Your dad’s peanut brittle recipe that you bring to the office every holiday.
The slightly asymmetrical sweater that will keep you warm on cold winter mornings, knitted with the skills you learned from your aunt.
Spend spring days teaching your children the same morel-gathering tips your grandfather gave you when you were your age.
Traditions are a central part of our everyday lives as West Virginians, Appalachians, and Americans – whether we are conscious of it or simply do it instinctively. The West Virginia Folklife Program of the state’s Humanities Council is just one way to keep the Mountain State’s living arts and traditions alive and shared with the next generation, with West Virginians of all backgrounds and non-West Virginians alike.
Every two years, the council invites specialists in Appalachian traditions and their apprentices to apply for its West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program. The program seeks renowned masters of their art to pass on their expertise to an enthusiastic mentee. Selected pairs receive approximately $3,800 for a year of one-on-one personal mentoring in their chosen tradition.
The program has explored a variety of arts and traditions since its launch in 2015. Specialties of last year’s seven mentor-apprentice pairs included mushroom foraging, soul food cooking, Appalachian storytelling, clawhammer banjo, old-time fiddling, violin repair and textile arts.
“We’re providing this opportunity to pass on traditional knowledge, and we’re also providing an opportunity for people who live (in West Virginia) to learn about, be excited about and celebrate the traditional customs that exist and continue here,” said state folklorist and program director Jennie Williams. “(It’s also) something to be proud of and to educate people in other states about. This is a chance for us to showcase what we do, what we’re proud of and what things are meaningful to us.”
This is achieved not only through the mentorship itself, but also through the way the experience is passed on beyond apprentice and mentor. Throughout their time in the program, participants are asked to share their art with their community, whether through a public demonstration or performance, a workshop, or some other form of public event. At the end of the apprenticeship, a series of public presentations will showcase how each pair has honed their skills during the year of learning together.
The techniques learned, artwork created, and experiences shared don’t end with the mentorship, either—through its publicly accessible online archive, the ever-growing WV Folklife Program Collection, the WV Folklife Program also documents photographs, interviews, creative works, music, and more that reflect the cultural value and significant figures of West Virginia folk art.
Although preserving cultural practices is crucial, Williams emphasizes that traditions should not only be passed on but also grow and find new form.
“Tradition as a concept is not static. It has to adapt to continue,” Williams said. “It’s important to see how the apprentices and artists keep their tradition relevant in a contemporary context so they can bring their own creativity to it. If they don’t, it can be really hard to continue a traditional practice. You want to be able to attach your own meaning and memories to it. You want to be able to see yourself in it.”
Program alumnae James Froemel of Maidsville and his mentor Bil Lepp worked to strengthen that very skill during the 2022-23 program session, among others. The pair focused on the ancient art of Appalachian storytelling, a timeless way to bring community together.
“There’s this interactive element to storytelling. It’s alive. One of the most important elements is that you have this shared light; you can see your audience, the audience can see you, and it creates this great reciprocity of storytelling,” Froemel said. “It reminds people that there are ways to engage with stories in other ways, and that they can not only hear the story, but they have the opportunity to retell it later. They’re part of this tradition of carrying the story forward and passing it on.”
Storytelling has been an important part of Froemel’s life for more than a decade, but his apprenticeship with Lepp expanded his knowledge of the art, a mastery he himself passed on during his apprenticeship at storytelling camps.
However, an unexpected lesson from the program did not concern his own skills, but the passion of his colleagues.
“When you apply for the training, you’re kind of in your artistic bubble. Then you dive in and realize how diverse the idea of folk life is,” Froemel said. “It was really inspiring to see how much support there was for all these different artistic mediums, some of which I was familiar with, some of which I wasn’t. It was really just an inspiring environment.”
That discovery and inspiration is part of what Williams hopes the WV Folklife Program can bring to life for West Virginians of all backgrounds. Here in the Mountain State and across the country where similar projects have been launched, the program has proven to do just that: engage and engage people in the creative practices of their families and communities.
The application deadline for the 2024–25 WV Folklife Apprenticeship program is August 26 and will reopen in 2026. For more information, visit https://WVFolklife.org. If you have any questions, contact Williams at [email protected]. Visit the WV Folklife Program Collection at WVFolklife.lib.wvu.edu.
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