bricks were local and could be made quickly by small-scale family enterprises. But brick making also had an environmental downside: the fuel source to fire the bricks—old car tires—was highly polluting.
“On any given day in Ciudad Juárez you can see dark clouds rising like steam from the city’s dirt encrusted brickyards. These are the clouds of smoke that billow upward from the tops of more than 400 family-owned kilns, the sooty manifestation of an age-old craft that today maintains the industrial momentum of a modern border city…”
—Erin Martin Ross
Here at the Festival, brick makers from the Ramírez family demonstrated their efforts to cut the pollution by the use of a double-chambered earthen oven.
Photo by Hugh Talman, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
New bricks are set out to dry before being fired in the oven.
Photo by Hugh Talman, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Overcoming the pollution of these fires has been a challenge. At the Festival, the brick builders demonstrated a new technology developed in collaboration with the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy at the University of New Mexico. They built two dome-covered kilns connected by brick channels. As effluents pass into the second loaded kiln they are filtered, reducing the pollution.
—Olivia Cadaval, program co-curator
Enrique Chávez explains how the clay is mixed.
Photo by Harold Dorwin, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Folkways Records was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1987. In 1988, it transformed into Smithsonian Folkways and continues to carry on the work that Folkways began forty years earlier, documenting the world in sound. Some recordings have been made at the Festival; many have been made later with musicians featured during the Festival.
By the summer of 1989, the new Smithsonian Folkways record label was in full operation. It became the second major program of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (then called the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs), joining the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That year’s Festival included a program on the Caribbean region. It made sense to try to tie the label and Festival together.
Audio engineer Pete Reiniger was tasked to record segments of the Caribbean program on analog tape, and we brought on Latin music scholar René López to produce albums from the concerts. The results yielded two albums: Puerto Rico in Washington (1996) and Cuba in Washington (1997), samples from which can be found under the “Related” tab on the right. The Puerto Rican segment included two wonderful plena groups, Cuerdas de Borínquen and Marcial Reyes y sus Pleneros de Bayamón. The second recorded the Cuban performers in a significant set of concerts: Grupo Afrocuba de Matanzas, Grupo Changüí de Guantánamo, and Cuarteto Patria featuring Compay Segundo. It had been many years since any of these performers were allowed to perform in the United States. Segundo became known worldwide in the 1990s because of his involvement with the Buena Vista Social Club.
Groupo Afrocuba de Matanzas.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Marcial Reyes y sus Pleneros de Bayamón.
Photographer unknown
Alas, recording albums at the Festival proved too problematic to maintain for long. The summer heat made stringed instruments go out of tune. Passing buses and planes became part of the recordings. The setting was too uncontrolled. Smithsonian Folkways curator Tony Seeger also felt that recordings of international music were best made in the context of their home communities rather than in front of an outsider audience.
Folkways continues to have a presence at the Festival—in the Marketplace. Each year a selection of recordings relating to the themes and countries highlighted is pulled from our vast catalog, and visitors have come to enjoy acquiring the hard-to-find sounds.
—Jeff Place, senior archivist and curator
Grupo Changüí de Guantánamo.
Photographer unknown, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Sometimes called the fastest sport on two feet, lacrosse is played today on all continents by men and women on high school, college, and professional teams. Many players and fans may not know that lacrosse originated as a Native American game associated with traditional rituals.
When Europeans first made contact with indigenous North Americans, they observed lacrosse played in many different styles. Among the Huron people in the early seventeenth century in what is now southern Ontario, different clans—Bear, Deer, Hawk, Porcupine, and Wolf—competed against each other, with sometimes sixty men playing all day. Painter George Catlin’s field notes and drawings of the Choctaw playing lacrosse in the 1830s in what is now eastern Oklahoma described hundreds of players on a field half a mile long. Team sports were uncommon in Europe at this time, and certainly there were no sports in which many players advanced a ball across a field with sticks made of wood and rawhide netting.
The foremost scholar of Native American lacrosse is Thomas Vennum Jr., author of American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War (1994) and Lacrosse Legends of the First Americans (2007). Before retiring in 2001, Vennum served as senior ethnomusicologist at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where he worked on a variety of projects—films, recordings, and Folklife Festival programs.
Young Iroquois lacrosse players compete on the Festival site.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young Iroquois lacrosse players compete on the Festival site.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young Iroquois lacrosse players compete on the Festival site.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Young Iroquois lacrosse players compete on the Festival site.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The American Indian program at the 1989 Festival explored how Native peoples are able to sustain their cultural traditions in spite of numerous obstacles. Participants from the Iroquois, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Tuscarora nations not only played lacrosse in a specially designed stadium on the National Mall, they also discussed ways in which lacrosse is linked to tribal identity, spiritual heritage, and cultural sustainability. Another topic of discussion was how plastic and nylon were overtaking wood and rawhide as the traditional materials for lacrosse sticks.
Melvin White finishes a lacrosse stick basket with rawhide.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archive
Melvin White finishes a lacrosse stick basket with rawhide.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Today’s sticks are typically made from lightweight metals, such as aluminum, scandium, and titanium, but this stick—made of traditional materials by Frank and Owen Benedict from the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve on the U.S.-Canadian border—reinforces lacrosse’s importance among Native Americans. According to Vennum, lacrosse was always much more than a game. Its primary purpose was “to honor or petition some god or spirit,” which is why the games were usually “timed to coincide with particular changes of season or the position of heavenly bodies.”
—James Deutsch, curator
Melvin White working on a stick during the 1989 Festival.
Photographer unknown. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
“There are curling clubs throughout the world, and the goal for most curlers is to play with a set of granite curling stones made by Kays of Scotland… As curator, I was delighted that Kays accepted our invitation to attend the 2003 Folklife Festival.”
How to turn a raw boulder into a precision piece of sports equipment
Curling was featured at the 2003 Festival as one of two traditional sports closely associated with Scotland (the other is golf). Program curator Nancy Groce noted that the curling tent was always crowded. Not only was there a mock ice rink (made of vinyl; real ice couldn’t be managed mid-summer) but Kays of Scotland, which has been making curling stones since 1851, sent literally tons of granite in varying stages of cut and polish to illustrate the manufacturing steps. Two of their top employees, James and Russell Wyllie, discussed the process, the special qualities of the granite, and demonstrated the techniques and strategy of the game.
Russell Wyllie demonstrates some curling moves for Festival visitors.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
The sport of curling involves sliding a polished granite stone, weighing between 38 and 44 pounds, down a sheet of ice toward a target painted on the ground. Its roots are found in sixteenth century Scotland, where it grew into a popular outdoor sport as a competitive diversion from the long, cold winters. Centuries later, the game moved inside and in 1998 became an official Winter Olympics sport. Today, Canadians dominate curling in the Olympics, but making the polished granite stones continues to be a Scottish specialty.
Kays has exclusive rights to mining the Ailsa Craig quarry, dramatically located on a small island formed by an extinct volcano off the west coast of Scotland. It is considered the best source of granite for curling stones in the world. The top-grade Blue Hone granite has a uniform hardness that makes it uniquely suitable for curling—it’s well balanced and has very low water absorption, which prevents the repeated freezing during play from eroding the stones. Kays’ curling stones have become the standard for international competition, and they are currently the sole providers of stones used by the World Curling Federation. The white lettering, red washer, and blue handle on this stone are intentional: Kays of Scotland presented it to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage as gift to America after the 2003 Scotland at the Smithsonian program.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
James Wyllie discusses curling stone manufacture with visitors.
