Podcast: Download (23.8MB)
Podcast: Download (23.8MB) No cultural expression is more synonymous with American traditional arts than quilt making. In this episode, I talk with SouthArts folklorist and senior program director Teresa Hollingsworth about The Sum of Many Parts, a large exhibit of quilts made by 25 contemporary America artisans. Katy Malone joins the interview and explains her [...]
Podcast: Download (36.6MB)
Podcast: Download (36.6MB) Carol Edison tells us about her work with Navajo basket makers in Utah, including Mary Holiday Black the legendary matriarch of the basket tradition. An ancient artform, the Black and other families have both continued and revitalized a beautiful type of basket that is both ceremonially and economically important to their community. [...]
Continue reading about Episode 36: Researching Navajo Basketry with Carol Edison
Podcast: Download (55.8MB)
Podcast: Download (55.8MB) Tennessee and baskets seem to go together, but their relationship probably is not at all what you think. In this episode, I talk with folklorist Roby Cogswell, the director of Folklife at the Tennessee Arts Commission, about his research of the basket making tradition in Cannon County, TN. This amazing craft has [...]
Continue reading about Episode 34: Cannon County Baskets a Tennessee Tradition
Podcast: Download (32.9MB)
Podcast: Download (32.9MB) In today’s podcast we talk with folklorist Daniel Patterson who is a professor Emeritus of English and former chair of the Curriculum in Folklore at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. Dr. Patterson has recently written a monumental work on early [...]
Continue reading about Episode 33: Carolina Gravestones and Daniel Patterson’s The True Image
Podcast: Download (26.2MB)
Podcast: Download (26.2MB) In this episode I talk with my old friend Saddler Taylor, the Chief Curator of folklife and fieldwork at the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina. He has researched the traditional arts and culture of the American South, and helped produce the Digital Traditions website, an online repository of resources [...]
Continue reading about Episode 32: South Carolina’s Digital Traditions
Podcast: Download (55.1MB)
Podcast: Download (55.1MB) I know it has been a while since I made a podcast post. I thought I would share a 7-minute piece/talk I gave as part of the American Folklore Society Meeting in New Orleans this past fall. I focus on the work of John Schoolman, a friend of mine who made beautiful [...]
Continue reading about Episode 31: A Video- The Colorful Canes of John Schoolman
Podcast: Download (17.6MB)
Podcast: Download (17.6MB) In this episode, we talk about the the diverse meaning of objects. From Civil Rights quilts to Amish buggies, we explore how objects communicate various meanings. Using a semiotics approach we explore the difference between the various ways that objects serve as signs:icon, index and symbol. I share some observations from Peter [...]
Continue reading about Episode 29: The Manifold Meaning of Things
Podcast: Download (29.3MB)
Podcast: Download (29.3MB) In this episode, I talk with Folk Art Curator Carrie Hertz about her work at the Castellani Art Museum, where she has just opened an exhibition about Irish Lace making traditions. We talk about her collaboration with Molly Carroll, a lace collector and restorer to produce this beautiful exhibit and discuss how [...]
Continue reading about Episode 28: Folk Art Curator Carrie Hertz
Podcast: Download (32.2MB)
Podcast: Download (32.2MB) A ton of information is embedded in historic photographs, especially when the images include artisans and handmade objects. In this episode of the Artisan Ancestors, I talk about my work identifying, organizing, and analyzing historic photograms. Focusing on my work with pictures of oak rod baskets from Southern Indiana, I share how [...]
Continue reading about Episode 27: Historic Photographs and Material Culture Research
Podcast: Download (29.3MB)
Podcast: Download (29.3MB) In this episode of Artisan Ancestors, I talk with Dr. Candace Greene, who directs the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology or SIMA for he National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. She is an ethnologist at the Smithsonian and has an adjunct appointment with George Washington University [...]
Podcast: Download (48.8MB)
Podcast: Download (48.8MB) An expert in early sound recordings, Patrick Feaster talks about his personal collection of home recordings captured on wax cylinders in this episode. While many genealogists and local historians may have tracked down photographs of ancestors and others from the late Nineteenth Century, few would imagine that they might hear the voice [...]
Continue reading about Episode 24: Resurrecting Voices or Finding Forgotten Home Recordings
Podcast: Download (29.1MB)
Podcast: Download (29.1MB) In today’s show, I talk with Chris Fennell about his multi-prong archaeological study in Edgefield, South Carolina. His research combines archaeological discoveries with archival research and scientific analysis. He works with students from the University of Illinois in this field school where they explore both the Remains of a pottery production facility [...]
Continue reading about Episode 23: The African Diaspora and an American Pottery Tradition
Podcast: Download (30.8MB)
Podcast: Download (30.8MB) In this episode, I sit down and talk with my friend and fellow folklorist Jason Baird Jackson to discuss the topic of the “Creative Commons.” Jason’s research touches upon issues of intellectual property and heritage making in native communities in the United States. He points out that the work of the commons [...]
Continue reading about Episode 22: Why the Creative Commons with Folklorist Jason Baird Jackson
Podcast: Download (27.9MB)
Podcast: Download (27.9MB) In this episode, I talk with Milan Opacich a National Heritage Fellow, tamburitza musician and luthier. We discuss his life’s work of collecting artifacts, instruments and ephemera related to tamburitza in the United States. Writing for the ethnic magazine, Serb World USA, he has chronicled the history of this often-overlooked genre of [...]
Continue reading about Episode 21: National Heritage Fellow-Milan Opacich
Podcast: Download (41.8MB)
Podcast: Download (41.8MB) Studying historic needlework offers a perspective into the complex lives of women often not present in the written records of the 18th and 19th centuries. Material culture scholar Susan Schoelwer authored Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740–1840, which included pieces from the Connecticut Historical Society’s rich Collection of period needlework. In [...]
Podcast: Download (32.7MB)
Podcast: Download (32.7MB) In this episode I talk with Yang Cai about his research work doing 3-D scanning of gravestones and rock art. This new technology allows scholars to reveal information and patters thought lost to the ages by setting a laser line on a stone and measuring the refraction of this line, which allows [...]
Continue reading about Episode 19: Old Gravestones and New Technology
Podcast: Download (35.0MB)
Podcast: Download (35.0MB) Robert Tarule makes reproductions of 17th Century joined furniture. In his book The Artisan of Ipswich, he crafts a story that centers around a chest made by Thomas Dennis in the Massachusetts village of Ipswich in the mid 1600s. Robert narrates Dennis’ use of tools, techniques and styles. In this interview, I [...]
Podcast: Download (26.3MB)
Podcast: Download (26.3MB) Maureen Taylor, the “Photo Detective” is a genealogist and photo researcher who helps researchers unlock mysteries from the past. From the PBS series Ancestors to the popular magazine Martha Stewart Living, this photo researchers has helped others recognize the importance of family photographs and encouraged them to preserve and annotate their family [...]
Continue reading about Episode 17: The Case of the Photo Detective with Maureen Taylor
Podcast: Download (27.1MB)
Podcast: Download (27.1MB) An Emmy Award-winning archival image researcher, Rich Remsberg assists documentary film makers locate the necessary archival footage and still photos that they need to visually tell their stories. From scouring collection at the National Archive to tracking down rare one of a kind materials held in personal and family collections, he prides [...]
Continue reading about Episode 16: Found Images and Research Methods with Rich Remsberg
Podcast: Download (35.7MB)
Podcast: Download (35.7MB) Folklorist Tim Tangherlini employs a research approach he calls, “computational folkloristics” which uses data-mining to reveal new information, once thought lost to the past. He deploys computers to plot, compare, store and assist in the analysis of data from various archival holdings from around the world. His method places historical individuals [...]
Continue reading about Episode 15: Computational Folkloristics
Podcast: Download (29.4MB)
Podcast: Download (29.4MB) In this final installment of our series on Catawba Pottery in South Carolina, I talk with Stephen Criswell a folklorist and director of the Native American Studies program at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster. Much of his work focuses on conducting oral history with Catawba potters and tradition bearers [...]
Continue reading about Episode 14: Catawba Pottery in South Carolina (Part 3)
Podcast: Download (19.3MB)
Podcast: Download (19.3MB) Brent Burgin is the archivist and director of the Native American Studies Archives at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster, an institution that holds one of the largest and most impressive collection of Catawba pottery. He has worked with scholars such as Thomas Blumer and Stephen Criswell to help preserve and [...]
Continue reading about Episode 13: Catawba Pottery in South Carolina (Part 2)
Podcast: Download (26.3MB)
Podcast: Download (26.3MB) In this episode, we start to explore pottery produced by artisans from the Catawba Nation in South Carolina. This is part one of a three part series on this age old art. In part one of our exploration of this earthenware tradition. I talk with Bill Harris, a Catawba potter who learned [...]
Continue reading about Episode 12: Catawba Pottery in South Carolina (Part 1)
Podcast: Download (28.6MB)
Podcast: Download (28.6MB) What would you do if you found out that your ancestors were slaveholders who owned one of the most talented folk potters in South Carolina? When Leonard Todd found himself in this situation, he committed himself to a six-year journey of discovery about the Life and work of an enslaved artisan named [...]
Continue reading about Episode 11: Searching for a Slave Potter
Podcast: Download (27.0MB)
Podcast: Download (27.0MB) In this episode, I talk with Curt Witcher, the Senior Manager for Special Collections at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His work includes leading The Genealogy Center, which is a world-class research center for family and local history research.In this interview, Curt and I discuss general research strategies [...]
Continue reading about Episode 10: Genealogical Next Steps with Curt Witcher
Podcast: Download (26.7MB)
Podcast: Download (26.7MB) In this episode I talk with Brandt Zipp a young pottery scholar, who grew up around antique American stoneware in his family’s antique auction business, The Crocker Farm, Inc. Zipp shares his research findings, as well as his techniques for discovering important information about free African American artisans working in New York, [...]
Continue reading about Episode 9: Brandt Zipp’s Search for Forgotten African American Potters
Podcast: Download (28.1MB)
Podcast: Download (28.1MB) In this episode we talk with Sherrie Davidson a quilt research, who recently completed her book, the [amazon_link id="1551097680" target="_blank" ]Quilts of Prince Edward Island[/amazon_link]. We talk with her about the quilt survey and subsequent archival research she did to trace the origins and development of this traditional art. She shares how [...]
Continue reading about Episode 8: The Quilts of Prince Edward Island
Podcast: Download (26.8MB)
Podcast: Download (26.8MB) In this episode Jon Kay talks with Laurel Horton a folklorist and quilt and textile researcher. Horton has studied and made quilts since 1975. She recently published the book Mary Black’s Quilts: Memory and Meaning in Everyday Life, which blends historical and genealogical methods with a behavioral approach to material culture studies. [...]
Continue reading about Episode 7: Laurel Horton’s Textile Research
Podcast: Download (26.7MB)
Podcast: Download (26.7MB) In this episode, Jon Kay interviews Jennifer Core the folklorist and a founding researcher of the Tennessee Sampler Survey, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Tennessee’s needlework heritage. Jennifer’s research includes documenting Tennessee samplers made prior to 1900 and as of May 2010, she and her research partner Janet Hasson [...]
Continue reading about Episode 6: The Tennessee Sampler Survey
