Master Artists/Master Teachers
Master Artists, Master Teachers: The Most Prolific Participants in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program
In this online exhibition, the Missouri Folk Arts Program celebrates the traditional master artists who have participated 5 or more times in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.
Since 1984, the Missouri Folk Arts Program has fostered hundreds of apprenticeships between master traditional artists and their apprentices. More than five hundred individual traditional artists, many in underserved rural, inner city, and ethnic communities in every corner of the state, have participated in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.
As of 2012, nineteen traditional artists had participated five or more times in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. This exhibit honors those master artists who have worked tirelessly to pass their art form to their apprentices, their communities, and the state of Missouri.
Online exhibition curated by student workers Darcy Holtgrave and Claire Schmidt
Gladys Caines Coggswell
In 1988, Gladys Coggswell first entered MFAP’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program as apprentice in Jazz and Blues Gospel singing to Mae Wheeler, also known as “Lady Jazz,” of St. Louis. As her reputation as a…
Richard Martin
Richard Martin was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928, and in the course of his life lived in Chicago, New York, and Mire, France. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in business administration and worked…
Edna Mae Davis
Any conversation about the notable music tradition of Ava, Missouri is incomplete without mention of Edna Mae Davis, square dance caller and dancer. In an application for the TAAP program, she listed her occupations as…
James Price
b. 1944 Naylor, Missouri Wood Joinery Dr. James Price grew up watching his father make ax handles, gun ramrods, sassafras boat paddles, cedar turkey calls and furniture. Dr. Price wrote in 1985, “Woodworking was important…
Martin J. Bergin
In his 1986 application to the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Martin Bergin wrote, “The highest honor I have received or could ever receive is the acceptance and recognition of my saddles by my peers and…