The Maine Arts Commission today announced the 2010 Traditional Arts Masters. Greg Boardman, a fiddler from Auburn, Thomas Cote, an Acadian woodcarver from Limestone, Normand Gagnon, a Quebecois accordionist from Rumford, Susan Barrett Merrill, a weaver and spinner from Brooksville, and Paula Thorne, a Penobscot basketmaker from Exeter will each teach their traditional arts to apprentices during the next 12 months.
Every community has cultural traditions worth preserving. Many times those cultural traditions are preserved by someone in the community who has mastered and practices a traditional art. Each year the Maine Arts Commission offers stipends to master traditional artists who are willing to teach an apprentice over a period of 8 to 12 months. The apprenticeships have been used by basket makers, fiddle players, step dancers, ox yoke makers, snowshoe makers, and ballad singers, just to name a few. For their work teaching, the master artist receives a $4000 stipend which is funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk and Traditional Arts program.
How does music and dance connect us to those who preceded us? How does one turn a block of wood or a tree root into a thing of beauty that is also an expression of cultural heritage? These five Maine artists will get an opportunity to answer some of those questions by teaching apprentices.
Greg Boardman, from Auburn fell in love with fiddle music in 1970 and never looked back. Boardman has performed with and traces his own musicianship to such luminaries as National Heritage Award winner Simon St. Pierre, Otto Soper, and Ben Guillemette. Greg will be teaching apprentice Hannah Rodrigue.
Tom Cote, of Limestone, learned woodcarving from his mother and grandfather. When he was 27 years old, he apprenticed to a cousin in Quebec, where he learned much of his skill. Among his works is a statue of St. Louis that was carved for the Catholic Church in Limestone. Cote teaches carving in the Limestone High School, and will use that knowledge of teaching to instruct apprentice Ellysabeth S. Bencivenga in the traditional art of carving.
Accordionist Normand Gagnon is a native of Quebec, who moved his family to Rumford in 1971. He has played the accordion for 59 years, and plays traditional French Canadian jigs, reels, polkas and waltzes. In the 1980s he teamed up with guitarist Marcel Larrivee and washtub bass player Bill Beauchesne to for the group La Groupe de Joie. This year, Normand will be teaching his apprentice Michel Giasson.
Master artist Susan Barrett Merrill is a sixth-generation Maine weaver and knitter from Brooksville. She will be teaching apprentice Barbara Egan how to weave wool weft into a linen warp called 'linsey-woolsey' and spinning wool 'in the grease.'
Part of her long-standing family tradition includes shearing sheep on Flat and Nash Islands off the coast of Maine. Merrill explains, "These clean wild fleeces provide much of the wool that I use in my own work. For spinners and weavers in Maine communities that have access to naturally clean fleeces such as those from island flocks, the preservation of the technique of spinning in the grease will keep the awareness of its advantages alive in the spinning and weaving community."
Master Penobscot basket maker Paula Thorne, from Exeter, will be teaching her apprentice, Emily Bell, how to collect and prepare the brown ash tree for basket making. Known as the 'basket tree,' brown ash provides the best natural material for making splints, the pliable strips of wood used for weaving baskets. According to Thorne, selecting and preparing 'your materials' is one of the most difficult parts of mastering traditional basketry.
This year's Traditional Arts Masters will be on stage during a free night of entertainment at the Strand Theatre in Rockland on October 23. Here they will perform and demonstrate their art forms as part of the Maine Arts Commission's Fellowship Showcase. For information about this event, or any of the Maine Arts Commission's Traditional Arts programs, visit www.MaineArts.com.
For more information:
Contact: Darrell Bulmer
Phone: 207/287-6746
email: darrell.bulmer@maine.gov
WWW: mainearts.com
