The Michigan Traditional Arts Program of Michigan State University seeks applications for its 2024 Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, which facilitates the sharing of traditional knowledge between mentor artists and apprentices of their choosing in a variety of traditional, cultural, or occupational expressions. Nominations for the 2024 Michigan Heritage Awards are also open, a program which recognizes people who have dedicated their lives to the practice, education, preservation, and/or documentation of follk and traditional arts in Michigan.
Applications for both apprenticeships and heritage awards are due Monday, January 8, 2024. Application and nomination forms are available below or on the MTAP website under the apprenticeship or heritage awards tabs. Anyone considering putting together an application for either program should contact Micah Ling, at lingmica@msu.edu or msu.mtap@gmail.com.
More about the 2024 Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program:
The Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program supports the continuation of traditional arts practiced in Michigan that are learned informally from one another in small groups and families. These range from decoy duck carving to storytelling, mehndi (henna) art application to Irish step dance, and tamale making to Finnish kantele playing. A mentor artist works with an apprentice artist, passing on the skills and knowledge about a particular traditional art for. The apprenticeship program awards a $2000 stipend in support of the instruction time the mentor artist spends with the apprentice. A gallery of past awardees is available on our website.
“Like its natural resources, Michigan’s cultural traditions are a treasured resource to be nurtured for future generations, which is why the apprenticeship program provides incentives to traditional artists to pursue their art and pass on these skills on to others,” says Micah Ling, coordinator of the apprenticeship program. “Many master and apprentice teams tell us that their apprenticeship was one of the most meaningful times of their lives, providing the opportunity and the means to pass on a living tradition to someone who will continue the tradition with care and attention.”
More about the Michigan Heritage Awards:
The Michigan Heritage Awards honor individuals who continue their family and community folk traditions with excellence through practice and teaching, or individuals who are recognized as outstanding community leaders in the maintenance, documentation, or presentation of traditional arts. The program was established to call attention to Michigan’s exceptional tradition bearers and supporters of traditional culture whose contributions to our state’s heritage. These are the state’s only formal recognition for artists and cultural heritage practitioners in a statewide program. Awards are annually presented to Michiganders who participate in a wide range of cultural practices, both to the practitioners and to those who work to support or document those traditions. These include, for example, material culture (carving, fiber art traditions, pottery, foodways, dress), performance (music, dance, storytelling), and community leadership (festival production, archival documentation, folk arts administration).
More about the Michigan Traditional Arts Program:
The Michigan Traditional Arts Program is the statewide program that advances cross-cultural understanding in a diverse society through the documentation, preservation, and presentation of the traditional arts, folklife, and everyday culture in Michigan.
This statewide program is based at the MSU Residential College in the Arts and Humanities and is supported by partnerships with MSU University Outreach and Engagement, the MSU Museum, and MSU’s Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences.