July 27, 2026
“I Hook Stories”
by Christina Edholm Christina Edholm is one of three artists featured in the Missouri Folk Arts Program 2026 exhibit “Folk Arts in Bloom,” a showcase of three hooked rugs by artists from three different regions bringing their knowledge and innovations to the tradition. In the exhibit case, her vibrant rug is visible in the lower right corner of the case. In her own words below, Edholm explains what drew her to the “Dawn’s Daisies” rug pattern during a workshop taught by Katie Hartner of Tyler, Tx. Read more and check out images of patterns she created grounded in her…
July 9, 2026
2026 Apprenticeship Highlights
Missouri is home to one of the oldest, continuous statewide folk arts apprenticeship programs in the U.S., funded since inception by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Missouri Arts Council with support from the Museum of Art & Archaeology at the University of Missouri. In its inaugural year, the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP) featured old-time, gospel, blues, and jazz. Soon, the project grew to include objects made by hand. Over forty years later, over one-thousand individual artists in every corner of the state––rural, suburban, and urban centers—have served as mentors and apprentices. Some, like 2026 artists–fiddler Thomas Coriell,…
June 28, 2026
Dawn’s Daisies–Folk Arts in Bloom
Welcome back to Stories from the Field and a new Show Me Folk News post by a guest author. Show Me Folk News is dedicated space for staff, student workers, traditional artists, cultural experts, consultants, and community scholars to share photo essay on an array of Missouri folk and traditional arts topics. Guest blogger Elinor Barrett is a longtime mid-Missouri rug hooker, owner of Wool & Cotton, no. 219–a purveyor of traditional textile materials and tools–and a popular teacher in the tradition. From Barrett, Missouri Folk Arts learned the poignant backstory of one pattern…
May 26, 2026
2026 Living Traditions Fellows
May 27, 2026 COLUMBIA, MO – The Missouri Folk Arts Program is excited to announce recipients of the 2026 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. For 2026, Missouri Folk Arts recognizes three individuals for their deep-rooted contributions to traditional arts within their vibrant Missouri communities. Join us as we congratulate Mary Barile (Boonville), Brian Hawkins (Harrisonville), and Marquise Knox (Bowling Green). Fellows will participate in public events and contribute to recorded oral histories that document their…
April 22, 2026
Folk Arts in Bloom
Hooked Rugs in Missouri On exhibit at the Museum of Art & Archaeology, opening April 25, 2026 Thanks to artists, practitioners, and scholars like Mary Collins Barile, Boonville, Mo., the legacy of traditional hooked rugs has been practiced, passed on, and documented. Missouri Folk Arts thanks Dr. Barile for her significant input on this exhibit, particularly in the interpretative text. Her book Hooked Rugs of the Midwest: A Handcrafted History is a valuable and accessible read to learn more about this dynamic tradition’s roots and ongoing practice in our region. Three rug hookers are featured…
Feb. 12, 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…
Dec. 22, 2025
Forty Years of Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program
the 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…
Dec. 16, 2025
Sisco & Brown, 2025 Living Traditions Fellows
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 individuals with deep-rooted contributions to their vibrant Missouri communities have been recognized with the honor thanks to the diligence of…
Nov. 3, 2025
Roots & Routes
The Show-Me state hosts one of the oldest projects in the United States for sustaining traditional arts. Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program was launched in 1985 with grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and Missouri Arts Council with administrative support from Mizzou. In forty years, the art forms have been vast and multidisciplinary, from performative and material genres to occupational traditions—all passed down within communities in multigenerational settings from every region of the state. In the last 40 years, over 500 apprentices–hailing from rural, urban, and suburban communities–have participated in the project. Working with…
Sep. 13, 2025
Howard W. Marshall, 2025 Living Traditions Fellow
Howard W. Marshall, PhD enjoyed a long career as a professional folklorist in both the public sector (e.g., Smithsonian Institution, American Folklife Center) and in academia, especially in the Department of Art History & Archaeology at the University of Missouri, where he also directed the cross-disciplinary Missouri Cultural Heritage Center for a decade. Marshall’s academic career included teaching courses that centered folklife in material culture, vernacular architecture, and historic preservation. For the Living Traditions Fellowship, though, nominator Thomas Coriell extoled Marshall’s contributions as an award-winning old-time fiddler and ethnographer who exhaustively practices, documents, and promotes the…