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
Patrick Gannon
Patrick “P.J.” Gannon is an internationally known performer and teacher of traditional Irish music. With his wife Helen Gannon, herself a master artist in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in Irish step dance, he founded…
Edna Mae Davis
Any conversation about the notable Ozark 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…
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…
Arthur Treppler
b. 1918 d. 1994 Bridgeton, Missouri Button-Box Accordion Apprentices: 1985 Paul Knopf, John Winkler 1987 Joseph Seper, Louis Chaperlo 1989 Louis Chaperlo, Louis Gyaky 1990 Eric Noltkamper 1993 Alice Harfman Arthur Treppler’s family immigrated to…
Christa Robbins
Christa Robbins was born in Bernbach, Germany (formerly East Germany). She started her lessons in kloppelei in a formal setting, the Kloppelschulen, or lace school, when she was a child. That particular region is known…