A blog sponsored by the Michigan State University Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Program, a partnership with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Sharing news and information about the Great Lakes Folk Festival, Quilt Index, the MSU Museum's traditional arts activities, Great Lakes traditional artists and arts resources, and much more. Development of content for this blog supported by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Classic Performances from the 1989 Festival of Michigan Folklife: Wade and Julia Mainer- Old-Time Country Musicians


The legendary banjo picker Wade Mainer is perhaps most associated with his North Carolina mountain roots, where he developed his distinctive two-finger banjo picking style that set the stage for the three-finger bluegrass banjo styles of Snuffy Jenkins and Earl Scruggs. Throughout his life, Mainer maintained the distinction between the hard-driving bluegrass sound and his own tradition drawn from old-time hymns and ballads learned during his boyhood. Mainer had a successful recording and radio career, performing first with his brother J.E. in J.E. Mainer and the Crazy Mountaineers and then, beginning in 1936, with his own group, Sons of the Mountaineers. He married his wife, old-time country vocalist Julia Brown, in 1937, when she was performing on North Carolina radio as “Hillbilly Lilly.” Mainer quit the music business in 1953, and he and Julia joined the tide of Appalachian migrants moving to Michigan in search of jobs. The couple settled in Flint, where Wade worked for General Motors until his retirement in 1972. During this time he performed non-professionally, often in church. Beginning in the early 1970sas interest in old-time music experienced a revival―Mainer again began to perform the traditional country banjo tunes of his early career, as well as gospel songs and hymns. Accompanied by Julia, he played at numerous festivals and resumed his recording career with such labels as Old Homestead (based in Brighton, Michigan) and June Appal Records. When he died in 2011 at the age of 104, Wade Mainer had spent more years in his second home of Michigan than in his native North Carolina. He was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, among them a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987) and a Michigan Heritage Award from the Michigan State University Museum (1996).

 In 1989, videographer Gary McCuaig filmed these two performances at the Michigan State University Museum’s Festival of Michigan Folklife. Together, they capture the twin facets of Wade Mainer’s career.


The first, the banjo tune “Crick in the Water,” illustrates the two-finger banjo picking style that grew out of his North Carolina mountain roots.



The second, the old-time gospel song “I Can’t Sit Down,” illustrates his later career when he frequently sang religious songs with Julia.


Monday, January 20, 2014

A Family Tradition of Laotian-Hmong Weaving

Nhu Fang Yang (1911-?) and Ia Moua Yang, Detroit
1989 Festival of Michigan Folklife, East Lansing

Nhu Fang Yang learned the art of weaving on a back-strap loom from her mother, a master weaver in their small northern Laotian village. By the time Nhu married at age 16, she had mastered the skills necessary to make the intricate batik and appliqué skirts worn by all Blue Hmong women. The family moved to the U.S. in 1984. In recognition of Nhu Fang Yang’s exceptional artistry, she was awarded a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988. These Laotian-Hmong textiles are associated with rites of passage and New Year’s celebrations. In Michigan, many Hmong mothers still carefully create the decorative clothing needed by their children during the age of courtship and for marriage ceremonies, and daughters and daughters-in-law fashion the special squares customarily required for the burial of their elders. This video excerpt, shot at the MSU Museum’s 1989 Festival of Michigan Folklife by Gary McCuaig, shows the fruits of a Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship between Nhu and her daughter-in-law, Ia Moua Yang. As a White Hmong, Ia Moua Yang learned embroidery and appliqué skills but did not learn to weave or batik. In 1988, the two women received a Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship award, a program that encourages cultural preservation, pride, and respect through small grants made to master artists to teach their skills, techniques, and knowledge to others in their communities. The 1989 festival, with its theme of family traditions, provided a perfect vehicle for demonstrating the skills transmitted during the apprenticeship. For more information about MTAAP, visit http://museum.msu.edu/s-program/mtap/mtaap/mtaap.html.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

A Family Tradition of Ice Fishing Decoys

Myron “Mike” Ballard (1917 – 2005)
1989 Festival of Michigan Folklife, East Lansing


The 1989 Festival of Michigan Folkife, produced by the MSU Museum and held on the campus of Michigan State University, featured the theme “family traditions. One such family tradition was carried on by three generations of ice fishing decoy carvers: 1990 Michigan Heritage Award winner Dave Kober (currently living in Tustin, Michigan), his son Travis, and his uncle and mentor, Myron “Mike” Ballard. This video footage, shot by Gary McCuaig of the MSU Department of Communication Arts, shows Mike Ballard as he demonstrates the decoys in a water tank. The video excerpt clearly illustrates the family trademark: use of the natural wood grain combined with metal painted fins, a skill Mike learned from his father, Lester Ballard. Footage of completed decoys also show another family technique—carving the dorsal fins so the decoy “stands” on these fins when out of the water. Most carvers choose not to place the fins below the fish in the natural position, but the Ballard-Kober family insists on this practice. For more information on the Michigan Heritage Awards, see http://museum.msu.edu/s-program/mh_awards/mha.html. For more information on the Kober-Ballard ice fishing tradition, see http://www.koberdecoys.com/.