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Missouri Folk Arts Program

University of Missouri

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Work is Art and Art is Work

 

This exhibition celebrates the work of six contemporary Missouri luthiers, all of whom participated in Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP). All are accomplished musicians, passionate about their music and instrument making. Each learned through a combination of sources: formal instruction, mentors and peers, books, imitation, and old-fashioned trial and error. Each begins his work with carefully selected wood. Each, by cutting, measuring, shaving, shaping, bending, tuning, and finishing, turns simple boards into intricate instruments that are pleasing to both eye and ear.

Geoffrey Seitz – Violin, Viola, Cello

Geoff Seitz is the only urban-based luthier in the exhibition. Because of his location, his customers are quite diverse: young and old, amateur and professional, classical, oldtime, bluegrass, jazz, country, Irish, and others. In his…

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John Wynn – Mandolin and Banjo

Wynn purchases wood locally from a third generation Ozark logger who knows Wynn’s preferences. Sassafras is abundant in the Ozarks and serves many traditional uses. Young roots are made into a medicinal tea or dye….

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Luther Medley – Bass and Fiddle

Luther Medley and assistant Ed Holden show off a Medley designed bass. After he retired, Medley thought instrument making and repair work would bring in a “few extra dollars” for his favorite pastime, “goin’ fishing.”…

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Transformation & Creativity

As a young woman of only eighteen, Naoma Powell, now eighty-one, accompanied her father to Cope Ashlock’s violin shop on Broadway Street in downtown Columbia. They brought along an old, badly battered, and broken Italian…

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Show Me Folk

Giving Tuesday 2023 donations welcomed by Missouri Folk Arts

Missouri Folk Arts is thankful to individual donors who have provided unrestricted gift funds that support opportunities for staff and traditional artists beyond those designated in grant-funded projects. Previous examples include apprenticeship support; artistic fees;…

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A TRIBUTE TO BEVERLY STROHMEYER (1944-2023)

Saturday, September 2, we woke to the news on Facebook that our friend and colleague Beverly Strohmeyer had suffered and survived a major cardiac event. Over the next two weeks, we followed the stories of…

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Missouri quilters reflect on sharing their craft on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. by Kirk Kramer for the News Leader, August 13, 2023

At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, we enjoyed meeting Ozarks’ own son Kirk Kramer who resides now in Cottage City, Maryland (originally of Greenfield, Missouri and Miami, Oklahoma). Kirk let us know he wrote the following…

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Aug 14, 2023 Read More
Missouri Folk Arts Program

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573-882-6296 higginsll@missouri.edu

Missouri Folk Arts
Museum of Art and Archaeology
520 South 9th Street
Room 1, Ellis Library
Columbia, MO 65211


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