Oct. 13, 2025
Apprenticeship Applications Available
Due Date: November 19, 2025
May 12, 2025
2025 Living Traditions Fellows
May 12, 2025 COLUMBIA, MO – The Missouri Folk Arts Program is excited to announce recipients of the 2025 Missouri Living Traditions Fellowship, an award to recognize the artistic excellence and exceptional lifetime achievement of living traditional artists and community scholars in the Show Me State. This year, Missouri Folk Arts recognizes four individuals for their deep-rooted contributions to traditional arts within their vibrant Missouri communities. Please join us in congratulating Bo Brown (Rogersville); Howard W. Marshall (Fulton); Pablo Sanhueza (Kansas City); and Marideth Sisco (West Plains). Stay tuned to Missouri Folk Arts’ social media to learn about upcoming special events…
April 11, 2025
MO Humanities Grant News
Missouri Humanities has awarded a $12,550 grant to the Missouri Folk Arts Program to support an event series that shares the meaning and matter of its Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP), one of the oldest and longest-running efforts of its kind in the country. “Our Missouri Humanities grant provides us the opportunity to celebrate TAAP’s four decades and, by extension, hundreds of traditional artists who have participated over the years,” says Lisa Higgins, director of Missouri Folk Arts Program. “Every TAAP team from 1985 to the present has illustrated in word and practice how folk art…
Sep. 16, 2024
Ozarks Community Scholar Suzi Vause
Welcome back to Stories from the Field and a new post in our Show Me Folk blog. The blog is dedicated space for staff, student workers, traditional artists, cultural experts, consultants, and community scholars to share photo essays on an array of topics in Missouri’s traditional arts and folklife. Guest blogger Suzi Vause is a long-time friend of Missouri Folk Arts. In 1996, she apprenticed in walking wheel spinning with the late Elma Moss. Suzi excelled at spinning on the large wheel, and the very next year, she mentored her own apprentice in the tradition. Suzi is known by all as…
May 31, 2024
Sharon Bear Foehner, 2024 Living Traditions Fellow
Sharon Bear Foehner, St. Louis, Mo. Blues Musician Sharon Bear Foehner displays her hand-crafted plaque. May 19, 2024 at Compass, Inc., Columbia, Mo. Photo credit: Lisa Overholser As a child, Sharon Bear Foehner trained as a classical musician, playing bass violin. Then, she picked up the guitar in 1977. Landing in St. Louis ten years later, Foehner quickly found the St. Louis blues and immersed herself in its culture. She points to the tradition’s greats as her mentors, including Bennie Smith, Johnnie Johnson, Oliver Sain, Renee Smith, Jimmy Rodgers, James Crutchfield, and…
May 13, 2024
Missouri Folk Arts Program Announces 2024 Living Traditions Sustainer Fellows
Missouri Folk Arts Program Announces 2024 Living Traditions Sustainer Fellows May 13, 2024 COLUMBIA, MO – The Missouri Folk Arts Program is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2024 Missouri Living Traditions Sustainer Fellowship, the state’s award to recognize the artistic excellence and lifetime achievement of living traditional artists and community scholars in the Show Me State. The fellowships honor these individuals and their deep-rooted contributions to traditional arts within their vibrant Missouri communities. Three nominees rose to the top of the highly competitive pool. Please join us in congratulating: Gordon McCann (Springfield),…
March 18, 2024
On the Lookout for Traditional Artists in NW MO
Missouri Folk Arts’ staff is on the lookout for traditional artists in Northwest Missouri counties, from St. Joseph the the NW corner of the state, with particular focus on Andrew, Atchison, Holt, Nodaway, and Worth. Please reach out to staff with names, locations, and contact information. You can find our contact information here: https://mofolkarts.missouri.edu/about-us/our-staff/ …
March 18, 2024
From KOMU 8, Hallsville Fiddle Festival
At the link, find a KOMU 8 news story that aired March 10, 2024, as well as a longer narrative version of the story. https://www.komu.com/news/video-hallsville-fiddle-festival-keeps-missouri-traditions-alive/video_a3d8aeef-cf52-50a4-a2a8-9bd5165eb68d.html Thanks to Mizzou’s “Missouri Method” of teaching journalism, we were pleased to participate in an interview by Sophomore Briana Iordan. Briana, Bishop Lamm, and other members of their team were assigned to research Hallsville, Mo. this semester for class. Congratulations…
Jan. 23, 2024
Tribute to Fr. Moses Berry
We were sad to hear the news that Fr. Moses Berry of Ash Grove, Mo. died on January 12, 2024. Thanks to an introduction by independent scholar Jami Lewis of Mt. Vernon, we at Missouri Folk Arts and a cohort of community scholars were honored and enlightened upon visiting Fr. Berry in November 2012. The fieldtrip started at The Ozarks Afro-American Heritage Museum, which he founded and curated at 107 West Main Street in downtown Ash Grove. There, Fr. Berry shared stories about his ancestors and objects that belonged to their family or that represented their lives as enslaved, and…
Jan. 9, 2024
2024 Apprenticeship Teams Announced
LauraLee Rose is a rug hooker apprenticing with Mary Barile. Rose submitted this rug as a work sample with their application. Columbia, Mo., June 8, 2024—Missouri Folk Arts is thrilled to announce the seven teams participating in the 39th annual Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP). They are engaged actively in a series of one-on-one lessons and will continue through the spring. Stay tuned to Missouri Folk Arts’ website and social media for 2024 team profiles, progress, and special events. Please help us congratulate the following artists: Mary…