Central Appalachia Living Traditions
Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences
Inaugural Grants Announced
Organizations and Artists/Practitioners Receive Over $135,000 to
Support Folk and Traditional Arts Activities
Baltimore, December 20, 2022 – Mid Atlantic Arts has announced 16 grants totaling over $136,000 to organizations and individual artists/practitioners in Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia through the inaugural round of the Central Appalachia Living Traditions (CALT): Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences program.
CALT is a multi-year program designed to promote the understanding and recognition of folk arts and culture in Central Appalachia through a three-part program that invests in folk arts communities while seeding new folk and traditional arts experiences and honoring underrecognized practitioners of cultural traditions across the region. This initiative was developed in response to Mid Atlantic’s Central Appalachian Folk and Traditional Arts Research and Survey Project (CAFTA) completed in 2020. CALT has three program areas: Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences, Folk Arts and Culture Community Anchors Initiative, and Recognizing Folk Arts and Culture Champions.
Collectively, these programs are intended to stabilize local venues, create greater connectivity among organization and community leaders, increase the visibility of folk arts and culture, and facilitate the transmission of artistic skills and cultural knowledge.
CALT: Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences grants fund public-facing projects and events in Appalachian Regional Commission-designated Appalachian counties of Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia that bring community members together around folk and traditional arts practice and cultural knowledge. Funded projects encourage broad public awareness, understanding, and appreciation of living traditions and/or grow and disseminate artistic skill and cultural knowledge within the community.
Funded projects showcase a diversity of artists/practitioners, traditions, geographies, and constituencies within the folk and traditional arts and cultural communities in Central Appalachia. Traditions highlighted in the recommended projects include Appalachian blues, folk, and old-time music, basketmaking, instrument building, woodworking, quilting, weaving and spinning, gender-free square dancing, the expressive culture of Latinx communities in Southern Ohio, and diverse gardening and foodways traditions represented in the Appalachian region. The 2023 grantees are:
- Arthurdale Heritage, Inc.: Handing Down our Heritage: Fiber Arts in Arthurdale, WV, Arthurdale, WV
- Dakota Karper: Community Square Dance/Contra Dance Series with Calling Workshops, Capon Bridge, WV
- Davis & Elkins College: Cooking in Community: Foodways Traditions from Appalachia and Beyond, Elkins, WV
- Doris Fields: Those Who Came Before, Beckley, WV
- Eleanor Marshall: Honoring an Authentic Appalachian Invention by Pioneer Women: An Intergenerational Apprenticeship for Learning and Teaching Salt-rising Bread, Wheeling, WV
- Floyd Community Center for the Arts, Inc.: Living Traditions – A Celebration of Floyd County’s Folk and Traditional Arts, Floyd, VA
- Hippodrome Colony Historical Theatre Association: Stage Door Appalachian Music Showcase, Marietta, OH
- Kanawha Valley Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance: Old-Time Winter Breakdown Weekend, Charleston, WV
- Live Work Eat Grow, Inc.: Common Ground: 4 Seasons of Cross-Cultural Foodways in an Appalachian Community Garden, Blacksburg, VA
- Quinn (Talcon Quinn) Fuller: Rooted Traditions, The Plains, OH
- Rebecca Hill: Gender-Free Square Dance Calling Zine, Brentwood, MD
- Second Stage Amherst, Inc.: “Live From Rose Ridge” Live Radio Broadcast, Amherst, VA
- Southern Ohio Folklife: Las Culturas del Sur de Ohio, Friendship, OH
- Southwest Virginia Community College Educational Foundation: An Appalachian Awakening, Cedar Bluff, VA
- Step by Step, Inc.: West Virginia Dreamers Appalachian Folk and Blues Sessions, Charleston, WV
- Underground Railroad Museum, Inc.: Cultural Festival /Fundraising Event for the Underground Railroad Museum, Flushing, OH
CALT: Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences grantees were selected through a panel process. Mid Atlantic Arts convened a panel to review applications on November 14, 2022. The panel consisted of experienced folk and traditional artists/practitioners and/or folk and traditional arts professionals. For a list of panelists, please click here.
About Mid Atlantic Arts
Mid Atlantic Arts nurtures and funds the creation and presentation of diverse artistic expression and connects people to meaningful arts experiences within our region and beyond. Created in 1979, Mid Atlantic Arts is a private non-profit organization that is closely allied with the region’s state arts councils and the National Endowment for the Arts. It combines funding from state and federal resources with private support from corporations, foundations, and individuals to address needs in the arts from a regional, national, and international perspective. To learn more about Mid Atlantic Arts, its programs and services, visit our website at www.midatlanticarts.org.
Contact:
Karen Newell
Director, External Affairs
Mid Atlantic Arts
karen@midatlanticarts.org
410.539.6656 x104