Rooted, Practiced, Sustained
News and Announcements
Feb. 13, 2026
Award Making Artist, TJ Southard
When Missouri Folk Arts established the Living Traditions Fellowships in 2023, staff knew that the honor required a dynamic, physical memento to symbolize the achievements of these artistically excellent Missouri traditional artists and community scholars. Woodworker TJ Southard, two-time alumnus of the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, was up for the job of translating staff ideas into reality. Southard, proprietor of Fresh Sawdust in Perryville, Mo., was eager to take on the challenge. He transformed walnut that he’d harvested previously from his property into beautifully personalized plaques that feature a Missouri Star quilt block, as they…
Dec. 23, 2025
Forty Years of Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program
– history, context, and impact The traditional arts are a cultural fusion of the arts and the humanities, where artistic excellence and repertoire, community ideals, and traditional knowledge are persistently entwined. Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP) formally launched in fiscal year 1985 with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and Missouri Arts Council. As of 2025, the project has supported 464 apprenticeships—highlighting, elevating, and sustaining a vast array of traditional art forms and artists from every corner of the state. From April to December 2025, Missouri Folk Arts staff have co-coordinated activities supported by a Missouri Humanities’…
Dec. 17, 2025
Sisco & Brown, 2025 Living Traditions Fellows
Marideth A. Sisco, Ozark Storyteller, Musician, and Community Scholar, West Plains, Mo. and Bo Brown, Ozarks Forager and Musician, Rogersville, Mo. Ozarks traditional artists accept awards recognizing their contributions to the Show Me State Marideth Sisco and Bo Brown are bandmates and great friends, so they were absolutely thrilled to learn that they had both been chosen as 2025 Living Traditions Fellows as part of Missouri Folk Arts’ ongoing Show Me Folk initiative. The fellowships recognize the artistic excellence and exceptional lifetime achievement of living traditional artists and community scholars in the Show Me State. To date, nine exceptional Missouri…