New York Folklore Society Board

As we look through the lens of folklore, we learn important things about ourselves and our neighbors—the dazzling variety of cultural creativity and expression by ordinary people, the always evolving traditions that bind us into groups and sustain us through good times and bad. The New York Folklore Society works to foster the vitality, persistence, and understanding of the folklore and folklife that enrich groups and communities in New York and beyond.

The New York Folklore Society board of directors is a diverse group of people, bringing a varied set of skills to the organization. Our goal to “recognize and incorporate the perspectives and contributions of diverse audiences/constituencies throughout every level of the New York Folklore Society, its programs, and services” necessarily includes those who serve on our board of directors. We continually seek greater ethnic diversity in our governance. In keeping with the original intent of the society’s founders, we also strive to include board members who represent the geography of New York State. Our board members come from throughout the state, including Genessee, Dutchess, Oswego, Broome, Warren, Nassau, Schenectady, and Columbia counties, as well as Manhattan and the Bronx. We include folklorists, archivists, arts administrators, business people, university professors, and a lawyer. Serving on our board of directors requires membership in the New York Folklore Society, as well as a commitment to the nurturance of New York’s cultural traditions.
—Ellen McHale, Executive Director

New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org

About the New York Folklore Society

NYFS BOARD MEMBERS

Sherre Wesley, President

Sherre Wesley has been active in the arts and community organizations for over 30 years. She served as President of Dutchess County Arts Council for 14 years, prior to which she was Deputy Director of the Cultural Council Foundation (CCF) in New York City. Among the highlights of her tenure at Dutchess County Arts Council were the creation of a Folk and Traditional Arts program, and leading the organization to win a regional Diversity in the Workplace Award. Dr. Wesley is a speaker and facilitator whose other professional activities have included co-founding a modern dance company, hosting and co-producing a local cable television series, writing a weekly newspaper column on the arts, and teaching dance, leadership, and ethics at the collegiate level.

Wesley’s September 2006 election as Board President of the New York Folklore Society exemplifies her personal commitment to volunteerism. Other recent volunteer leadership positions include: Board Chairperson of United Way of New York State, Board President of Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations, and founding Board President of ArtsAction for New York. Among her awards are the Board Leadership Award, Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations; Mid-Hudson Prestige Award; and Dutchess County Salute to Women Award.

Dr. Wesley earned her doctorate from Columbia University’s Teachers College in Organization and Leadership: Adult Learning. She earned her Master’s Degree in Dance Education from Columbia University’s Teachers College, and her A.B., with honors, from Douglass College, the women’s college of Rutgers University. Sherre Wesley lives in Poughkeepsie, New York with her husband, Leonard M. Davis, Jr.

Karen Park Canning, Secretary-Treasurer

Karen Canning is a native New Yorker who has spent the majority of her childhood and adult years living in Genesee Valley. She holds a Bachelor of Music Theory from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, and a Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Canning has studied Ghanaian drumming, Japanese koto, and Javanese gamelan, and currently performs in Panloco, a Caribbean steel band. Since 1997, Canning has been the director of a regional traditional arts program in the counties of Genesee, Orleans, Livingston and Wyoming. This program is administered cooperatively by the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council, the Arts Council for Wyoming County, and the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts. A sampling of the program’s activities include presentations of traditional fiddlers, square dances, Irish music, ethnic accordion musics, Puerto Rican Three King’s Day celebration, Mexican Day of the Dead installation, demonstrations of rug hooking, quilting, wood carving, and Native American arts and traditions—all of which are found in the region’s communities.

Ellen Fladger is head of Special Collections/Archivist for the Union College’s Schaeffer Library, Schenectady, NY. She holds a Master’s in Folklore from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Folk Cultural Studies and post-Master’s certificates form Columbia University’s School of Library Science. She serves as a consultant for archival projects throughout New York State.

Austin Fisher is President of Fountains Spatial, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in geographic information system (GIS) technology. He earned a B.A. in geography from SUNY Binghamton and a M.A.in GIS from Hunter College. Mr. Fisher has traveled extensively and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, West Africa. He has also lived in Tanzania and Swaziland. He is involved in many community activities and was a volunteer fire fighter and taught as an adjunct professor at SUNY Albany and Union College.

Delcy Ziac Fox develops marketing communications plans and oversees the execution of strategies and tactics for non-profit businesses and corporate clients. Fox has worked in higher education in New York state and Hawaii and at marketing services agencies in Albany, New Jersey, and New York City. Fox is VP Collegiate Relations for the American Marketing Association, former VP Communications for the Gift Planning Group of Northeastern New York, Class Agent for her alma mater, Wesleyan University, and Former Chair of the Wesleyan Annual Fund. Fox volunteers for Van Antwerp Middle School and Hilllside Elementary School and serves as Secretary to the Parent-Teacher Organization Council for the Niskayuna Central School District. Fox holds a Master of Science in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Arts in biological anthropology from the University at Albany, and a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and biology from Wesleyan University.

Hanna Griff moderating a literary event at the Eldridge Street Project, October 2005

Hanna Griff received her Masters in Folklore and Ph.D. in Folklore and American Studies from Indiana University. At present, she is the Director of Public Programs at the Eldridge Street Project, a non profit cultural organization based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Prior to her position at Eldridge Street, Hanna was the folk arts associate at the folk arts program at the New York State Council on the Arts. She has taught folklore and American Studies at Grinnell College, Indiana University, Indiana University and Purdue University at Indianapolis, and Sanyo Gakuen University and Waseda University in Japan and was a visiting associate professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the Spring of 2005.
Read the interview with Hanna in VOICES.

Jan Hanvik has been Executive Director of Columbia County Council on the Arts since July 2002. Prior to that, he was Interim Executive Director of the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Prior to that, he promoted performing arts exchanges throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe as Executive Director of Pan American Musical Art Research. A former modern dancer, he switched to arts management during a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award residency in El Salvador. He held another Fulbright Award teaching arts management in Uruguay and Argentina, a subject he has also taught in Costa Rica, Chile, and Russia, and for which he has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University. He holds a BFA from City College of the City University of New York and an MA from New York University. He is a former consultant with the Ford Foundation (as well as a grant recipient), the Compton Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Something he especially enjoys about his work in Columbia County is the broad support of the business, arts, government, social service, agricultural, and schools communities, to diversify the arts and audiences, and to integrate the arts into society as a whole.

Alice Lai is Assistant Professor in the Arts and Educational Studies at SUNY-Empire State College. She received a B.A. in Art and a M.A. in Art Education at California State University, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Art Education at The Ohio State University. At Empire State College, she develops and chairs an arts program. She also teaches courses regularly in the areas of art and art education. She is the author of several entirely online undergraduate courses including Artistic Expression in a Multicultural America and Images of Women. Collaborating with NYFS, she co-developed and taught a course for the Summer Field School Exploring Place: Documenting Your Community’s Culture and Traditions. Through teaching these courses, she invites students to research visual culture, material culture, folk traditions, and arts and craft in their communities. Her students have learned to interview local artists and identify and document local traditions. Through the lens of critical cultural study, visual cultural study, and multiculturalism, she has coauthored a number of articles investigating community based and place based artistic expression such as yard art in upstate New York and argues for the importance of place-based pedagogy for the arts and humanities. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Studies in Art Education and Pedagogy.

(Sifu) Ken Lo is the founding Director of the Wu Mei Kung Fu Association and is the highest authority of Wu Mei Kung Fu worldwide. He is recognized by the Chinese government as an authentic traditional Chinese Martial arts master. He is also the founding Director of the China Arts Council, whose mission is to preserve and promote traditional Chinese cultural arts in the West. Through the China Arts Council, Sifu Lo has worked with: the Guggenheim Museum, the Prospect Park Alliance, the Chinese Scholar’s Garden, the Hammond Museum, the Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival, Families with Children from China, the Eldridge Street Project, and many other cultural institutions. Ken Lo has been studying Chinese calligraphy and Cha Dao (the Art of Tea) from Master Lo Chien Wu since 1994. Since 2007, Sifu Lo has been studying Poker Game Theory and is in training to become an international competitive Poker Champion using Chinese Martial Art principles.

Elena Martinez received M.A.s in Folklore and Anthropology at the University of Oregon. As staff folklorist at City Lore: The New York Center for Urban Folk Culture she is the primary fieldworker and researcher for Place Matters, and the sub-project, the South Bronx Latin Music Project, conducting interviews with musicians from the South Bronx, photo and archival research, and producing public programs. She is also the co-producer of the PBS documentary, From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale. She curated the exhibition, "¡Que bonita bandera!": The Puerto Rican Flag as Folk Art, which traveled through the tri-state area, and co-produced the exhibition, A Float for All Seasons: New York City’s Ethnic Parades at the Museum of the City of New York. She is the Festival Coordinator for the People’s Poetry Gathering, a major 3-day festival which explores literary poetry’s roots in the oral tradition. As a student of Rosa Elena Egipciaco, a master in the art of mundillo, Puerto Rican bobbin lace, and National Heritage Award winner, she has also worked with and organized programs pertaining to this craft.

Paul Mercer studied Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and received his Masters in Information Science from the University at Albany. He has worked at the New York State Library since 1979, and has been a Senior Librarian in Manuscripts and Special Collections since 1986. In addition to acquiring collections and documents for the library, he is responsible for map collections, and for the library’s extensive music holdings. As a researcher he studies the complex interplay between song writing, broadside ballads and songsters, and vernacular music traditions. By avocation he is a folk musician and singer-songwiter who tours New York and neighboring states, (as well as making occasional forays into Canada and the UK) as part of the performing duo, “Alien Folklife.”

Libby Tucker discovered the field of folklore while working on an M.A. in English at Buffalo State College. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast for two years and then spent three years earning a Ph.D. in folklore at Indiana University. Since 1977, she has been a faculty member of the English Department at Binghamton University. She edited New York Folklore for several years and is currently on the editorial board of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. As one of the founders of the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society, she has enjoyed chairing several AFS committees: the Newell Committee, the Opie Committee, and, most recently, the Aesop Prize Committee. Tucker’s main areas of interest include children’s and adolescents’ folklore, women’s rituals, folklore of the supernatural, and the folklore of folklorists. Her book Campus Legends was published in 2005; Haunted Halls awaits publication, and Children’s Folklore: A Handbook is at an early stage of preparation. Tucker spends much of her time with undergraduate students, as she is the Faculty Master of the Apartment Communities of Binghamton University. During free moments she likes to hike, cook, watch humorous movies, and travel.

Mary Zwolinski, Past President
Mary Zwolinski is a folklorist whose work focuses on occupational, visual, religious, and performance traditions. She has conducted ethnographic research on various occupations including boxing, firefighting, hair dressing, and surveying, and between January 2000 and July 2006 was the curator of the Knisely-Ayers Folk Arts Gallery at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, New York. She currently works as a consultant on folklore and history projects and resides in Portland, Maine, where she recently conducted a cultual assessment and survey for the State of Maine Arts Commission and the Tides Insitute and Museum of Art and History in Eastport, Maine. She received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, attended art school in Chicago, and received an M.A. in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University.