Clockwise from top left: Martha Jones-Carter at the 2024 Richmond Folk Festival (credit: Nina Wilder/Virginia Humanities); draft horse forestry; Raistlin Brabson with a handmade fiddle; Virginia salt glaze pottery by Josh Manning; and Christine Rippling Water Custalow with handmade Mattaponi black ware pottery. All photos courtesy of the artists, unless otherwise noted.
The Virginia Folklife Program of Virginia Humanities has awarded five Folklife Apprenticeships for 2025–2026, totaling $25,000 in support of mentor artists and their apprentices. Since 2002, Virginia Folklife has funded 149 apprenticeships in cultural traditions, serving 362 individuals to date.
Folklife Apprenticeships contribute to cultural sustainability through honoring the expertise of the mentor artist, funding deep learning for the apprentice, and introducing cultural heritage to fellow Virginians. In addition to financial support — each team receives $5,000 for 12 months of self-designed learning — this opportunity connects these cultural ambassadors with new audiences. Virginia Folklife collaborates with apprenticeship teams to share their story on Virginia Humanities platforms and teams are also featured in public programs presented by Virginia Humanities.
“Our five apprenticeships this year include two teams working in wood (draft horse forestry and instrument making in Southwest Virginia), two teams working in clay (salt glaze pottery in Southwest Virginia and Mattaponi black ware pottery in Tidewater), and a team working with textiles (African American quilting in Richmond),” said Katy Clune, Virginia state folklorist. “We are honored to help support these talented, community-oriented Virginians with these awards and grateful for the support we received to fund this cohort.”
“Virginia Humanities has been a cornerstone of my craft journey… Without their support, none of what I have accomplished over the past two years would have been possible.”
Erin Simons, apprentice (Appalachian Broom Making, 2025)
The 2025 cohort is made possible with support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Anne and Gene Worrell Foundation, the Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions program, and the Hampton Roads Community Foundation.
The next round of Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program applications will open in November 2025 and close in April 2026.
Meet the 2025–2026 Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Teams
African American Quilting
Martha Jones-Carter & Charmaine Rollins (Richmond, VA)
Martha Jones-Carter has quilted for the last 25 years and is co-founder of Kuumba African American Quilting Guild, an intergenerational group that has been meeting in Richmond for more than a decade. Her sewing journey started while watching her grandmother and mother quilt, which inspired Martha to try sewing by making herself a doll.
The African American quilting tradition is also one of storytelling. “When I create quilts, they convey stories representing memories of my family and my cultural heritage,” Martha explained. “I enjoy teaching others how to connect culturally through their quilt creations.”
Martha will teach Charmaine the fundamentals of quilting — from using the sewing machine to designing a pattern — as well as its historical significance. Charmaine will complete her first quilt, with the goal of displaying it in a local quilt show. Charmaine also plans to teach Martha how to crochet.
Draft Horse Forestry
Jason Rutledge & Lilli Shelton (Floyd County, VA)
Born to a sharecropper’s daughter on Tobacco Row in Southside Virginia, Jason Rutledge learned the traditional skills of horse-drawn logging from his grandfather, who taught him how to work the forests. With 40 years of experience training and tending draft horses, Jason is a consulting forester certified by the Virginia Department of Forestry and has led the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation since 1999. He is also the subject of the 2024 documentary Somehow Hopeful: The Story of a Woodsman.
Jason teaches draft horse timber extraction — a low-impact, traditional forestry method that improves forest health by “taking the worst first.” In following his “life’s calling” to pass on this practice, he helps restore Southwest Virginia’s forests, create livelihoods, and sustain the deep connections between people, animals, and the natural world.
Under his guidance, Lilliana Shelton will learn horsemanship, working horses in Appalachian forests, safe chainsaw operation, and precise, directional timber felling.
Lilli’s family has lived in Floyd County for eight generations, using work horses and oxen for farming until the 1940s. In 2024, she began working with draft horses through Berea College’s forestry program and was inspired to seek an apprenticeship with Jason. She hopes to one day own her own team of work horses, make this practice her livelihood, and reconnect with a lost tradition in her family.
Blue Ridge Fiddle Making
Jackson Cunningham & Raistlin Brabson (Grayson County)
Jackson Cunningham carries forward a lineage of instrument making that began in Grayson County with the legendary Albert Hash, a self-taught luthier whose legacy continues to inspire new generations.
Jackson learned fiddle making from Audrey Hash (Albert’s daughter), guitar making from his neighbor Wayne Henderson, and banjo making from Mac Traynham. With two decades of experience, he now builds Cunningham Handmade Instruments. He’s also a musician, performing with his band Nobody’s Business, and each year donates a guitar for auction to support the Handmade Music School in Floyd, VA.
Raistlin, an old-time fiddler from Callaway, VA, has been apprenticing with Jackson for about a year. He dreams of becoming a full-time luthier and is building his first fiddle under Jackson’s guidance. Along the way, Jackson is teaching him to source and mill local wood, select materials, master construction and finishing techniques, and set up the instrument for optimal playability. He’s also sharing insights on the business side of lutherie — skills that go well beyond woodworking.
Mattaponi Black Ware Pottery
Christine Rippling Water Custalow & Autumn Morningstar Custalow Alfaro (King William County)
Christine Rippling Water Custalow has lived her whole life on the Mattaponi Indian Tribe reservation at West Point. She first learned how to work clay in the 1970s through a Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CERT) workforce development class at the former reservation schoolhouse. For Christine, this introduction to pottery from a contemporary potter served as her bridge to taking up the cultural practices of her ancestors.
Pottery was first made by Native people in Virginia 3,200 years ago. Mattaponi people once practiced a wealth of cultural traditions like beading, pottery, basket making and more, but these practices largely did not survive state efforts to eliminate Native identity. Christine and her mother set out on a journey to bring back the traditional designs and techniques through studying pottery made by their elders.
They connected with other Virginia Indian artists, sold their work at pow wows, and when her mother passed away, Christine focused her efforts on teaching pottery to Native children through afterschool programs. “We lost our language, our culture, and our stories from the past,” she said. “Any part of what we were able to hold on to form our traditions was held sacred. I made this a priority to pass on. Our history and traditions teach so many things that help us grow as Indvidual and as a stronger community.”
Now in her mid-80s, Christine will apprentice her granddaughter, Autumn Morningstar Custalow Alfaro, in pinch pot and coil building black ware pottery. Autumn made clay pots when she is younger, but will work on developing skills in smoothing and firing the pottery. Through this apprenticeship, Autumn also seeks to honor and carry forward the legacy of her grandmother, one of Virginia’s leading black ware potters and the eldest Mattaponi matriarch.
Virginia Salt Glaze Pottery
Josh Manning & Aslan (Ozzy) B. Freidline (Roanoke, VA)
Josh Manning will apprentice Aslan (Ozzy) B. Freidline with the ultimate goal of reviving Virginia’s tradition of grey salt-glazed stoneware pottery. Once a thriving industry, Josh estimates fewer than 20 salt kilns remain in operation today.
“Historically speaking, salt-glazed pottery, and more specifically, the grey salt pottery of Virginia was not only foundational to the pottery community of America, but it was the cornerstone practice from which all potters were able to produce strong and chemically safe (lead-free) stoneware pottery,” he wrote. “It is said that the first salt-glazed pottery in America was made in the 1720s by William Rogers, the ‘Poor Potter’ of Yorktown, Virginia.”
Josh’s own journey in clay began as a teenager working on finishing details at Phelps Pottery in Floyd, part of the southern folk pottery tradition and its salt-glazed kilns. He later served as a studio assistant at David Crane Ceramics in Blacksburg before earning both a BFA and MFA, sustaining his interest in salt-glazing throughout. In graduate school, he studied under mentor Robert Anderson, who researched the history and technology of salt-glaze in the U.S.
Today, Josh is program director and visiting lecturer for Studio Art at Hollins University, where he met Aslan, then a Master of Arts in Teaching student pursuing ceramics. “I believe place-based craft has the power to connect past and present in a way few other things can,” Aslan said of her work with local clay.
This apprenticeship, set to begin after Aslan completes her degree, will pair her one-on-one with Josh. Together, they’ll source and refine local clay and manage a wood-fired salt kiln to produce stoneware in Virginia’s early grey salt-ware style. In addition to creating her own work, Aslan plans to integrate these skills into her future role as an art educator — extending the tradition even further.
This apprenticeship team is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions program.
