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Artists share crafts at Smithsonian Folklife Festival : Goats and Soda : NPR


Simaloi Saitoti, a Maasai bead master from Kenya, ties a bracelet around a tourist’s wrist. Saitoti is one of many artisans around the world exhibiting their work at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Phillip Ryan Lee / Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution


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Phillip Ryan Lee / Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution


Simaloi Saitoti, a Maasai bead master from Kenya, ties a bracelet around a tourist’s wrist. Saitoti is one of many artisans around the world exhibiting their work at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Phillip Ryan Lee / Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution

Since this blog started in 2014, we have covered Smithsonian Folk Life Festival. It’s a two-week event in Washington, DC that brings artists and artisans from all over the world to share their crafts, songs, food.

We interviewed an Armenian calligrapher and a leather craftsman from Niger and attended a Peruvian alpaca blessing. We even sampled a goat stew made by a Kenyan chef with a restaurant in Washington, DC.

Then came the pandemic. The festival has been off for a few years but is back this year – and so are we.

From our global perspective, we are most interested in talking to crafters from the Global South – countries that may lack the resources of Western nations but are extremely resourceful when it comes to create beautiful objects from the most ordinary elements. That would be: yak hair, bark and simple seeds.

Why is it so hard to pick up Maasai beads – literally

Simaloi Saitoti holds a Maasai bead necklace given to women when they are engaged.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR


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Madeleine Callanan for NPR


Simaloi Saitoti holds a Maasai bead necklace given to women when they are engaged.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR

In a tent, there’s an intricate necklace so large that it covers both shoulders and chest – and it’s more than just decoration. It is a gift for engaged women. Family and friends tie knots into the threads at the bottom of the necklace, which act as a sort of ledger. The buttons indicate how many cattle they will give as a wedding gift.

Simaloi Saitoti, a Maasai woman who heads the beading projects said: “Bold and iconic colors Maa Trust, a non-profit group in Kenya that preserves nomadic Maasai culture as well as wildlife. “Blue represents the earth, it rains and the earth is green. We are happy like herdsmen because we can raise cows. White represents peace, blue represents energy, and black stands for energy. for humans and the red represents the food we eat.”

Mainly women make jewelry and beaded baskets which are part of Maasai culture for hundreds of years, Saitoti explained. “Beads are something you learn from your parents, passed down through generations,” says Saitoti. “It identifies me as a Maasai.”

Saitoti said Maa Trust help Maasai women earn money by selling beaded jewelry on their behalf. The group supports nearly 500 women through the program, she adds, and teaches them how to save and spend money wisely.

At the festival, visitors can make their own jewelry, but this is not an easy job. Thousands of beads are spread across a table. They are too small to take with your fingers; Maasai bead wearers show how to pick up the beads one by one on a piece of stiff line, then thread the beads onto the fishing line. it will act like a bracelet. It’s an exercise in patience – and one that makes the dozens of intricate pieces on display all the more impressive.

Horses and sheep shed for traditional Mongolian felt

Mongolian couple Enkhbold Togmidshiirev (left) and Munguntsetseg Lkhagvasuren stand in front of their first collaborative artwork, a felt rug made from the fur of five different animals.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR


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Madeleine Callanan for NPR


Mongolian couple Enkhbold Togmidshiirev (left) and Munguntsetseg Lkhagvasuren stand in front of their first collaborative artwork, a felt rug made from the fur of five different animals.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR

In another tent, a large, abstract rug in gray, cream, brown and black tones hangs from the ceiling. It is made from fibers from various animals from Mongolia, including sheep, horses, camels and yaks.

This yarn art was created by Mongolian artists Enkhbold Togmidshiirev and his wife, Munguntsetseg Lkhagvasuren. The tapestry is the couple’s first collaborative artwork. “It’s special because we used natural materials [from the land] related to the nomadic way of life of the Mongols,” said Lkhagvasuren.

For thousands of years, the Mongolian nomads turned fur and wool from animals into felt. The fabric was sewn into clothing for the winter and used to make yurts for the house The practice continues to this day.

At a table near their tent, the couple showed a festival visitor how to make felt. First, you must clean the animal hair using hot water, then pound it with small stones to separate the fibers. Soak the fibers in water again to bind them together. Then roll them up, roll the puppets out and press them in with your hands to make a fabric, which is left to dry in the air.

Felt is an important material in the couple’s own work. Togmidshiirev often uses organic materials such as felt, ash, leather and clear wood contemporary art and performance work. And Lkhagvasuren, a fashion designer, produces clothes and felt boots.

The couple hope that by continuing to make art with felt, people will appreciate the ancient custom. “We believe we can preserve this cultural tradition for many more years,” said Togmidshiirev.

Painting on canvas made from tree bark

Fred Mutebi, a Ugandan artist, holds one of his paintings, using traditional Ugandan bark fabric as a canvas.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR


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Madeleine Callanan for NPR


Fred Mutebi, a Ugandan artist, holds one of his paintings, using traditional Ugandan bark fabric as a canvas.

Madeleine Callanan for NPR

Fred Mutebi proudly holds up his drawing of a Ugandan woman wearing a zebra print hat and matching dress at his tent at the festival.

What’s remarkable about this portrait, he says, is that he did it on bark cloth, a canvas-like fabric with traces from the Kingdom of Baganda in southern Uganda. 800 years ago. Mutebi uses bark cloth in her art as a way to keep the tradition alive.

For centuries, Ugandans have used bark fabric to make clothing, bedding and even curtains and mosquito nets. At the festival, Aloyzius Luwemba, a 10th generation bark cloth maker, demonstrates how to make this fabric. First, artisans harvest the bark from the Mutuba tree, a species of the ficus family. They boiled it until it was soft, then pounded the bark into cloth with a special wooden mallet so that it stretched and expanded. Although it’s made from tree bark, the fabric is surprisingly soft and supple enough to be stitched together into skirts and tunics – and is also a good canvas for painting.

Barkcloth is such an important part of Ugandan culture that in 2008 UNESCO declared it a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage. “This title encourages the community to protect and maintain important works of cultural expression. It joins Congolese rumba, falconry, drum dance and Inuit singing, among the hundreds. other traditions.

Aloyzius Luwemba, a 10th-generation bed linen maker, uses a slotted wooden mallet to pound the bark cloth so it expands in size.

Xueying Chang / Ralph Rinzler Folklore Collection and Archive, Smithsonian Institution


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Xueying Chang / Ralph Rinzler Folklore Collection and Archive, Smithsonian Institution


Aloyzius Luwemba, a 10th-generation bed linen maker, uses a slotted wooden mallet to pound the bark cloth so it expands in size.

Xueying Chang / Ralph Rinzler Folklore Collection and Archive, Smithsonian Institution

But Mutebi, a former Fulbright scholar who has exhibited his paintings and woodblock prints in galleries across Europe, America and Africa – says Uganda’s traditional craft is dying. When Arab traders introduced cotton to the country in the 19th century, it widely replaced bark fabric as a material used for clothing and other goods. Today, artisans continue to make the bark scarf, but it is usually reserved for the traditional attire worn for special events such as healing ceremonies or coronation ceremonies for Ugandan tribal chiefs.

Mutebi wants Ugandans to do more to preserve bark weaving. “I am trying to mobilize a group of artists to work with businessmen and politicians, to create a sustainable industry for bark towel makers,” he said. In the meantime, he will continue to use bark fabric as the fabric of choice for his artwork.



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