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Tag: John Morris

2018 Master Artist & Apprentice Feature: John Morris & Jen Iskow, Old-Time Fiddling and Stories of Clay County

John D. Morris of Ivydale is leading an apprenticeship on old-time fiddling, focusing on the traditions of Clay County, with Jen Iskow of Thomas. The first in a series featuring our five 2018 Folklife Apprentice Pairs.

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We hope you'll join us at our Out of the Blocks: Charleston West Side Podcast Listening Party on the evening of February 12th at the West Virginia Humanities Council. Hear voices from Charleston's West Side, and enjoy snacks and drinks. The event is free and open to the public, but guests should RSVP at wvfolklife.org or by calling (304)346.8500. Can’t make the event? You can listen to episode one via the link in our profile. Thank you to Dan Davis of @kinshipgoods for the beautiful poster, with photos by @outoftheblocks1 producer @wendelpatrickofficialmusic.

We partnered with @wypr881fm producers Aaron Henkin & Wendel Patrick to field produce two Charleston West Side episodes of the @outoftheblocks1 podcast. Part 1 is up now. Working within the neighborhood bound by the Kanawha River, Pennsylvania, Lee & Patrick Streets, we interviewed folks at a family barbecue joint (@dem2brothers), The West Side Jamboree, a faith-based after-school program, a women’s recovery house, and the bustling Goodwill headquarters. We also spoke with an activist preacher (Rev. Watts), a vacant-home rehabber, an open-eared neighborhood planner (John Butterworth), and a retired theater technician who’s projected more than 50 years of movie history. You'll hear all of their voices in this episode, and more. Check out Wendel Patrick's beautiful slideshow via the link (🔝), and listen there, or on any podcast streaming platform. The West Virginia Folklife Program will be hosting a listening party of both episodes on February 12 at the @wvhumanities. Save the date. 📷: Wendel Patrick

A reminder that applications for our 2020-2021 Folklife Apprenticeship Program are due January 31. The program offers up to a $3,000 award to #WestVirginia master traditional artists/tradition bearers working with qualified apprentices on a year-long in-depth apprenticeship in their cultural expression or traditional art form. These apprenticeships, offered to masters of traditional music, dance, craft, foodways, storytelling, and more—in any cultural community in the Mountain State—facilitate the transmission of techniques and artistry of the forms as well as their histories and traditions. For more information, visit our website at wvfolklife.org. 📷: 2019 master herbalist Marion Harless & apprentice Kara Vaneck

"Born in a Ballroom" is a new documentary feature directed and produced by #Helvetia, WV filmmakers Clara Lehmann and Jonathan Lacocque of @coatofarmspost. The film explores the relationship between Helvetia's Hutte restaurant, its founder (and Clara's grandmother) Eleanor Mailloux, and the rural #WestVirginia Swiss village she called home. The documentary premieres at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and will screen across West Virginia over the next two months: February 5th and 12th - Charleston WV - The Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema February 20th - Fayetteville WV - The Grove February 28th - Thomas WV - Gradient Project Space March 31 - Morgantown WV - WVU Media Innovation Center For more information, visit borninaballroom.com

Check out the @register_herald for a wonderful profile of @fieldsdoris (aka Lady D), whose participation as a master blues/black gospel artist in in our Folklife Apprenticeship Program inspired her new autobiographical show, Appalachian BluesSpeak. 📷: @chrisjacksonphoto • “She spent much of 2018 participating in the @wvhumanities Folklife Apprenticeship Program, through which master artists lead an in-depth apprenticeship to pass on their artistry, histories and traditions to younger practitioners. Fields worked with Beckley gospel vocalist Xavier Oglesby, the pair exploring the differences between the way particular hymns are performed in the Baptist churches of Fields' youth and the Pentecostal churches in which Oglesby was raised. The two first met years earlier when each was performing in Theatre West Virginia's Civil War drama "Honey in the Rock," singing a duet as husband and wife. The apprenticeship program, however, gave Oglesby an awareness of the nearly unfathomable difference between performing on an occasional basis and making it your full-time profession. • “Doris' way of teaching, of getting information across, is uncanny," Oglesby says of the experience. "She'd talk about blues music and give me real insight into the profession — not just what the blues is, but how the soup is made. When you've been in the business as long as she has, you know things most people don't know. She's paid her dues and she's very, very motivated." • “It was the apprenticeship program, in fact, that inspired Fields' Appalachian BluesSpeak project. • “The program ended in January," she says, "and when it was over I wrote a final report, and I attached an essay to it about growing up in #WestVirginia and wanting to get out of West Virginia. I found myself remembering things that happened when I was a kid, people I grew up around. I have stacks and stacks of papers with notes of memories that I'm going to add to the project."" #wvfolklife #wvfolklifeapprenticeships #folklorethursday

Join us in celebrating the season at the West Virginia Humanities Council's annual Holiday Open House this Friday December 13, from 4–6 p.m. at the historic MacFarland-Hubbard House, located at 1310 Kanawha Blvd. East in Charleston. Light refreshments will be provided. 🌲

2018 West Virginia Folklife Apprentice Amy Dawson & 2018 West Virginia Humanities Council Fellow Mike Costello of @lostcreekfarm + their community of farmers, foragers, and seed savers were featured in the @nytimes this week for their work sustaining and sharing #WestVirginia foodways traditions in all their complexity. Read the full piece by @amelia.nierenberg at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/dining/west-virginia-food-history.html

Join us this evening at @taylorbookswv in Charleston, 6pm, for a reading and signing of the new @ohiounivpress anthology “The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables” by editors Elizabeth Engelhardt & Lora Smith and contributors Courtney Balestier, Danille Christensen, and Emily Hilliard. The event is free and open to the public. Chapters examine the breadth and depth of foodways traditions in the Mountain South, with topics like Blue Ridge tacos; kimchi with soup beans and cornbread; family stories hiding in cookbook marginalia; and African-American mountain gardens. Writer and Morgantown native Balestier will read from her chapter, “Eating to Go,” which considers the foodways and culture Appalachians who migrated north via the Hillbilly Highway brought with them to Detroit. #WestVirginia state folklorist Hilliard will read from her chapter, “The Reason We Make These Deep-Fat-Fried Treats: In Conversation with the Rosettes of Helvetia, West Virginia,” based on fieldwork conducted through @wvfolklife at @wvhumanities.

We are now accepting applications for our 2020-2021 statewide Folklife Apprenticeship Program. The West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program offers up to a $3,000 award to #WestVirginia master traditional artists or tradition bearers working with qualified apprentices on a year-long in-depth apprenticeship in their cultural expression or traditional art form. These apprenticeships, offered to masters of traditional music, dance, craft, foodways, storytelling, and more—in any cultural community in the Mountain State—facilitate the transmission of techniques and artistry of the forms as well as their histories and traditions. For assistance in completing the application, feedback on completed drafts, or any questions, contact Emily Hilliard at hilliard@wvhumanities.org or call (304)346-8500. Drafts for review must be sent by January 10. Applications for the 2020-2021 apprenticeships are due January 31, 2020. 📷: 2018 Folklife Apprenticeship Team master salt rising bread bakers Susan Brown & Jenny Bardwell with apprentice Amy Dawson

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