A Report on the 2023 Gathering in Fellowship Convening
2020-2023 NEA National Heritage Fellows at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian for the Gathering in Fellowship Convening.
LEGACY & IMPACT OF THE NEA NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOWSHIPS
A Report on the 2023 Gathering in Fellowship Convening September 2023
KEY PARTICIPANTS/CREDITS
Producers
Cheryl T. Schiele, Acting Folk & Traditional Arts Director, National Endowment for the Arts
Madeleine Remez, Senior Associate Director, National Council for the Traditional Arts
Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe, Convening Consultant and Report Author
Julia L. Gutierrez-Rivera, Assistant Executive Director for Programming and Productions, Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center
Gathering in Fellowship: The Legacy and Impact of NEA National Heritage Fellows Convening Staff
Facilitators: Junious Brickhouse, Julian Carrillo, Maggie Holtzberg, Diana N’Diaye, Jeannine Osayande, Amy Stolls
Program Support: Carolyn Coons, Rahmah Elmassry, Allison Hill, Amy Millin, Ed Rangel, Joel Savoy, Sean Tomlinson, Erin Waylor
Note-takers: Katy Clune, Cameron Massey, Rachel McKean
National Heritage Fellows
Convening Attendees: Laketa Addison, Sheila Addison, Almeta Ingram-Miller, Emma Jones Blackshire, Hattie Addison Burkhalter, Luquen Cannon, Ed Eugene Carriere, Bradley Cooper, Michael A. Cummings, Tagumpay De Leon, Naomi Diouf, Eva Enciñias, Anita Fields, Joe Hernandez, Karen Ann Hoffman, Roen Kahalewei Hufford, Ronnie Hunter, Tyren Jackson, Stanley Jacobs, Elizabeth James-Perry, Hosea London, Reginald McLaughlin, Hugo Morales, John Morris, TahNibaa Naataanii, Herbert Nelson, Javier Ortiz, Rey Ortiz, Roberto Ortiz, Loraine Plater, Leon Rhoden, Jerrlyn Rushing, Francis “Palani” Sinenci, Nicholas Spitzer, Luis Tapia, Sean Thomas, Wayne Valliere, Tsering Wangmo Satho, C. Brian Williams, Wu Man, Shaka Zulu
Virtual Conversation Attendees: Michael Alpert, William Bell, Liz Carroll, S. Jerry Colbert, Sidiki Conde, Manuel Cuevas, Paul Dahlin, Tom Davenport, Kevin Doyle, Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, Linda Goss, Juan Gutierrez, Al Head, PJ Hirabayashi, Roy Hirabayashi, James Jackson, Yary Livan, Carolyn Mazloomi, Artemio Posadas, Theresa Secord, Dan Sheehy
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, Chair
Ascala Tsegaye Sisk, Senior Deputy Chair
Ra Joy, Chief of Staff
Jennifer Chang, White House Liaison and Senior Advisor to the Chair
Sonia Tower, Director of Public Affairs
Ben Kessler, Director of Congressional Affairs
Ayanna Hudson, Chief Strategy, Programs, and Engagement Officer
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE TRADITIONAL ARTS
Blaine Waide, Executive Director
Madeleine Remez, Senior Associate Director
Colleen Arnerich, Director of Production and Operations
Colleen (CJ) Holroyd, Program Services Manager
Bridgette Hammond, Festival Logistics Coordinator
Keenan Dubois, Production Assistant
Dan Margolies, Development Specialist
Kayt Novak, Festival Assistant
Amy Millin, Development Specialist
Elaine Randolph, Administrative Specialist
Deirdre Whitty, Finance Manager
Vitoria Ido, Finance Assistant
REPORT DESIGNED BY
Fletcher Design, Inc./Washington, DC
CONVENING PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Edwin Remsberg/Maryland
Excelsior Band (2022)
Hugo N. Morales (2020 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellow) speaks as part of the “National Sharing of Culture” at the 2023 Gathering in Fellowship Convening.
THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS (NEA) has been elevating the visibility of exemplary folk and traditional artists through its National Heritage Fellowships honorific program for more than 40 years. To date, 487 Fellowship recipients working in more than 200 distinct art forms have been celebrated for their contributions to this nation’s cultural heritage. In rural spaces, urban spaces, and the spaces in between, they have illuminated how human resiliency, carried over many generations, has endured through songs, dances, stories, rituals, and cultural practices.
Inspired by a conversation with former NEA Chair Nancy Hanks about Japan’s Living National Treasures program, the program actively affirms the importance of tradition bearers who are not often recognized at a national level. It places folk and traditional arts firmly within a national arts ecosystem. Fellowships are awarded not only based on artistic virtuosity, but also for a practitioner’s commitment to transmission and cultural work. As such, the program lifts the profile of fellows’ artforms and their source communities nationwide, while highlighting an ever-evolving tapestry of American art making. As an enduring fixture for more than 40 years, it is safe to say that the NEA National Heritage Fellowships have both shaped and been shaped by the public folklore discipline1 in equal parts.2
For many years, a concert and ceremony were held at notable Washington, DC venues, as a way to honor and draw public attention to the artistry and diversity of the fellows. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a shift to the production of documentary films became a key means to share their stories. In 2023, when the program returned to in-person events after three years of virtual programming, the occasion to consider the impacts of this auspicious acknowledgment had arrived.
The 2020-2023 honorees joined together in a landmark convening entitled Gathering in Fellowship: The Legacy and Impact of NEA National Heritage Fellows to reflect on the impact of receiving a national honorific for their community-centered, cultural practices. At the gathering, the fellows explored topics such as: 1) the people, support systems, and community processes that have been a part of their journey and ultimate success as artists, 2) the legacy and impact of receiving the award on both themselves as individuals
and on their communities, 3) connections between artmaking and their lived environments, and 4) the role the NEA plays or can play in supporting their creative work. The historic moment offered the opportunity to explore a new model for National Heritage Fellowships programming and a chance to reframe how we honor and celebrate the fellows along with their experiential knowledge. This report shares the program model and synthesizes its public sector learning in the form of findings and recommendations for future funding and outreach initiatives.
Cheryl Schiele
Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe Acting Director, Folk & Traditional Arts Report Author and National Endowment for the Arts Convening Consultant
Peter Moore, a friend of Francis “Palani” Sinenci (2022), performing a chant/ritual that is performed before building a hale.
“ The work that you all [National Heritage Fellows] do, is indeed sacred work”
–Diana Baird N’Diaye (facilitator)
Methodology
Held at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian on September 28, 2023, Gathering in Fellowship: The Legacy and Impact of NEA National Heritage Fellows represented a unique opportunity for fellows to connect and uplift one another, reflecting collectively on the legacy and impact of the distinguished award. Inspired by a recommendation from the NEA’s Living Traditions: A Portfolio Analysis of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk & Traditional Arts Program report,3 the day-long program intentionally blended aspects of a more traditional convening with those of collective performance. In creating the culture of the event and to organically honor the fellows’ work while not losing sight of the opportunity for public sector learning, space was provided for numerous artful moments (musical procession, testimonials, ritual blessings, etc.). The session entitled “National Sharing of Culture,” in which each fellow responded to how they welcome or greet others in their tradition, was followed by small group discussion and a public film screening highlighting the work of Native fellows. Additional virtual sessions followed the in-person convening as a way to highlight the voices of previous Heritage Fellowship recipients and those who could not travel in September.
In building the program we:
• Utilized an ethnographic approach for artist-generated questions and activities.
CASE STUDY
Karen
Ann Hoffman
Convening consultant Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe interviewed and worked closely with attending National Heritage Fellows to conceive questions and themes that would inform the day’s programmatic elements. Haudenosaunee Raised Beadworker Karen Ann Hoffman (2020) noted the desire to honor family members and the ancestral knowledge that brought her to this point. “It’s gratifying to be recognized as an individual” she said, “but these kinds of ceremonies rarely make room for the people and forces that are behind us, like my mother for example.” As a direct result of this conversation, one of the core break-out sessions focused on these “networks of care.”
• Spotlighted facilitated conversation as a way to create intimate spaces that blurred the line between discourse and creative presentation.
CASE STUDY
Understanding that Heritage Fellows are uniquely qualified to speak to the needs and assets of their communities, a core feature of the 2023 convening was guided conversation in small groups led by a diverse team of facilitators. While the breakouts were structured around key themes and prompts, much of the execution was left up to the individual facilitators. One of the most important aspects of this process was what facilitator Junious Brickhouse referred to as “not asking people to just respond to what we want to hear, but rather asking questions that people want to answer.” This flexible and sensitive approach yielded rich information sharing that could be synthesized post event. Moreover, the open-ended nature of these sessions allowed participants to respond in ways that also included song, dance humor, and demonstration.
• Engaged in deep listening and reflection via notes, recordings and conversations post events.
Convening activities featured:
6 in-person sessions
3 virtual sessions
6 facilitators
3 notetakers
A photographer and videographer
62 participating National Heritage Fellows
800+ minutes of audio
68 pages of notes
Junious Brickhouse
Recommendations
1. Find additional ways to support the conditions that give rise to fellows and their work through cross-sector resources: The artists and community members who receive this award come from all over the United States including U.S. jurisdictions. Their place-based work is important to the cultural traditions that they practice and the strength of local infrastructure is varied. Finding connections to other resources for environmental issues, historic preservation, or community development would also be beneficial, as often times, these artists are organizing around these issues for their communities.
2. Create opportunities for sharing, learning, connecting, and building domestically and internationally: Develop opportunities for Heritage Fellowship recipients to connect with one another in periodic gatherings, in Washington, DC or at notable conferences within the field. Provide spaces that allow for the fellows to be free to exchange ideas with one another without outside examination.
3. Increase literacy around the Fellowship in source communities: Create a comprehensive tool in one space for the public to learn about the National Heritage Fellowships, where one can understand both the history, but also the current resources that have been made by other entities across the field.
4. Produce sustained funding opportunities post award: Create a two-time post-award funding stream for fellows’ projects around cultural sustainability that adds value to the source communities or to the perpetuation of cultural knowledge.
5. Increase award size to remain competitive with adjacent fellowships: The $25,000 award amount has been in place for the past 15 years and the last increase was $5,000 in 2009. Similar major awards are double the size at about $50,000. An increase in the amount would have a deeper impact and signify the importance of the honor.
Discussion Topics
Networks of Care
SESSION 1 FACILITATED DISCUSSION PROMPTS
n Influential people, living or deceased, on Fellows’ lives and careers
n Support systems considered influential in Fellows’ lives in terms of getting to where they are today
n Relationship of Fellows’ work to their communities
n Important mentors
What are Networks of Care?
• Informal systems that sustain cultural communities and allow everyday traditions to flourish and be passed on
• Examples: ancestral knowledge, mentorship, family support systems, social clubs, houses of worship, libraries, radio stations, community gardens, etc
Findings
Women and female-driven learning spaces are central to cultural sustainability
When considering the most influential people in their lives, at least 80% of participating fellows mentioned their mothers and grandmothers as being central to their inspiration and their ability to pursue their craft. In many cases, community matriarchs were referred to as the principal repositories for, and teachers of, everyday cultural traditions. Wampum & fiber artist Elizabeth James-Perry (2023) for example, recounted the experience of learning design and sash making via the community gatherings her mother hosted at their home. Had it not been for this environment, she remarked, she might not have had the same access to this work. The ways in which we care for women and thus make it so women can care for others, are directly connected to the successful perpetuation of community folk arts.
Ancestral knowledge Mentorship Family support systems Social clubs
Houses of worship Community gardens Radio stations Libraries
Elizabeth James-Perry
Places and environments are an important dimension that gives rise to national treasures
Beyond key family members and mentors, many fellows spoke about specific places, spaces, and entities that nurtured their passion, learning, and practice. From the churches that inspired sculptor Luis Tapia’s (2023) Hispano woodcarving, to the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) fraternity community that gave rise to stepper extraordinaire C. Brian Williams (2022), these community anchors4 serve as key platforms and lifelines for tradition bearers. Several fellows also cited public elements such as libraries and radio stations as central to their journeys and quest for knowledge. In almost all cases, these are under-resourced entities at risk for future generations.
CASE STUDY Wisdom Sits in Places
Members of the Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble (2021) noted the ancestral knowledge they felt baked into the walls and floors of their church in Louisiana during the ritual performance. “I felt the presence of our ancestors, I felt what they were feeling when they would come to that wooden church and everybody would get together in fellowship…and that is my testimony” stated Emma Jones Blackshire. Such examples are good reminders to routinely consider how we honor a legacy or community of people through this singular award. In the same breath however, ensemble members alluded to the precarious state of the church’s structure and difficulties inherent in maintaining this bastion of community strength.
Recommendation
• Find additional ways to support the conditions that give rise to fellows and their work through cross-sector resources.
C. Brian Williams
Luis Tapia
Hattie Addison Burkhalter, Director of the Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble
Legacy & Impact
SESSION 2
FACILITATED DISCUSSION PROMPTS
n General impacts of receiving this award
n Impacts specific to your cultural community or community of practice
n Any activities the award supported that would not have been possible otherwise
n Next steps for carrying forward this experience
n How else the NEA can improve acknowledgment and support of source communities
Pathways of Impact and Legacy
Findings
Connecting with peer artists and across cultural communities is a major highlight
Being honored as a National Heritage Fellow represents a chance to connect with peer-artists and witness diverse cultural traditions in ways which would not normally be possible for many recipients. Participating fellows noted that one of the most exciting prospects when receiving the award was the chance to gather together in Washington, DC and in retrospect, these cross-cultural encounters
“ I think we should have a big get together, every 10 years or so. Get these people together. Rich Smoker was supposed to be here today, I was anxious to talk to him. You strike up friendships, it’s such an interesting mix of people. You realize that they are all very talented. They have done their work in their communities for many years. The experience that is involved in all of the people who did this. The time involved is amazing. The exchange of ideas is amazing, and you realize that you are surrounded by people who have done a lot.”
—
James (Jim) Jackson
2019 National Heritage Fellow, Leatherworker
were key to their professional and personal growth. Folk and traditional artists spend the majority of their time working in their communities, and while public folklore activities support these discrete cultural traditions, there is less infrastructure that rewards cultures in contact. As a result, even the nation’s leading tradition bearers can become siloed in ways that are antithetical to artmaking. The National Heritage Fellowship program encourages important cultural conversations through the traditional arts and between otherwise disparate factions of the American public.
Receipt of a National Heritage Fellowship can have a generative impact in communities of practice
Many fellows noted a ripple effect post award, in which funding opportunities and other types of support for their work or organizations became more accessible. Members of the Mobile, Alabama-based Excelsior Brass Band (2022) credit the fellowship program with their ability to start a nonprofit organization that both archives their legacies and contributes to the perpetuation of their tradition through community-based education. Fiber and textile artists Roen Kahalewi Hufford (2023) and Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim (2018), were among a critical mass of fellows who talked about the award’s capacity to inspire educational initiatives and revitalize intergenerational interest in particular cultural tradition. Hufford for example is a second-generation fellow herself, following in the footsteps of her mother Marie Leilehua McDonald (1990), a Hawaiian Lei Maker. Together they played an important role in the movement of the 1960s and 1970s to recapture traditional Hawaiian music, dance, crafts and values and during the convening, Hufford noted the impact of intergenerational recognition in her community as a means for elevating the art form and motivating her students who see themselves as part of the honor as well. Similarly, Abbasi-Ghnaim stated that receiving the award did a lot to reinvigorate interest in Tatreez amongst Palestinians in the diaspora and brought many new students her way. She credits the award with a newfound capacity to connect with her own daughter around the tradition and sees the fellowship as a concrete opportunity for future embroiderers to strive towards.
Roen Kahalewi Hufford
National Heritage Fellowships play an important role in validating everyday cultural traditions and legitimizing under-represented artforms within the discipline of folk and traditional arts
By definition, folk arts are art forms integrally connected to everyday life. In many cases practitioners rarely refer to themselves as artists, and their work can go unnoticed by the general public. For tradition bearers in this situation, receiving a National Heritage Fellowships validates decades of labor and quiet activism. Moreover, Heritage Fellows who were the first of their medium or cultural community to receive an award, shared how this accolade transformed awareness of these traditions. Mama Linda Goss (2019) for example, was the first Black storyteller to receive a National Heritage Award. She noted that the honor elevated Black storytelling within traditional arts circles where she had previously had to advocate for its acceptance at all. Tibetan opera singer and dancer Tsering Wangmo (2022) described the award as “a huge thing…a stamp of approval,” that uplifted not only her but her artform, which is integrally connected to promoting an endangered culture and its stories of struggle. In particular, she shared that the award shone a muchneeded spotlight on a major Tibetan opera she was putting together at the time, garnering international attention and answering the sense of urgency many of her fellow practitioners feel around respect for the craft.
In some cases, recognition and financial impacts of the award fall short of expected outcomes
Beyond the many positive testimonials about receiving a National Heritage Fellowship, fellows also spoke candidly about the award’s limitations, particularly in the areas of sustained recognition and financial support. Carolyn Mazloomi (2014), an African American quilter, storyteller, organizer, and advocate, identified a lack of recognition and awareness outside the world of the award itself as a primary concern. Despite being amongst a community of African American quilters to have received the honorific to date, Mazloomi felt the recognition and impacts to be ephemeral and largely unrecognized by other artistic communities and institutions she liaises with. Penobscot Nation Ash/ Sweetgrass Basket Maker Theresa Secord (2016) noted that the financial aspect of the award should be commensurate with other similarly prominent prizes
“After the award, people became more interested in learning more about this, especially the new generations both inside and outside of this country. I see that some of those people that I taught are almost ready to have an award for themselves. One of them is my daughter.” — Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim 2018 National Heritage Fellow, Palestinian Tatreez Embroidery
Tsering Wagmo
such as USArtists, which at $50,000, is double the current amount awarded to a National Heritage Fellow.
See below for the statistics on how the NEA National Heritage Fellowship award amounts have changed over the decades
Award Amounts 1982 - 1992
1993 - 2002
2003 - 2008
2009 - present
$5,000
$10,000
$20,000
$25,000
“ First of all, it was great to be acknowledged for the work I have done. That was the most important thing to be recognized for the work I have done. Regarding the impact, I cannot say that outside of receiving the award, coming to DC, and participating in the ceremony, that I have found the impact to extend beyond that. Once I left Washington, it was like life as usual.”
– Carolyn Mazloomi
2014 National Heritage Fellow, African American Quilter, Storyteller, and Organizer
Recommendations
• Create opportunities for sharing, learning, connecting and building domestically and internationally.
• Increase literacy around the Fellowship in source communities and across arts sectors
• Produce sustained funding opportunities post award
• Increase award size to remain competitive with adjacent fellowships
“ This award helps people hear about you and know about your work. The senator who called me to tell me about the award, he was so excited. and he asked me, “So who are you and what do you do?” I told him about Mary Carter [Smith], and he said, “Oh I know you.” This award puts us front and center and allows us to tell the world just how important storytelling is, and that we have the opportunity to say how important it is to be able to tell our stories.”
– Mama Linda Goss 2019 National Heritage Fellow, African American Storyteller
FROM TOP: Heritage Fellows in a discussion during the “Native Art Making in Place” session.
From left to right: Shaka Zulu (2022) and Hosea London of Excelsior Band (2022)
The Ortiz brothers, members of Los Matachines de la Santa Cruz de la Ladrillera (2021)
Conclusion
The return to in-person programming post-pandemic offered an opportunity to examine and reflect on the National Heritage Fellowships honorifics program. This historic convening combined aspects of the traditional presentation such as musical performance and formal award ceremony with facilitated conversation for public sector learning. Over the course of this convening there were many chances to listen, as the fellows reflected on their networks of care as well as the impact of the award on their livelihoods. The fellows reminded us of the pivotal role women play in the maintenance and perpetuation of cultural traditions, both as practitioners themselves, and as caretakers and catalysts of community activity. Indeed, to care for women is to care for the elements of culture that give rise to our national treasures. In the same vein, the conversations also drew attention to the need to care for the physical places and environments where traditional knowledge lives and flourishes.
National Heritage Fellows are uniquely positioned to speak to their own needs as artists, but also to the needs of their cultural communities. Their observations are a resource for long range planning as the Arts Endowment contemplates ideas that can augment post-award support systems for fellows and their communities.
While a National Heritage Fellowship brings recognition to one artist, it also simultaneously awards the fellow’s community and that community’s traditions with an immediate boost in status, both locally and afar. We learned from the fellows that one of the most impactful aspects of receiving a Heritage award was the ability to gather with a cross-section of artists from other places and other traditions. Despite their roles as leaders in their own discrete cultural communities, contemporary tradition bearers often express feelings of isolation from participation in a larger arts network. They noted that, unlike mainstream artists and many folklore colleagues, they are rarely afforded opportunities to share, learn, connect, and build cross-culturally.
Going forward, it will be important to consider the recommendations to augment and sustain the impact that this honorific affords, which includes maintaining connections amongst awardees, thereby overcoming the ephemeral nature of a single event. As community leaders, Heritage Fellows adapt and continually evolve to meet the needs of changing environments and threats to their cultural communities. By incorporating suggested ways to boost visibility and financial influence, there is opportunity for the NEA National Heritage Fellowships program to increase impact, while fortifying the nation’s diverse cultural heritage.
Small breakout discussion with Heritage Fellows, facilitators, and a notetaker.
REFERENCES
1. Public folklore refers to work done by folklorists, cultural workers and arts administrators in public settings, such as arts councils, museums, non-profit organizations, K-12 schools, festivals, radio stations, etc., as opposed to academic folklore, which is the study of folklife and culture carried out within universities and colleges. The term public sector folklore refers exclusively to programmatic activities and grantmaking done at the government level to support the intergenerational transmission of cultural traditions and knowledge. States and regions with strong folklife programs are responsible for significant National Heritage Fellowship nominations annually, based on the rigorous ethnographic community-based research undertaken by folklorists. The task of these nominations drives their work, as they in turn shape the fellowship program with their advocacy for candidates and traditions.
2. Schiele, Cheryl T. “The National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowships: A Reflection on the Roots and Impact of a National Cultural Heritage Honorific Program.” Culture Work: Folklore for the Public Good, 2022.
3. National Endowment for the Arts. Living Traditions: A Portfolio Analysis of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk and Traditional Arts Program. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2019.
4. Community Anchors are loosely defined by City Lore’s Place Matters program as religious institutions, social clubs, and small businesses that serve as cultural centers for communities.
Jeannine Osayande, facilitator
