High honors for heritage

MSU Program Announces 2025 Michigan Heritage Awardees

 

EAST LANSING, MI – The Michigan Traditional Arts Program (MTAP) of Michigan State University recently announced the recipients of the 2025 Michigan Heritage Awards (MHA). Established 40 years ago, the awards recognize individuals who masterfully uphold family, community, or cultural folk traditions.

 The Michigan Heritage Award (MHA) is the state's highest distinction to honor individuals who continue their family, community, or cultural traditions with excellence and devotion. The awards were given out based on nominations prepared by members of the awardees' communities, following a thorough review by an independent panel of three folklife, community arts, and cultural scholars and educators.

"The Michigan Heritage Awards are presented to master tradition bearers who continue family and community traditions through practice and teaching," said Marsha MacDowell, director of MTAP. “The annual call for nominations extends throughout the state to ensure award recipients reflect a variety of skills, traditions, and cultures of Michiganders.”

Recipients of the 2025 Michigan Heritage Awards include:

• The Flint African American Quilters Guild of Flint in Genesee County for African American quilting;
• Ed and Cindi John of Northport in Leelanau County for tribal fishing and Anishinaabe smoked fish;
• Rev. Robert Jones of Detroit in Wayne County for blues music, storytelling, and education; and
• Kay Seppälä of Houghton in Houghton Count for Finnish folk dancing.

The Michigan Traditional Arts Program is a statewide program “to advance cross-cultural understanding through the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional arts, folklife, and everyday culture in Michigan.” MTAP is headquartered at MSU’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement and is supported by MATRIX: Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences with collections housed at the Michigan State University Museum.

Learn more by visiting MTAP's website: https://traditionalarts.msu.edu 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Micah Ling
lingmica@msu.edu, or
Marsha MacDowell
macdowel@msu.edu

Honoring Tradition-Bearers

Honoring individuals who carry on traditions with excellence is the focus of two annual programs coordinated by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program (MTAP) of Michigan State University: the Michigan Heritage Awards, and the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeships.

Nominations for 2025 Heritage Awards and applications for the apprenticeships are due Monday, January 6, 2025. Anyone considering putting together an application for either program should contact coordinator Micah Ling, at lingmica@msu.edu.

About the Michigan Heritage Awards:
Since 1985, the MSU Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Program has, through its Michigan Heritage Awards, honored the achievements and dedication of Michigan's traditional artists and traditional arts advocates. The awards recognize these practitioners in the areas of performance, material culture, and community leadership.So far, 139 awards have been conferred.

"The attention and honor extended to these artists through the Michigan Heritage Awards are important not only to them but to all of us who cherish the state's cultural heritage," explains Marsha MacDowell, director of the Michigan Traditional Arts Program. "We seek nominations from all over the state so that the awards continue to reflect the great diversity of skills, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds of Michiganders," she adds.

More about the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program:

The Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program supports the continuation of traditional arts and folklife practices in Michigan that are learned informally from one another in small groups and families. Examples include everything from decoy duck carving to storytelling, mehndi (henna) art application to Irish step dance, and tamale making to Finnish kantele playing. A gallery of past awardees is available online to further illustrate the scope of the program. A mentor artist works with an apprentice artist, passing on skills and knowledge about their tradition. The apprenticeship program awards a $4000 stipend in support of the instruction time the mentor artist spends with the apprentice. The apprentice will also receive $1000 for their time and dedication to the partnership.

"Like its natural resources, Michigan's cultural traditions are a treasured resource to be nurtured and sustained 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 mentor and apprentice teams tell us that their apprenticeship was one of the most meaningful times of their lives, providing the opportunity, time, and means to pass on a living tradition to someone who will continue it."

More about the Michigan Traditional Arts Program:

The Michigan Traditional Arts Program is a 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 MSU University Outreach and Engagement, with collections and archives housed in the MSU Museum and digital humanities projects support by MATRIX: Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. MTAP is produced with funding support from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity

Download News Release