About the Apprenticeship Program
One of the primary ways the Virginia Folklife Program supports cultural traditions of the Commonwealth is through its Apprenticeship Program. Since 2002, we have supported 142 teams of artists from a wide range of communities and traditions by providing funding for a year-long, one-on-one learning experience and a platform to celebrate and share with the wider public. To date, the Virginia Folklife Program has supported 319 artists practicing traditions as wide-ranging as custom car bodywork, draft horse training, different kinds of cooking, baking and preserving, gunsmithing, auctioneering, instrument building, along with music-making and dancing in styles as wide-ranging and diverse as Virginia’s communities.
- $5000 is awarded per team for a 12-month apprenticeship (mentor artists receive $4000; Apprentice artists receive $1000; additional funding may be available for supplies)
- 2023-2024 cohort application opens December 7, 2022 and is due April 9, 2023
- Application and eligibility
Artists who are masters of a folkway work with an apprentice (or sometimes, more than one) over the course of a year to share cultural knowledge and skills. The specific places, times, and learning outcomes are defined by the artist team. Virginia Folklife Program staff collaborate with the mentor and apprentice artist to document their experience and share the story of the tradition through a short film. These films are screened in-person at select venues around Virginia in the summer and are made available on the Virginia Folklife YouTube channel in the fall. By participating in the Apprenticeship Program, artists also have the opportunity to be part of other public programs presented by Virginia Folklife, including the annual Richmond Folk Festival.
By providing direct artist support, we seek to give new energy to living traditions, while both invigorating master practitioners and engaging new learners. The Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program receives funding support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts Folk Arts Program.
Folklife is community life and values, artfully expressed in myriad forms and interactions. Universal, diverse, and enduring, it enriches the nation and makes us a commonwealth of cultures.
Mary Hufford. American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures. (Washington: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1991), p. 1.
Apprenticeship Teams
Artist Profiles
Sights & SoundsElizabeth LaPrelle & Elsa Howell
Appalachian Ballad Singing On a farm outside of Rural Retreat, tucked into a bend of small, winding White Rock Creek and down the hill from the home she grew up …
Sights & SoundsDaniel Smith & Richard Maxham
Daniel Smith of Lynchburg is apprenticing Richard Maxham of Alexandria, a fifth-generation violinist, in violin making and repair.
Sights & SoundsMargarita “Tata” Sanchez Cepeda & Isha M Renta Lopez
Bomba Dance Bomba is, as Margarita “Tata” Sanchez Cepeda puts it, “all about love. I was taught under love, bomba is a form of love, and we continue to carry …
The 2022-2023 Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Class
2023 marks twenty years of the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program! Established in 2002, the 2022-2023 cohort is the twentieth class of mentor artists and their apprentices.
