Newberg, OR —Join folklorist Amy Howard and traditional basket maker Connie Graves for a conversation about some of the cultural traditions of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the people who practice them. The talk will be Thursday, July 26th at 6:30 PM at Chehalem Cultural Center, 415 E Sheridan St, Newberg, OR 97132. Refreshments will be provided by the Yamhill County Cultural Coalition.

This open community conversation invites audiences to connect with tradition keeper Connie Graves about basket weaving and other unique cultural traditions. Graves will also display her baskets and demonstrate weaving techniques. Howard spent several days speaking to members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, documenting their traditions, and learning how their customs shape their lives. Please come and chat with Graves and learn how she and others in the community are actively passing their skills and knowledge through the generations.

Funding for this program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Oregon Folklife Network, Oregon’s designated Folk & Traditional Arts Program. The project sent trained folklorists to conduct research in the Willamette Valley area of Benton, Linn, Lane, Marion Counties and the Grande Ronde Community to meet and document culture bearers in the region. Free public programs are held in each area.

Amy Howard received a BA in Anthropology from Brigham Young University and an MA in American Studies and Folklore from Utah State University. Her love of folklore fieldwork began in 2007 on an undergraduate field study in Guatemala. Since then, she has interned at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, coordinated public programs, and worked on multiple documentation projects in Utah and Idaho. In 2013, she collaborated with other fieldworkers documenting and producing a book on quilting traditions in the Bear River Heritage Area. In 2015, she and two of her students documented artistic, occupational, and recreational traditions in the Southeast Idaho Snake River Plain for the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Together, they created an exhibit and organized public performances at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. She is currently documenting Oregon traditions and culture keepers in the Willamette Valley.

For more information about public programs in throughout the Willamette Valley, contact Jennie Flinspach at ofn@uoregon.edu or 541-346-3820.

Please contact Oregon Folklife Network Director, Riki Saltzman, at riki@uoregon.edu or 541-346-3820 with questions about the Oregon Folklife Network or recommendations for traditions, groups, or individual folk & traditional artists to be documented in the Willamette Valley area. OFN always appreciates contact information for traditional musicians and dancers, quilters, storytellers, cooks, leatherworkers, fly-tiers, wood carvers, silversmiths, taxidermists, basket makers, and more.

The OFN is administered by the University of Oregon and is supported in part by grants from the Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Historical Society, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the University of Oregon

The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.

SOURCE: Jennie Flinspach, ofn@uoregon.edu, 541-346-3820

Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.