R.I. Government Agencies | Privacy Policy |
Folk Art Fellowships provide one $1,000 and one $5,000 award annually to artists in myriad disciplines who demonstrate the highest level of skill and accomplishments in their craft.
It is the purpose of the Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program to give opportunities to apprentices to acquire traditional skills from a traditional master artist from the same cultural community. The Program expects the apprentice to pursue perfecting the skills s/he has acquired and to pass the skills on to others in the community where those skills are traditional.
The program is not designed to provide apprentices with artifacts (such as for instance musical instruments, a piece of ornamental metal, or a hooked rug) for personal use; rather, it specifically asks apprentices to continue carrying on the tradition to assure continuity.
Statements by the apprentices in the grant request for Folk Arts Apprenticeships are looked at carefully by the panelists who evaluate the requests for support; statements by apprentices to the effect that they will pursue the tradition are deemed essential. The Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program is not designed as a classroom; it is structure as a one-on-one teaching/learning experience. At the end of the apprenticeship, the Program requires a public component (display or performance).
This program is designed to foster the sharing traditional and folk artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-one-one teaching by a master artist to a student/apprentice. The program create this opportunity specifically for individuals with a common heritage.
Folk or traditional arts are those artistic practices that have an occupational, geographic, ethnic, community, or family base, and are shared and understood by all as part of that community's aesthetic heritage. The learning process in informal, takes place over a long period of time, and is passed down from generation to generation.
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts share a number of ethnic and occupational communities. This program will provide small grants to enable masters and apprentices to travel and tach across state lines. Master artists may also apply to share their skills or repertories with an equally accomplished master artist from the same community in another state.
For more information about applying to these grants, check out our Artist Toolbox.