A Future from the Past

by | Sep 16, 2023

The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, houses the works of the ethnomusicologist Frances Theresa Densmore, including a collection of more than 2,500 American Indian songs she recorded between 1907 and 1941. Approximately 260 of Densmore’s cataloged...

Día de los Muertos Altars

by | Sep 14, 2022

I always carry my mother’s words with me, and I share them with everyone I teach about Día de Los Muertos. She said, “We all suffer three deaths. The first death is the day that we give up our last breath, the day that we die. Our second death is the day we are...

Written in Beads

by | Aug 30, 2021

Shekoli (Greetings), my name is Karen Ann Hoffman. I’m a Haudenosaunee Raised Beadwork artist and a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee. From colonial days, the French called us the League of the Iroquois, but...

National Heritage Fellows Portrait Gallery

by | Aug 30, 2021

The annual National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowships began in 1982 to honor the excellence of folk artists who represent diverse communities throughout the United States. The portraits in this gallery portray artists who have mastered their art...
Photographing Folk Artists We Interview

Photographing Folk Artists We Interview

by | Sep 5, 2019

National Heritage Fellows (left to right) Chitresh Das (2009), Norma Miller (2008), Agustin Lira (2007), Evalena Henry (2007), Frank Newsome (2011), Qi Shu Fang (2008). All photos by Alan Govenar. Photographs can document the skills and art forms that individuals and...