Oregon Folklife Network Blog | Category | Newsletter Articles

Gratitude to 2021-2022 Staff, Interns, & Graduate Employees

Date June 13, 2022

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This year OFN welcomed University of Oregon graduate employees Lillian DeVane and Yosser Saidane. Thank you for your work in supporting our programs! Former OFN graduate employee and intern Iris Teeuwen returned as a program specialist, and focused on streamlining the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster, one of our core programs. Olivia Wilkinson joined the OFN team as an intern assisting Riki Saltzman with our state-wide survey, fieldwork, and related research.

Lillian DeVane is a first-year MA student in the Folklore and Public Culture program. Her research interests include occupational folklore, foodways, and labor history. Lillian hosts two podcasts based in New York City, one that focuses on labor in the service industry, and a second that involves traveling to locations associated with supernatural legends. She is a 2022-2023 Wayne Morse graduate research fellow.

: Lillian DeVane

: Yosser Saidane

Yosser Saidane is an MA student in the folklore program at the University of Oregon. She is interested in areas of vernacular culture in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Her research is focused on the performance of folk religion within a number of Sufi orders in Tunisia. Before turning to folklore, she worked as an instructor of English at the University of Gabès. She holds a B.A. in Anglo-American studies from the Ecole Normale of Tunis and an agrégation degree from the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities of Manouba.

Iris Teeuwen obtained her master’s degree in Folklore and Public Culture from UO and will be a doctoral candidate in Folklore at Indiana University in the fall. Iris accepted the position of Folklorist at the Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario, Oregon. Iris has worked at OFN during her master’s program as a Graduate Employee and intern from 2018 to 2020. During that time, she assisted in organizing and photographing the TAAP Master Artist Gathering in 2019 and shadowed folklorists doing fieldwork on the Oregon coast. After graduating, she received a summer fellowship at OFN and then continued as a program specialist working on improving and streamlining the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster, a state-wide online roster of folk and traditional artists in Oregon that local organizations, schools, parks, and others can use to hire people for paid demonstrations, workshops, performances, or talks.

Her primary role at Four Rivers Cultural Center will be to coordinate the annual Tradition Keepers Folklife Festival in 2022, which will be combined with their 25th-anniversary event, which will showcase the region’s rich and diverse cultures through performances and demonstrations. In addition to the festival, she will do fieldwork in Idaho and Eastern Oregon

: Iris Teeuwen

: Olivia Wilkinson

Olivia Wilkinson is a senior majoring in history and folklore and minoring in music and Scandinavian. After graduation, she plans to enroll in a library science program and learn the archiving profession. Her favorite class has been history of the book, where she gave a public presentation about the historiography of one of James Cook’s original atlases. Born and raised in Oregon, Olivia has always been passionate about the arts; she has been working with Unbound Journal for the past two years as its creative director, and in her free time she often paints digitally and takes analog photos.

Western Women’s Traditions Featured at High Desert Museum

Date June 9, 2022

Posted by ldevane

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by Riki Saltzman, Folklorist, High Desert Museum/Folklore Specialist, Oregon Folklife Network

During the weekend of May 14-15, 2022, the High Desert Museum featured three programs with culture keepers from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Lake County, and Grant County. The culmination of nearly two years of documenting traditions in the High Desert and around eastern and central Oregon, these public programs appealed to a wide range of interests. All this was made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk & Traditional Arts program.

Starting off the programs on Saturday, May 14, was a Plateau Beading Workshop with traditional artists H’Klumiat Roberta Kirk and her granddaughter AnposKawín Tashina Eastman.

This three-hour beading workshop went an hour over to teach 20 workshop participants the techniques to create a beaded animal charm suitable for a backpack, keyring, or purse. Participants had a choice of several basic designs, or they could use of their own.

We all quickly learned that simpler was better–and easier! Kirk and Eastman brought with them a large variety of beads and showed everyone how to pull off a strand from the larger bunch; the challenge was not to spill beads everywhere.

Next, they showed us how to wax the cotton twine and then pull a threaded needle through the template, thread 6-8 beads, and then use another needle and twine to tack down the beads after every third or fourth one. This was much more challenging than it looked when these master artists demonstrated.

You have to use both hands, hold down the beads with one, and then keep the second needle and twine separate from the first for tacking.

While many of us were frustrated while we beaded the outline of our designs, eventually we caught on and worked more quickly.

Although no one completed her beaded piece, Kirk and Eastman showed us how to finish them at home by gluing the beadwork to a piece of tanned rawhide and attaching a keyring, then beading the edge, and finally cutting off the excess rawhide for a completed beaded keyring.

Besides patiently showing us all how to do this painstaking beading for a small design, Roberta and Tashina also showed off their own artistry with a display of beaded regalia, from dresses and belts to hair ties and more.

Roberta Kirk is a featured artist on the Oregon Folklife Network’s Culture Keepers Roster and Tashina Eastman will soon be listed as well. Kirk has also received many honors including the (Oregon) Governor’s Art Award (2020), the First People’s Fund Community Spirit Award (2020), and Traditional Arts Recovery Program funding (2022) as well as having served several times as a master artist for Oregon’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.

The evening of May 14 featured Western Poet, novelist, and storyteller A.K. Kathy Moss of Prairie City in Grant County. Mentored by Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell, she is an experienced and lauded cowboy poet and has performed throughout the west including at the Grant County Fair and the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV. The International Western Music Association named Moss the 2021 Female Poet of the Year. She also won their award for the Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year in both 2020 (for “They Come Prancin’”) and 2019 (for “The Truth”). Moss is also featured on the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster.

During her performance at the High Desert Museum, Kathy Moss kept an audience of over 60 attendees riveted with her tales and “cowboy” poems about lady buckaroos, ranchers, cows, and horses ubiquitous to eastern Oregon.

Her moving poetry enthralled audience members with stories about horse training and driving cattle. Moss spoke from own knowledge and experience about riding horses, running cattle, doctoring cattle, and a memorable night searching for and finding a newborn calf. Moss brought to life the many characters she has known, especially the women involved in rawhiding, horse shoeing, night-calving, and cowboying. Her keen ear for language augmented with video Long Hard Ride, song sung by Joni Harms – YouTube from Oregon’s ranch country led her audience through the hills and ranges many of us see only from the road.

Moss also brought several copies of her book series and her award-winning CD to sell and sign.

The next day, May 15, High Desert Museum visitors had the pleasure of meeting cowboy hat maker, farrier, and cowboy Lisa Robinson from Lakeview in Lake County.

Robinson brought a few of her finished custom hats, talked about her cowboying work, and did some reshaping and hat-steaming for those who brought their hats.

Robinson, who grew up in a cowboying family in south central Oregon, spent the years from 14-40 cowboying and horse shoeing. About 10 years ago, she learned to make quality, custom-made western hats of 100% beaver for working cowboys. She knew from experience that good hat makers who make custom hats are hard to come by, so she set out to learn how with the goal of eventually retiring from her physically demanding work as a farrier. In early 2014 she apprenticed with two skilled master hat makers, Mike Moore who owns Buckaroo Hatters in Tennessee, and JW Hats in Salt Lake.

As she explained to the audience, she doesn’t use wool, rabbit, or blends because they don’t hold up as well.

Beaver hats keep their shape through wet, snow, cold, and hot sun. They don’t bleed dye, and they don’t shrink. As a working cowboy (she and her husband, Paul Robinson, run their own small ranch as well as run cattle for other ranches), she knows the value and necessity of a well-made, well-fitted hat; she tailors her individuals and has her own special identifying mark—dots on the ribbon band, which, along with the look of her beaver felt hats, she can spot from a distance.

Lisa Robinson’s thriving business, Top Knot Hats, builds custom hats and also reshapes, sizes, or refurbishes old ones with new ribbons, sweatbands, and more. Robinson is also on the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster and is available for talks and demonstrations within a hundred miles of Lakeview.

Announcing the 2022 TAAP Award Recipients

Date June 9, 2022

Posted by ldevane

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We are excited to introduce the 2022 TAAP awardee cohort!

The TAAP program offers folk and traditional master artists and culture keepers a $3,500 stipend to teach their art form to apprentices from their same communities, Tribes, sacred or occupational groups. The stipend supports master artists in sharing their knowledge, skills and expertise with apprentices of great promise who will be empowered to carry on and strengthen Oregon’s living cultural traditions.

Meet the 2022 TAAP Award Recipients:

Mic Crenshaw

Mic Crenshaw

Mic Crenshaw is an emcee, rapper, spoken word artist, poet, activist, and educator. Crenshaw has taught workshops for youth through the Obo Addy Legacy Project, Caldera Arts, Multnomah County Library, the Boedecker Foundation and Young Audiences in Portland schools and in youth correctional facilities across Oregon.

This project will foster future mentor, apprentice relationships formal and informal as the young learn from their elders through observation, discussion, education, critique, and interactive entertainment.

Nisha Joshi

Nisha Joshi

Dr. Nisha Joshi is a Hindustani vocal and instrumental music performer and the director and teacher of Swaranjali Academy of Indian Music in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Joshi was born and raised in Rajasthan where she grew up studying North Indian classical (Hindustani) music and learning folk songs and dances of Rajasthan. Dr. Joshi will work with her apprentice and produce a musical performance with harmonium accompaniments.

John Meade

John Meade

John Meade is a self-taught banjo player and a practitioner of the Appalachian old-time musical tradition. He has strong ties with the tradition through his family’s origins and the relations he has developed by playing in important gatherings such as the Mud City Old Time Gathering and the Portland Old Time Gathering which is one of the largest gatherings of Appalachian musicians in the West.

John will teach regional banjo and fiddle tunes from Appalachia. The majority of the tunes come from West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The tradition developed in this area in the 2nd half of the 19th Century and came out of a blending of musical traditions from Celtic and African cultures.

Brian Ó hAirt

Brian Ó hAirt

Brian Ó hAirt is a master musician in Irish music. He is deeply involved to the preservation of Irish cultural heritage and traditions (especially music) and Gaelic language. He has worked closely with native Irish singers. He studied in Ireland and earned two master’s degrees there before moving to Oregon to work as a full-time musician and music teacher.

Due in part to the deep connection the songs have to their native communities and the very unique features of the Irish language and its congruous singing style, it is very difficult to promote traditional in Irish Gaelic singing here in the U.S. As such, an apprenticeship is an integral way of assuring singing within the diaspora continues.

Hossein Salehi

Hossein Salehi

Hossein Salehi learned the traditional art of Santoor-playing as a child. When his family migrated from Iran to the United States in 1987, he was unable to bring his instrument and purchasing one in Oregon was not an option; it simply did not exist. Homesick, and with the help of a friend with a talent for woodworking, he built his first Santoor.

For the last fifty years, Hossein has accepted and trained over 1000 students. His whole purpose in teaching is to familiarize people with this unique Persian instrument in order to keep it alive, and also assist students of Persian background access, as well as preserve their traditional culture of Iran.

2019 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Master Artists’ Gathering

Date June 20, 2019

Posted by iteeuwen

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Iris Teeuwen (photos and text) and Christal Snyder (text and editor)

Top starting from the left: Steve McKay, Marjan Anvari, Mic Crenshaw, Mark Ross, Brian Hart, Hossein Salahi, Antonio Huerta. Bottom Starting from the left: Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, Kelli Palmer, Esther Stutzman, Roberta Kirk, Marge Kalama, Azar Salehi, Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna. Present at the gathering, but not photographed here: Charlotte Roderique, Wanda Johnson, Sandra Teeman

Oregon Folklife Network staff had the privilege of spending 2 days at Bend’s High Desert Museum at a professional development gathering with 17 of Oregon’s master traditional artists. Funding from the NEA and the Oregon Arts Commission and a generous partnership with the High Desert Museum provided support to invite our Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program’s (TAAP) master artists (2011-2019) for peer-to-peer mentoring and professional development. On April 27-28, 2019, 17 of 32 master artists came together for networking, panel discussions, performances and demonstrations. As the artists noted, “It was wonderful to have this opportunity to get to know each other.” The gathering provided a “fantastic opportunity to connect – all of it was useful.”

Folk & Traditional Art Displays: The Gathering began with introductions. Several artists shared their pieces with the group.

Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim (center) shows her traditional Palestinian embroidery to Persian tazhib artist, Marjan Anvari (right). Burns Paiute moccasin maker and tradition keeper Charlotte Roderique (left) chats to another artist.

Iranian traditional artist and conservator Marjan Anvari specializes in tazhib, a form of traditional manuscript illumination that dates back to 224 A.D. Because of its ubiquitous presence in Iran’s historical architecture, visual arts, and craftsmanship, tazhib has become a symbol of nationality and culture. Anvari has more than 15 years of experience working on manuscripts, books, and art on paper and is particularly dedicated to using her talents to educate children and adults. This particular piece, Anvari explained, is a runner that she decorated with “a combination of traditional Persian fabric (Termeh) and hand-painted Persian illumination (tazhib).” The motif is called shamseh (sun).

Cornhusk weaver Kelli Palmer (Warm Springs) uses dried cornhusk, hemp, yarn, and buckskin (brain-tanned and smoked deer hide) to make her traditional baskets. Palmer employs a double-twining technique to create traditional woven hats and sally bags or wapus (flat baskets); women wear the bags around their waists and use them to collect roots that they later dry and prepare for eating.

Marjorie Kalama (Warm Springs) makes traditional loomed beadwork. Her method of two-needled tack-down beading requires the simultaneous use of two needles with different sized threads. She adorns dresses, fans, and more with her intricately shaded designs. Kalama has won six awards for her beadwork at tribal member art shows.

H’Klumaiyat-Roberta Kirk (Wasco) is a traditional beadworker and regalia maker. Kirk uses shells and beadwork to embellishes traditional clothing that she designs and makes for ceremonies and pow-wows. Kirk also gathers traditional foods for the Simnasho Longhouse in Warm Springs and has consulted for several museums, including the Smithsonian, on Native American artifacts.

Ragalia makers Marge Kalama (Warm Springs) and Charlotte Roderique (Burns Paiute) admire Kelli Palmer’s traditional baskets.

Buckaroo and traditional saddle maker Steve McKay (right) shows Marge Kalama (left) one of his intricately braided rawhide lariats. McKay learned to tool saddles in the 1980s from fellow traditional artist Len Babb II; other Oregon buckaroos consider him the “go-to” guy for functional, well-made gear.

Antonio Huerta (Mexican charro/cowboy) examines one of Steve McKay’s braided rawhide ropes.

Antonio Huerta performs traditional charrería (cowboy rope work), an skill used to work cattle and in rodeo competitions.

Needs Assessment and Professional Development: OFN asked artists to let us know about areas in which they needed help as well as where they had strengths and could help others. Categories included promotions, finding gigs, business and finance, and expanding opportunities.

Tazhib (illumination and calligraphy) artist Marjan Anvari (Persian) is interested in assistance with online promotion.

Roberta Kirk and Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna add their thoughts for a session on Looking Back/Looking Forward or the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.

Antonio Huerta, who also does outreach for the UO Division of Undergraduate Studies, shares his ideas with fellow artists.

Charlotte Roderique (left), Wanda Johnson (center), and Sandra Teeman (right) are members of the Burns Paiute Tribe and skilled moccasin makers who have taught this traditional art to Burns Paiute children As members of the tribe’s Cultural Advisory Committee, these culture keepers have dedicated their time and effort to sustaining their heritage.

Charlotte Roderique takes her turn to talk with the group.

Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim (standing), a 2018 National Heritage Fellow, learned traditional Palestinian embroidery the stories behind the designs from her mother and grandmother.

Emily West Hartlerode (standing), OFN Associate Director, facilitates a session about exploring resources that OFN and artists can share to support one other.

Michelle Seiler-Godfrey, Program Development Manager at the High Desert Museum, spoke to artists about marketing their arts and expanding their networks.

Performances: On Saturday evening everyone gathered at McMenamins Old St. Francis School to socialize and share their traditional arts.

First up to perform was old time musician Mark Ross, whose repertoire of over nearly 500 songs runs the gamut of American roots music, includes ballads, train songs, blues, and western swing.

Traditional Irish singer Brian Ó hAirt explores the Irish experience from the profane to the conventional through music. The continuing significance of Irish ballads and folk songs is evidenced by its popularity at any Irish gathering, whether at homes, in pubs or bars, and for community celebrations.

Master santoor player Hossein Salehi began his musical career at seven when he started learning this ancient traditional art form from his father, Maestro Abbas Salehi. The instrument is a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer with 72 strings strung over small adjustable bridges; this makes it possible for the santoor, Iran’s national instrument, the capacity to produce a range of three octaves. This musical tradition is over 1100 years old.

Azar Salehi is an Persian storyteller who also recites traditional poetry. Salehi has partnered with Portland State University and others in her mission to connect members of the Iranian diaspora to their cultural roots.

MC Michael “Mic” Crenshaw is a poetry slam champion and a respected hip hop artist around the Northwest and in Africa. A former member of the Portland-based group Hungry Mob, Crenshaw currently acts as Political Director for the Hip Hop Congress and the Lead U.S. Organizer for the Afrikan Hip Hop Caravan. Crenshaw recently received one of four inaugural 2019-21 Fields Artist’s Fellowships from the Oregon Community Foundation in partnership with Oregon Humanities.

Traditional Coos and Kalapuya storyteller Esther Stutzman is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz and a member of the Northwest Indian Storyteller’s Association. Stutzman was the winner of the 2017 Governor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.

At the conclusion to the TAAP Master Artist Gathering, Mexican Folkloríco dancer and teacher Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna and Antonio Huerta collaborated on a performance that combined charrería with a traditional folklórico dance. Each of Mexico’s states has a set of traditional dances that feature specific expression, technique, dress, and accessories.

Echoing everyone’s sentiments, one of the artists commented, “the performances [and folk art displays were] all beautiful, and we will remember that for a long time.

2019 Tradition Keepers Folklife Festival, Four Rivers Cultural Center, June 29, 2019

Date June 20, 2019

Posted by iteeuwen

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OFN is proud to partner once again with Four Rivers Cultural Center for the 2^nd annual Tradition Keepers Folklife Festival in Ontario, Oregon, June 29, 2019, 10 am – 5 pm. Not only is Four Rivers one of OFN’s partners for Culture Fest 2019, but the organization was also the recipient of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History’s 2019 Oregon Stewardship Award for the center’s Tradition Keepers Folklife Festival, a daylong public celebration of traditional arts and artists in eastern Oregon.

Culture Fest 2019!

Date June 20, 2019

Posted by iteeuwen

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Culture Fest partnerships support performances, demonstrations and presentations about Oregon’s living cultural heritage and feature traditional artists who are part of the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster, which provides a curated listing of over 200 folk artists for presenting organizations to work with in planning their programs.

Culture Fest 2019 brings collaborative public programs with diverse culture keepers to six local arts, culture, and heritage organizations around the state in Ontario, Portland, La Grande, Baker City and McMinnville. Completed Culture Fest partnerships include Portland’s 5^th Annual New Year in the Park and the McMinnville Library’s El Día de los Niños Fiesta.

On April 27, 2019, OFN partnered with the Hmong American Community of Oregon (Portland) for the 5th Annual New Year in the Park festival. It took place at Glenhaven Park, in Northeast Portland and featured several traditional dance groups from the Thai, Lao, Hmong, and Cambodian communities.

: Cambodian “Angels” in parade to welcome the New Year. In Cambodian tradition, each of seven angels represents a different day of the week with different colors.

: Burmese dancers performing a traditional dance.

: At the traditional foods area of the festival, cooks from Portland’s Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Burmese communities prepare papaya salad according to their culture’s customs.

On May 4, 2019, McMinnville Public Library presented Latino and other folk and traditional artists for El Día de los Niños Fiesta. This collaboration featured OFN’s rostered artists Grupo Condor (traditional Latin American music), Sushmita Poddar (Asian Indian henna), and Monica Moreno (Mexican piñatas, sugar skulls).

: El Día de los Niños Fiesta Program

: Grupo Condor with their musical instruments.

: Monica Moreno’s piñata demonstration

The next four event partnerships are with Crossroads Carnegie, Art Center East, Four Rivers Cultural Center, and Andisheh and take place June-August, 2019.

Crossroads Carnegie (Baker City) presents

June 22, 2019: “Barrel and Vessel: The Art of Aging Wine,” with traditional cooper (barrel maker) Rick DeFerrari.

Art Center East (La Grande) presents

June 26, 2019, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.: La Grande Farmers Market morning story time and demonstration of wool spinning, and lunch-time talk with sheep rancher Carol Etchemendy.
July 12, 2019, 7:30-8:30 pm: a Master Class with Guinean master drummer Alseny Yansane.
July 13, 2019, 10:30-11:45 am: La Grande Farmers Market a public performance and workshop with Guinean master drummer Alseny Yansane.

Four Rivers Cultural Center (Ontario) presents

June 29, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., 2^nd annual Tradition Keepers Folklife Festival, a day-long folklife festival celebrating the diverse range of traditional arts and culture in the Four Rivers area. Come experience a variety of traditional artists demonstrating or performing cowboy poetry, silversmithing, rawhide braiding, Paiute basketry, Paiute Pow Wow dancing, Japanese Taiko drumming, traditional Japanese Mochi making, and much, much more, including a visit from National Heritage Fellow Eva Castellanoz.

Andisheh Center for Iranian Cultural Heritage (Portland), presents

August 3, 2019, 1:00 – 6:00 pm, Portland State University, an afternoon of traditional visual art, music, and dance workshops with Iranian local artists. Leading these free workshops will be santoor player Hossein Salehi, tazhib (illumination and calligraphy) artist Marjan Anvari, and Oak Leaf with Hamid Habibi (tombak/hand drum) and Yasi Mehdian (daf/lute); there will also be a session on traditional Kurdish dance. The intention of this event is to foster community connection and pride, and to drive awareness and education about the diverse cultures and traditions in our neighborhood.

Funding for Culture Fest comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Historical Society. Their support helps OFN partner with local organizations to support folk and traditional artists to share their artistry and knowledge with others.

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