MSU Museum's MacDowell Named American Folklore Society Fellow

MacDowell at the Great Lakes Quilt Center of the MSU Museum

Michigan State University Museum Curator of Folk Arts Dr. Marsha MacDowell has been named a fellow of the American Folklore Society (AFS), demonstrating outstanding accomplishments and making important contributions to the field of folklore.

Established in 1960, the Fellows of the American Folklore Society are folklorists who have produced a significant number of important articles, books, and other scholarly productions or exhibitions on folklore, and have provided meritorious service to the Society and the discipline of folklore studies. In addition to her substantial record of publications and exhibitions, MacDowell has served in a number of capacities within AFS, including as elected member of the AFS executive board.

MacDowell is also a professor in MSU's Art, Art History, and Design Department as well as a core faculty member in the College of Arts and Letters Museum Studies Program, where she serves as the program's internship coordinator and teaches future museum professionals curatorial, research, field work, exhibition and civic engagement work. Her research interests include South African quilt history; traditions of patchwork covers in China; quilts and health; the history and meaning of lau hala in Hawaiian culture; and the intersection of ethnography and museums in a digital age. She is the director of the Quilt Index, an international digital repository of stories, images, and other data related to quilts and their makers.

MacDowell has curated over 50 research-based interpretive exhibitions and festival programs as Michigan State University and is founding director of the MSU Museum's Great Lakes Folk Festival, a university-community partnership. As the Coordinator of the Michigan Traditional Arts Program since 1984, she has led many projects focused on Michigan traditional and cultural heritage. 

Source: http://museum.msu.edu/index.php?q=node/1449

MSU Museum's Quilts of Southwest China Featured on WKAR

Bedcover, c. 1940
Photo by Pearl Yee Wong

The new exhibit at the MSU Museum, "Quilts of Southwest China," opened September 28th, and runs until April 30th, 2015. Folk Arts Curator Marsha MacDowell sat down with WKAR's Peter Whorf to discuss the exhibit.

From the WKAR website:

Dr. Marsha MacDowell was surrounded by quilts from the start. She says she was born with an instant quilt collection assembled by her quilting grandmothers. The quilts from MacDowell’s childhood bed made their way to her residence hall during student days at MSU.
Her love and knowledge of art and textiles ultimately led to a professorship in Art and Art History at Michigan State, and her role as Folk Art Curator at the MSU Museum.
Dr. MacDowell is the author of numerous books about the art of quilts in Michigan and beyond. Her most recent work with MSU’s ongoing China Experience project now connects her passion for the art to people half a world away.
Current State's Peter Whorf talks with MacDowell about the exhibition.

Listen to the full interview here!