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The one, the only, the traditional South Dakota
By Pat Boyd, Executive Director, South Dakotans for
the Arts
Summer means family picnics in the park, all-school reunions in our
rural communities and arts festivals where the threads of our state’s past and
present are woven together into the totally unique pattern we call South Dakota.
Those threads of “traditional arts” are the brightly-colored elements of our
ethnic and regional heritage that somehow have survived the melting pot of
America to emerge as treasured touchstones to a simpler way of life—and to a
people honored for their pioneer spirit.
You will find traditional arts to be much more than musty historical relics. The South Dakota traditional arts apprenticeship program is currently linking masters of potentially disappearing art forms with apprentices eager to preserve those skills into the future. On the Cheyenne River reservation, Renee Rouillard is teaching Patty Kennedy how to design and construct the star quilts which are essential in every kind of Lakota ceremony and rite of passage from births to naming ceremonies, graduations, weddings and funerals.
LeRoy Graber has taught three members of the Wuertzer family his German-Russian style of willow basketry. LeRoy met the Wuertzers when he heard that they had good willows on their property along the James River, and they were soon fascinated by his baskets and wanted to learn to make them. Helen Wuertzer and her daughter-in-law Michelle were the official apprentices, but Helen’s husband Larry soon joined in and now the whole family is weaving.
South Dakota fiddlers are passing on the barn dance style that brought a swing to Saturday nights in community halls and barns all across the state a century ago. In fact, in nearly every community in every corner of our state, practitioners of traditional arts are quietly weaving, quilling, silversmithing, carving, painting and woodworking. You may not recognize their work as part of a vanishing American art form, but those individuals may be a last link to a rapidly dwindling past.
You can make a difference and help protect our heritage. You can learn from the masters in your communities or, if you are a traditional artist, you can take steps to pass your craft along to the next generation. If you do not know how to get started, call the South Dakota Arts Council at 1-800-423-6666 or visit
www.sdarts.org, a joint website of South Dakotans for the Arts and the South Dakota Arts Council.