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Transcription: [00:06:46]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
[[Prayer spoken in Llokano ends]]
[00:06:49]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
If any of you have any questions about the conservation of traditional music
[00:06:53]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
or about these [uh] early songs. You are welcome to stay behind and talk to any one of us. Thank you very much for coming.
[00:07:01]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate it.
[00:07:13]
{SPEAKER name="Beslo Maxhouse"}
Am I on?
[00:07:14]
{SPEAKER name="Beslo Maxhouse"}
Hello, uh, my name is Beslo Maxhouse and if you walk down the street here, you'll find on your right, a large, kinda fancy, building with a big tower on top. And that is the old post office building.
[00:07:31]
And in it, there are two government agencies that have been spending some of the tax payer's money for a while: The National Endowment for the Humanities and The National Endowment for the Arts.
[00:07:41]

They are two of the three government agencies that are basically set up by the Congress to give grants, to have nice things happen across the country.
[00:07:53]

The National - the third one is The National Science Foundation that gives grants in the area of science research. Humanities gives grants to scholars who are researching the Humanities, English, and History, and all manner of projects.
[00:08:07]

The National Endowment for the Arts is charged by Congress with giving out grants to make sure that the arts are thriving right across the country, not just here in Washington.
[00:08:18]
This festival is sponsored by The Smithsonian and is part of one of the many many advantages of living here in Washington, but, what The National Endowment of the Arts does is to try to see to it that nice things like this happen right across the country, in every state, and in every territory.
[00:08:38]

Now, the Folk Arts Program is a part of that Endowment. I work in the Folk Arts Program, and so does my colleague here, Mr. Barry Burgy. And we thought that every once in a while it's a good idea to tell some of the people what their money is going to do, and what their money is-- and by the way, some of my money too, I mean, I pay taxes to pay my salary, I guess!
[00:09:03]

But anyway, we do some of the same kinds of things that you see here on the Mall out in Arizona, and the Virgin Islands, and, uh, Puerto Rico, and Missouri.
[00:09:16]

My friend here, Barry Burgy, is from Missouri and he's been running a state program out there where they've taken a number of things that you've seen here on The Mall and translated them into Missouri terms.
[00:09:29]


One of the particular ones that he's been working on is been setting up an apprenticeship program, because we think that one of the great things that can happen is for some of these fine traditional artists that you've been watching across The Mall to teach what they learn to young people.
[00:09:44]

And I'm gonna ask Barry to tell you just a little about the apprenticeship program and then introduce to you some of the masters and apprentices that we have up here on the program-- on the stage with us. Barry?[00:10:10]

{SPEAKER name="Barry Burgy"}
Thank you, Bess.

I should say first that I'm a fairly new kid on the block. I just got here about a month and a half ago, so coming to a workshop like this I can find out what I'm doing, or what I'm supposed to be doing working at the Endowment so, it's a learning experience for me too.
[00:10:22]

But, I've had the opportunity to work in the state of Missouri on an apprenticeship program, one of the many types of programs that The National Endowment funds.
[00:10:31]
The apprenticeship concept is a very old one, but the uh, you know, the use of it in this country is a fairly new one in some ways, in terms of the arts at least, but of course there were, there were trades going back to the middle ages which used the apprenticeship program as a means of conveying skills and information to other, either younger or less skilled people, in terms of learning a craft, or also with music, although sometimes not in such a formal sense.
[00:11:08]

But because we're dealing with folk arts and traditional arts, and skills which have, for the most part, are not written down, are not collected somewhere in a library or in a university, the method of passing along information or skills is uh done more or less face to face, one to one, within communities, within occupations, and so forth, so we felt it was an opportunity to reinforce some of the types of dynamics of - have occurred for years.
[00:11:37]

You know, as folk lorist we go out and we take cameras and take tape recorders, some very intimidating items sometimes and we photograph people and we record them and so forth, and I think sometimes they begin to feel like they're a specimen, but the apprenticeship program is a great opportunity to do something which puts the money and the program in the hands of the artists: they get the chance to develop a program one to one, uh, of their own, and um, we receive applications around the country for all sorts of things, uh, music and crafts, in Missouri we emphasis music in the first year.
[00:12:17]

We're going to first talk about a program which occurs in Puerto Rico, and I'll ask our friend [name] to introduce our apprenticeship program in the crafts we have going in Puerto Rico.

[00:12:21]
{SPEAKER name = "Speaker 6"}
Thank you Barry, and good afternoon. Uh, I have here to my right Miguel [last name] Sr, and Miguel [last name] Jr. Miguel Jr learned with his father the art of mask making, this is a very old tradition in Puerto Rico, and many Puerto Ricans don't know about it because its celebrated in one of - I say in honor of this lady from [Spanish City Name] that, [Spanish City Name] is the noblest of all cities in the Caribbean, of course we're prejudiced, hah. But, they are from [Spanish City Name] and this is one of the very old traditions, folk traditions of Puerto Rico, they think exists since the 16th century.
[00:13:00]


Uh, it has been handed truly from father to son, from mother to son, mother to daughter, and Miguel here has been making masks for over 30 years. He learned from [Spanish name], Salvatore - Salvatore, if you would say in Italian, and Savior if you would say in English - and she really saved this craft because she taught Miguel. She was an invalid and she just taught my way of mouth, so he learned and also his cousin, [Italian name], who is also getting another scholarship from the National Endowment for the Arts, so I would say this craft will go on in great part thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts.

[00:13:44]
Miguel is a true craftsman carrying the tradition. He, as his father balances and harmonizes colors in a unique way - this is not done really for commercial purposes, it is done for the people who wear them in the carnival in February.
[00:14:03]

It's a wonderful carnival, uh, and uh people have lots of fun, they have a very colorful costume, they wear, they use - in fact, the costume figure is called "Vejigante", it comes from the Spanish word "Vejiga", which is a bladder, a cows bladder. And since Medieval times the cows bladder has been used by Jesters to hit people with, dressed in yellow and red, and originally the masked people dressed in yellow and red, el vejigante [more spanish] because all these vejigantes say very colorful things, very funny things.

[00:14:41]
Now, Miguel was designated "Young Craftsman of the Year" of Puerto Rico, so uh, but not only have these two friends receive this National Endowment for the Arts scholarship, quatro-makers, musical instrument makers like Julio [last name] taught his son, in fact, and everything now comes in suddenly and very nicely. Julio [last name] has won the National Heritage Award for the National Endowment for the Arts.
[00:15:11]

There's going to be twelve, great folk artists of the United States, and among them, one is from Puerto Rico, and he will be here with his family, playing in September. But I'd like Miguel Jr to tell you about how he feels, what the scholarship has done for his, and what a craftsman feels.

[00:15:32]
[Asks Miguel in Spanish]

{SPEAKER name = "Miguel [last name] Jr"}
Bueno, [response given in Spanish].

[00:16:02]

{SPEAKER name = "Speaker 6"}
He has, it has been the greatest thing for him because he has come to the states, his art has been known, and he wants to thank everyone who has helped him out, and repeating again, he says it's the greatest thing that has happened to him. And since 8 years back, we have been apprenticing Puerto Rican crafts in the United States thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and thanks to The Smithsonian Institution.

[00:16:32]

Miguel, padre, [spanish].

{SPEAKER name = "Miguel [last name] Sr"}
[response in Spanish]

[00:16:53]

{SPEAKER name = "Speaker 6"}
He's very proud of having taught his son, and these are truly master craftsmen, you know.
[00:17:02]
They are very- some people I have heard in Puerto Rico calling the craftsmen the "humble craftsmen" they are not humble. They are wonderful, nobel pride, and he's very proud that he has taught his son and he is very proud because he has carried the ponce tradition up the way to the present and then he's thinking of a younger son he has, Eduardo, who is nine years old, and he's already making masks, but also making boats, and that's very good. Thank you.

[[applause]]

[00:17:42]


{SPEAKER name = "Speaker 7"}
I'd like to interject at this point. Every once in awhile at these sessions I begin to feel like "oh gee we're up here blowing our own horns" and that's not the point at all. What we're trying to suggest is that there are various ways in which these traditions get reinforced, get passed on, get people excited about them, and these are all techniques that we're talking about that we're hoping you can go home and think about in your own communities because I can tell you when our friend here [[??]] began working on the problem of crafts in Puerto Rico, the extent of craftsmanship was not known to anybody, including Puerto Ricans. You may see that beautiful map of Puerto Rico out there that he has drawn up of all the centers of the different crafts marked on it so when you go to Puerto Rico you can drive around, visit different craftspeople, but nobody knew they were there until [[??]] began to work.
[00:18:41]

I bet you if you walk down any block in Kansas city or Boston Massachusetts, or New York City you would find behind those closed doors, tremendous potentials of artistic development there. If you want to find out about it, here are some of the ways you can support it.
[00:18:55]

You can try to see if they'd like to try teaching somebody else. You can try to see if they'd like to be presented in a local festival or if they'd like to have a booth at a fair or whatever. These are all ideas that we hope you'll be able to utilize when you go home; this is what this whole section is about. Not how great the arts endowment is or how great the Smithsonian is, but how vast the potential is in this country and how excited we are to be about it.

Transcription Notes:
There were a few foreign names and Spanish sentences I could not identify.