The Virginia Folklife Program has announced six new teams of mentors and apprentices who will work together over the coming year to preserve and pass on traditional skills and art forms to future generations of Virginians. Among the apprenticeships announced is Elizabeth Beamon of Charlottesville, who will be studying traditional Virginia foodways with food historian Leni Sorensen of White Hall. The apprentices will focus on gardening, canning, cooking outdoors, and presenting foodways demonstrations to wider audiences.
Other teams include one focusing on custom sewing and clothing alterations, as well as teams learning broom-making, traditional Southern-style singing, Uyghur traditional music, and mural restoration. Each team will receive $5,000 and freedom to structure its own learning path. Throughout the apprenticeship year, each team will be filmed at work, with a film to be published on Virginia Folklife’s YouTube channel.
The Virginia Folklife Program aims to preserve a wide range of traditional art forms and practical disciplines, including those important in daily life but not typically taught in classrooms. The program seeks to explore and preserve the ways people find meaning in everyday life and the diverse cultural traditions that make Virginia unique. Future application cycles will open in November for those interested in passing along other Virginia traditions to the next generation. The program is supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk Arts Program.
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