Traditional
Arts Program
Traditional
Arts Coordinator: Lynn Martin Graton
lynn.j.graton@dcr.nh.gov,
(603) 271-8418
Purpose
Identify, document, preserve, and promote traditional arts and artists in New Hampshire so they continue to be a visible, vital, and cherished part of our living cultural heritage.
This Program serves traditional artists in New Hampshire and NH-based not-for-profit community organizations such as arts councils, farm museums, historical societies, libraries, municipal agencies, and arts presenters.
Goals
- Identify and document traditional arts and artists through photography, audio recording, and filming.
- Honor excellence in the traditional arts.
- Assist in the perpetuation of traditional arts by supporting artists who teach others.
- Create and support educational opportunities, presentations, and materials for the public and schools that promote deeper understanding of the aesthetics, techniques, and cultural significance of traditional arts.
- Support non-profit organizations and educators that wish to develop or sustain programming that supports traditional arts in New Hampshire.
- Promote increased public and private support for the traditional arts and artists.
What are traditional arts?
Traditional arts are artistic activities that are passed down from one generation to the next within families and communities and are regarded by the community as part of their heritage. These activities can include music, dance, storytelling, crafts, skills, celebrations, and architecture. Communities can be defined in many ways, such as groups that share the same ethnic heritage, language, geographic area, religion, occupation, or way of life.
For a traditional artist, being true to the past is usually more important than change or innovation. Therefore, the techniques and forms of traditional arts tend to change very slowly. Though each generation adds their special gift to the tradition, the sense of what is beautiful and well done is defined more by the community than by an individual artist's personal creative vision. Because of this, traditional arts often become symbols of identity and pride for a community.
Traditional arts encompass folk arts. These are local "grass roots" artistic activities that are usually taught informally. A fiddle player may learn by playing along with older musicians at local community dances, a quilter may learn by helping her mother, a woodcarver may learn by helping out a neighbor, and a storyteller usually draws upon real life experiences growing up in a particular region or neighborhood. Folklife embraces a much wider range of cultural activities including food traditions, occupational skills, ways of speaking, and celebrating.
The NH State Arts Council’s Traditional Arts Program seeks to be responsive to how communities define themselves and their traditions. Because of limited resources, we place emphasis on supporting tradition bearers that have a direct connection to the community or group from which a tradition emerged.
Here are just a few of the traditional art forms that can be found in New Hampshire:
New England social dance & music (including contra and square dancing); French-Canadian fiddling and song; Scottish Highland piping, drumming & dance; Irish ceili dancing; Jewish Klezmer music; African-American gospel music; African drumming and dance; Western Abenaki ash & sweet grass basket making; quilting; rug braiding; rug hooking; spinning; lace-making; dried wreath making; decorative painting; Scandinavian knitting; Chinese knot tying; Russian iconography; musical instrument making; furniture making; sign carving; fly tying; Polish paper cutting; wood carving; barrel making (cooperage); canoe building; boat building; dog sled making; snowshoe making; fish net making; bow and arrow making; harness making; stone wall building; timber framing; ox yoke making; and harness making.
For more information on traditional arts and folklife in New Hampshire, visit:
New Hampshire Folklife. This online educational resource includes an interactive Learning Center and a searchable database of traditional music recordings.
Types Of Grants & Opportunities
Program Services
Research and documentation of traditional and folk arts in New Hampshire is carried out in a variety of ways, including still photography, audio-tape, and videotape. These materials become part of a working research collection that preserves the state's heritage and provides a basis for special educational initiatives. Materials are incrementally deposited at the Milnes Special Collection of the University of New Hampshire Dimond Library.
Perpetuation of traditional arts is supported through the funding of Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grants that support one-to-one instruction between a master traditional artist and an experienced apprentice.
Educational projects, often developed in partnership with other organizations sharing the same goals, promote deeper understanding of the aesthetics, techniques, forms, and cultural context of traditional and folk arts in New Hampshire.
Examples include:
- The New Hampshire Folklife website. This online educational resource includes an interactive Learning Center and a searchable database of traditional music recordings. Check out our new Heritage Arts Build-A-Picture Activities for grades 3 and up!
- Traditional music recordings:
Choose Your Partners! Contra Dance and Square Dance Music in New Hampshire
Songs of the Seasons - Family and Community Traditions in New Hampshire
Funding through Traditional Arts Project Grants and mini grants to support non-profit organizations that wish to develop or sustain programming that supports traditional arts in New Hampshire.
Promotion of traditional artists and resources for communities is provided through the Traditional Arts & Folklife Listing, an on-line directory of traditional artists, cultural specialists, and folklorists who are available for community-based presentations around New Hampshire.
Technical assistance to artists and organizations is offered to consult on program development and assist with documentation.
Recognition of lifetime achievement is supported through the New Hampshire Living Folk Heritage Award presented every two years as part of the State Arts Council's Governors Arts Awards.
The NHSCA Traditional Arts Program is part of a larger network of efforts to support living cultural heritage in the United States. On the federal level, leadership in this field is provided by:
Last
updated:
February 29, 2008
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