A hello from Ian, New YTV Director
To all invested in Young Tradition Vermont,
I’m Ian Drury and I have been hired as the Director of Young Tradition Vermont at Vermont Folklife. I am honored to be working alongside Mark Sustic for the next 5 months as I learn from the master-of-all-things YTV to ensure the continued success and growth of Young Tradition Vermont. I have known Mark for most of my life, having worked with him on education related projects and playing music with him at our family's soirees from when I was a kid through today.
Did You Know? - A Stop at H.N. Williams Store
Our associate archivist, Susan Creighton loves to explore Vermont, and following a recent recommendation she set out to visit the H.N. Williams Store in Dorset. She loved it, and afterwards she discovered something terrific: we have interviews about this selfsame store in our archive!
Ian Drury Hired as Young Tradition Vermont Director
he Vermont Folklife Board and Staff are thrilled to announce the appointment of Ian Drury as full-time Director of Young Tradition Vermont at Vermont Folklife. Drury will succeed Mark Sustic, founder and long-time director of Young Tradition Vermont (YTV), formerly a stand-alone nonprofit that joined forces with Vermont Folklife in July, 2022.
Remembering Pete Sutherland
Legendary Vermont musician Pete Sutherland died on November 30, 2022. In the wake of his passing, tributes and remembrances from his vast, nationwide community of musical collaborators, students, mentees, and fans, abound. We share just two, of the many, here.
Did You Know? - Visitn’ with Hollis Squier
The VT Folklife Archive is full of amazing first-person accounts of everyday life in Vermont and New England–past and present. One of these interviews was with Hollis Squier of Tinmouth, VT. Hollis's family moved to Vermont in the early 1950's from upstate New York and took up farming in Tinmouth. Hollis took to small-town life, and from a young age got involved in town government. One of Hollis's early town positions was as the road commissioner - a role he took on as a young man in his early twenties.
Did You Know? The Snelling Collection - Part 2
Between 2002 and 2004, on behalf of the Snelling Center for Government, VFC founder Jane Beck interviewed 35 current and former Vermont legislators to explore the culture of Vermont’s citizen legislature and the personal relationships from which this culture emerges.
VT Folklife Goes to Tulsa!
This month, the VT Folklife Education team, Sasha Antohin and Mary Wesley, attended the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Read about their trip!
Afghan Summer Arts Camp
VFC was thrilled to support a one-of-a-kind summer camp in Brattleboro, conceived and led by a group of five Afghan artists who have been making waves across southern Vermont since resettling in the area early this year. Abdullah, Marwa, Meetra, Negina, and Zuhra are all part of ArtLords, a global Afghan-led movement using art for peace building and social transformation. With support from Vermont Afterschool, VFC underwrote three traditional-arts based youth summer programs, including this camp in Brattleboro.
Did You Know? The Snelling Collection - Part 1
Between 2002 and 2004, on behalf of the Snelling Center for Government, VFC founder Jane Beck interviewed 35 current and former Vermont legislators to explore the culture of Vermont’s citizen legislature and the personal relationships from which this culture emerges.
Welcome Jordan Mitchell, our new Youth Media Fellow
Thanks to grant funding from the Canaday Family Foundation, the Vermont Folklife Center is pleased to welcome our first Youth Media Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year. This position will support the objectives of the Vermont Voices pilot program, whose main objective is to integrate humanities-centered training and skills practice at career and technical education (CTE) centers.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy & Primary Sources from the Vermont Folklife Archives
This summer included two activities that have shaped the development of our classroom resources. This past July, the VFC organized a workshop at the St. Albans Museum for K-12 educators that presented oral history interviews focused on the role farmers play in Vermont’s history and identity. A few weeks later, the VFC participated in a workshop at the Minnesota History Center that offered strategies for pairing the use of primary sources with approaches to culturally relevant pedagogy.
Announcing the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program 2022/23 Cohort
The Vermont Folklife Center is pleased to announce the cohort of mentor and student artists comprising the 31st cycle of the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (VTAAP)! Twelve mentorships will be supported this coming year. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Arts Council, the Center initiated the program in 1992 to support the continued vitality of Vermont's living cultural heritage.
Did You Know? - Mediha Goretic
Meet VTAAP master artist Mediha Goretic. Born and raised in Bosnia, Mediha came to the United States in 2000, joining several thousand other Bosnian refugees who settled in Vermont between 1993 and 2005. As a young woman in Yugoslavia, Mediha performed internationally as a member of a traditional dance troupe. Here in Vermont she formed the dance group the Bosnian Lilies to support the vitality of traditional music and dance among Bosnians in their newly adopted country.
The Manchester Vampire - Legends & Lore
In 1792 Rachel Harris Burton of Manchester was exhumed from her grave and partially burned out of fear she had become vampire. Rachel, and the citizens of Manchester, were caught up in a vampire panic that spread through New England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a panic with two documented cases in Vermont, first in Manchester and then again over 40 years later in Woodstock.
In/Visible Stories Series in Brattleboro
The Folklife Center strives to reach across the state with our events and exhibits, and this July we’re enjoying concentrating our energy in southeastern Vermont through a range of programs in Brattleboro. The In/Visible Stories Series centered around The Most Costly Journey exhibit, on display through the end of July, features the experiences of Latin American migrant farmworkers in Vermont. Here’s a glimpse of some of the events that have taken place over the last two weeks:
Tell Me More: Resources for Oral History
Casey Dooley, VFC Education intern (Fall 2021), shares a rich list of resources available from other organizations that provides some guidance for those embarking on their own oral history projects.
Did You Know? - Pete Sutherland & Emmett Stowell
The VFC Archives is full of amazing first-person accounts of everyday life in Vermont and New England–past and present. In this feature, we'll share these stories with you. This month, meet legendary Vermont musician Pete Sutherland and apprentice Emmett Stowell, and listen along as the two discuss their work together—and their friendship.
An interview with April McIlwaine, Education Intern
This winter, the Folklife Center launched its Teaching with Primary Sources project. As part of that effort, VFC surveyed its own archival holdings to identify primary sources related to farming life and local foodways. April McIlwaine, a graduate student of the UVM Foodways Program and VFC Education intern for Spring 2022, was an instrumental part of the completion of this survey, and offered key insights for the future of this project.
Images from Sansari Puja 2022
On Saturday, May 14th, VFC staff joined the Burlington Nepali Rai and Limbu Community for Sansari Puja—a springtime festival celebrating Mother Earth. The community gathered and were joined by friends and neighbors from around Burlington to connect, eat, make music and dance.