Traditional Artist Spotlight: Mildred Quaempts

Piecework with denatalium shell can elaborately decorate a dress, hair pieces, earrings, or hats. Mildred most often creates hairpieces and wedding veils for brides. She enjoys making the veils because they each one is unique. She stays as traditional as possible when she make the veils. Brides are not given the veils until the day before or day of the marriage.

Mildred first observed dentalium work from her grandmother, Annie Joe (better known as “Tquannanmy”), while she was applying the shells on medallions and dresses. She used to travel with her grandmother to Indian wedding trades and saw other young girls wearing hairpieces made from dentalium.

Mildred Quaempts (Yakama/Cuyuse) was born and raised on the Umatilla Indian Reservation where she has resided all of her life.

Self Documentation Toolkit: “Telling our Stories”

Project Update by Emily West Afanador, OFN Program Manager

Oregon Folklife Network (OFN) with University of Oregon Journalism Professor, Gabriela Martinez, received a grant from the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies at University of Oregon to develop a web-based tool kit equipping the general public to document their own communities, families, and grass-roots organizations. The tool kit, tentatively called “Telling our Stories,” will be used by families, culture groups, and in classrooms from middle school through higher education to try everything from acquiring information with interview techniques and photography tips, to archiving and self-publishing stories on the web. OFN will give a public presentation on the collaborative development of this tool on Thursday, March 14 at the University of Oregon campus.

March 14
4:00-5:30pm
Knight Library Collaboration Center (Room 122)
University of Oregon

The 72nd Annual Western States Folklore Society (WSFS) Meeting: April 19-20, 2013

Location: University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California, 92093. All conference proceedings will be held in the Cross-Cultural Center in Price Center East on the UCSD campus. Please view the campus map for details.

Conference theme: “Folklore in a Digital Age.”
The conference planners note:

Rather than disappearing, folklore is gaining new significance in the 21st century. Digital technologies, such as the Internet, smart phones, and digital photography, are changing our society and our discipline. Our society in the digital age embodies the global as it reasserts the local. Folklore plays a vital role in this process. Meanwhile, new media are altering the way folklore is performed, collected, and disseminated. This conference seeks to investigate the significance of folklore today by inviting papers on topics such as the role of folklore in the building of transnational communities, the development of cultural revitalization programs, and the emergence of indigenous movements. In addition, we invite papers addressing the impact of digital technologies on folklore, including topics such as digital folklore genres, virtual folklore archives, and intellectual property rights. We also seek papers examining folklore research, ethnography, and theory in a digital age.

Archer Taylor Lecturer: Prof. Carol Silverman, Professor and Department Head, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, will give deliver the Archer Taylor Memorial Lecture for 2013.

Registration fees: Registration fees for regular members are $45; for non-members $70. Registration fees for student/retired members are $25; for student/ retired non-members $40. Registration checks should be sent to: Western States Folklore Society (WSFS), P.O. Box 3557, Long Beach CA 90803-0557.