NY Folklore Society Programs and Services

Welcome to the heart of the New York Folklore Society
Our Programs and Services:

New York Field Trips
Folk Art Gallery
Online Gallery Shop
Voices
Folk Arts Forums
Technical Assistance
Radio Documentaries

Advocacy
Folk Archives Project
Folk Artists Self-Management Project
Internship Program
Consulting and Referral

Pinto Guira

From the
Fall-Winter 2002 Voices:
Francisco Javier Durán García, known as Pinto Güira, creates his namesake instruments in his Corona, Queens, basement workshop. Photo by Sydney Hutchinson.

—from "Pinto Güira and His Magic Bullet: A Dominican Instrument Maker in Corona, Queens" by Sydney Hutchison.

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

Programs & Services

New York Field Trips—Since its beginnings, NYFS has sponsored at last one conference a year. Increasingly, in the past sixty years, this conference has explored the folklore and folk culture of the host region. Building on that successful concept, we have retitled this program “New York Field Trips” as a part of our effort to bring the conferences’ educational offerings to a wider audience. These field trips are for people interested in folklore from all over the state and region, professionals in the folklore and related fields, educators, and people from the area where the meeting is taking place. The talk sessions—lectures and discussions—are balanced by such activities as boat tours, concerts or dance parties, visits to interesting cultural sites, and good food.

Gallery of New York Traditions—The New York Folklore Society continues its commitment to artists by providing an outlet for the sale of their work. The Gallery of the New York Folklore Society is located at 133 Jay Street in the heart of Schenectady’s art and entertainment district. First opened in November 2000, the gallery presents the art of New York’s traditional artists and offers information about the artists and their media and art forms. Since opening, the gallery has hosted several traditional artists for day-long demonstrations of their work. Stop by and see us if you are in the capital district (Gallery hours: M-F 9-5 or on weekends, by appointment), or visit us on the web.

New York Traditions: Our On-line Gallery Shop—The New York Folklore Society offers a unique on-line collection of books and gifts that explore, explain, and celebrate folklore and folk art. We have books for both professional folklorists and for folklore enthusiasts who enjoy reading folklore collections. We offer unique, hand-crafted gifts and affordable folk art made by folk artists who practice their crafts, as traditionally learned. We also have a diverse offering of folk recordings.

Voices—The New York Folklore Society, with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, has initiated a new three-part program entitled Voices. This innovative program is designed to focus people’s attention on the value and vitality of their own folk cultural traditions as well as those of their neighbors.

Voices in Print expanded the NYFS newsletter by adding a special section called Voices where we published the content of folklore in the voices of the people who create and live it. Personal stories and letters, interviews, photographs, recipes, and more were included. Our membership magazine, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore merged our newsletter and journal, expanding on our successes with Voices in Print. The premiere issue was Fall/Winter 2000. Join NYFS now and become a subscriber!

We encourage you to submit your contributions to Voices. If you have ideas for articles please contact us. Check out our submission guidelines and editorial policy for Voices here. Also, don’t forget to send in announcements of events, festivals, publications, recordings, etc.
Voices online provides samplings from the new Voices magazine. You will also find selections from our former newsletter section of Voices.
Voices on the Radio—The New York Folklore Society has been producing a number of five-minute radio documentaries featuring the folklife (skills, traditions, stories, music, dance, folk art and material items) found in New York State. With at least eleven or more documentaries, they will be presented as a collection to public radio stations on a local and national level. With an emphasis for letting people speak in their own voice, we continue a New York Folklore Society mission to promote understanding across cultural boundaries. We believe understanding of diversity leads to tolerance and compassion.

The New York Folklore List Serve, “NYFOLK-L” is maintained and administered by the New York Folklore Society. This is a private, invitation-only list serve for the field of Folk and Traditional Arts in New York State. It is intended to serve as a means for internal communication about issues and news among folklorists and allied cultural workers in New York. For information about subscribing to the list serve, contact the New York Folklore Society at nyfs@nyfolklore.org.

Folk Arts Forums—The New York Folklore Society’s Folk Arts Forums are informal meetings held throughout the state that bring people together to discuss issues related to folklore and folk arts. Under the auspices of the society, an individual or organizational cosponsor hosts and helps plan each forum. Typically, the organizers invite participants from related fields or professions outside folk arts to encourage lively discussion and the cross-fertilization of ideas. Recent forum topics have included Heritage and Cultural Tourism, Exhibit Design, Preservation and Access of Folklife Materials, Folklore and the Internet, Copyright and Intellectual Property Law for Folklorists, Folklore and Archives, Folklore and Storytelling, Folklore and Local History, Reflections on 50 Years of Folklore in New York State, Folklore and Multiculturalism, Cultural Conservation and Public Policy, and the State of Folklore in New York. In 2001, the New York Folklore Society continued its outreach to artists and communities with a series on sound preservation and access to sound recordings. Contact us and we’ll include you in our next mailings.

Guide to NY State Traditional Music—The New York Folklore Society seeks to increase its focus on folk and traditional music practice across New York State. The goal of the project is to better serve musicians and their audiences by providing information about the musicians, their art forms and practice, and the role of their music in the cultural communities in which they are based, as well as avenues for publicity and resources for professional development. The project is sponsored by the New York Folklore Society with support from the New York State Music Fund.

Workshops—In 2008-09, the Society organized and sponsored workshops around New York State for musicians and their presenters and supporters in the areas of recording and promotion, legal issues of contracts and intellectual property and performing and teaching in educational settings.
Website—In 2009, the New York Folklore Society expanded its website to include a special section for about NYS musicians and their music. Check it out and watch it grow!

Erie Canalway Arts Inventory—The New York Folklore Society was selected to begin a targeted inventory of the arts in the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor in 2009. The project is part of the Heritage-in-Arts Initiative begun in 2008. A team of folklorists and historians, as well as a photographer, will visit Canalway Corridor communities and regions gathering examples of the rich artistic and cultural expression inspired by and resulting from the development of the Corridor’s historic canals. For additional information on the arts inventory or the Heritage-in-Arts Initiative, contact Hannah Blake at 518-237-7000, ext. 202, or view the project webpage. We welcome your feedback and participation!

Folk Archives Project—Since 1991, with grants from the NYS Documentary Heritage Program, the NYFS has been addressing the problems facing important collections of folklore and folk arts documentation that exist in organizations large and small throughout the state. The Society has published Working with Folk Materials in New York State: A Manual for Folklorists and Archivists, (1994), which won the American Folklore Society’s Brenda McCallum Prize; conducted workshops; and is matching collections with potential repositories throughout the state. Under a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the NYFS published Folklore in Archives: A Guide to Describing Folklore and Folklife Materials (1999) by James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux. The co-authors also received the Brenda McCallum Prize from the Archives and Libraries Section of the American Folklore Society in 1999. This project is viewed as a nationally significant model within the fields of both archives and folklore.

Education

Folk and Community Arts Organizations: Creating, Producing and Managing (Intro or Adv) Co-sponsored with the New York Folklore Society, this Empire State College study is designed for students interested in non-profit community arts and folk arts programming, presenting, researching (field work methods), documenting, archiving and managing. It offers aomprehensive look at how arts organizations operate, the services they provide local communities and the public at large, the wide range of programs they create and produce, the research and documentation that informs their work, how they educate youth about the arts and local communities, and grant-writing and fund-raising.
Read course description.
New York Folklore Society, in partnership with Empire State College’s Center for Distance Learning (CDL), offered the summer 2008 blended course (including online and residency components): Exploring Place: Summer Field School. The purpose of this course is to provide community scholars and students, interested in documenting, presenting, or researching the culture and tradition of their local community, the opportunity to learn fieldwork methods and strategies, and to engage with critical issues that arise in the context of conducting local fieldwork.

See photos and reports of the 2006 Summer Field School: Documenting Your Community’s Culture and Traditions, June 19-July 28, 2006.
Internship Program—The New York State Council on the Arts, in partnership with the New York Folklore Society, has instituted an internship program for graduate students in folklore to gain valuable work experience in the field of folklore and folk arts programming.

Technical Assistance Programs

The Mentoring and Professional Development Program for Folklife and the Traditional Arts, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, offers people and organizations engaged in or planning folklife and traditional arts programs to work with work with consultants who offer expertise in the needed area. Fieldwork methodology, artist self-management, marketing, concert production, interpretation and presenting, editing, exhibit design, archives management, and organizational management are just some of the skills which can be accessed through the Mentoring and Professional Development Program. In partnership with the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, the society offers mentorships to traditional artists in the following categories: short-term consultancies, ongoing consultancies, folk artist mentoring, and professional development exchanges. Folk artists, community organizations, folk cultural specialists, arts councils, museums, historical societies, and others are eligible to apply. The program is flexible and responsive to individual needs, and the application process is simple. You’ll find our program guidelines at this site (in English and Spanish), along with an application that you can print from this site. If you have questions or want to propose a project, contact us for more information.
The Folk Artists Self-Management Project, is training New York traditional artists in the business, management, and marketing skills they need to be successful in the marketplace. We published a Self-Management for Folk Artists: A Guide for Traditional Artists and Performers in New York by folklorist Patricia Wells in 1999. A joint project of NYFS, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and the Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, the project is funded by the Heritage and Preservation Program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sound Preservation—In keeping with our on-going commitment to ensuring the preservation and proper archiving of significant folklore collections in New York State, we are embarking on a sound preservation project. This includes the acquisition of a full digital workstation and a studio quality reel-to-reel recorder, allowing us to make tape copies of important audio collections for archiving, and digital CD copies for access. The workstation will be a part of our office and gallery in Schenectady and will be available not just for specific preservation projects, but will allow the digitization of field recordings and interview tapes done by collectors as well. Our first project will be the duplication and preservation of the tape collection of the North American Fiddler’s Hall of Fame in Redfield, New York. This extensive audio collection features many of the great old-time fiddlers and spans over 30 years of collecting by founder Alice Clemons and other members of the New York State Fiddlers Association. This project is made possible with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. We would also like to thank Jerry Zahavi, Associate Professor of History at SUNY Albany, for his generosity in advising us on the project. He expertise in communications will be an instrumental component of the new CLIO Media Institute for History at the Albany campus.

Advocacy, Networking, and Communications—The New York Folklore Society plays a leading role in advocating for sympathetic and informed attention to issues and concerns related to folk arts, and the arts in general, on the part of the state legislature, the federal government, and other entities whose policies affect the welfare of the field. We invite you to explore our advocacy pages here to learn what’s happening, what you can do, and the resources that are there to help.

The Society is active through board membership, presentation, and other activities in a range of statewide, regional, and national organizations (e.g., the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations, the New York State Arts and Cultural Coalition, the State Historical Records Advisory Board, the Middle Atlantic Folklife Association, and the American Folklore Society) and frequently presents its projects and issues at meetings of professional organizations in the allied fields of archives, history, and libraries.

Many of our programs (conferences, forums, publications, and this site) are about networking and communication, bringing people together with each other and with useful ideas and information. Any of these may be a gateway for you to become part of the network or broaden your involvement with folklore, folklife, and traditional arts.

Haudenosaunee Marketing Project
This project was to allow for a series of meetings of Mohawk basket makers at Akwesasne in order to explore the formation of a Mohawk basket makers’ alliance. A grant from the North East Foresters’ Association in 2007 provided travel funds and honoraria for three representatives of other Native Basket Maker’s organizations (Northwest Basket Makers — Elaine and Khia Grinnell, and Maine Basket Makers Alliance — Theresa Secord) to present their organizations to a group of Mohawk basket makers, and for representatives from Akwesasne to attend the Maine Basket Makers’ Alliance’s annual sale and meeting. While a formalized “alliance” did not result from this, differing models of organization were presented and ideas for apprenticeship, for maintaining the quality of work, and for group shows and pricing will have an impact.

Consulting and Referral—The Society offers considerable informal consulting and referral services to the field, mostly in response to inquiries by telephone, e-mail, and letter. Feel free to contact us with your questions.

Veteran’s History Project—The New York Folklore Society is an official partner and workshop leader for this important national project of the Library of Congress and American Folklife Center. Created by an act of Congress in 2000, the project seeks to collect the memories, accounts, and documents of war veterans from World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars. New York Folklore Society joins with other historical, governmental and educational agencies to promote this important national project and help implement it through the presentation of workshops on conducting oral history interviews.