UPDATE!! Folk Masters at the Festival will be featured in the latest edition of Artscapes Magazine, published by the Wyoming Arts Council. The publication will be up on their website — and just as soon as it is, we’ll provide the link.

 

 

For more than a decade, the Wyoming Arts Council has provided grants to skilled artisans to teach an apprentice specific skills through the WAC Folk Arts program. The program was designed to help save the artisan skills and to pass these on to the next generation.

This year, the Council is gathering a group of these master artists and their apprentices to demonstrate at the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival. Demonstrators will be in the large Folk Masters tent on the grounds; and the performers will be on the Pavilion and Story Circle stages.

We are very excited to have these skilled individuals with us. They represent Wyoming’s true heritage and some of the finest artisans in the West. Stop by to visit with them and listen to their stories and to see them at work.

Come meet the Folk Masters:

(individuals and master & apprentice teams)

• Marcus Dewey and Carrie White Antelope, Arapahoe, Northern Arapaho Beadwork
• Leanne Linnell, Riverton, and Brook Miller, Shoshoni, horsehair hitching
• Darrell and Tyson Lonebear, Wind River Reservation, making and performing on Arapaho hand drums
• Tom Lucas, Lander, Bighorn sheep horn bows
• Ernie Marsh, Lovell, and James Guyllon, Jeffrey City, silversmithing
• Jack Mease, Lander, and Mila Ready, Hudson, rawhide braiding
• Von Ringler and Alex Whistler, Powell, leatherwork
• Mt. Sinai Jewish Dancers, Cheyenne

For more information, email Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Specialist, Anne Hatch at anne.hatch@wyo.gov or call 307-777-7721.