New for the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival

The Wyoming Arts Council has gathered a group of master artists and their apprentices to demonstrate their craft or perform at the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival, taking place in Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis on August 5 and 6. Demonstrators will be in the large Folk Masters tent on the grounds and the performers will be on the pavilion and Story Circle stages. Festivalgoers can visit with them, listen to their stories, and see them at work.

Formore than a decade,the Wyoming Arts Council has provided grants to accomplished folk and traditional artists to teach an apprentice specific skills through the Mentoring Project Grants program. The program is designed to help preserve masters’ skills and to pass themontothenextgeneration.Thissummer, visitors to the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival can meet some of these talented folk artists in person.

Mentoring Project Grant master/apprentice teams slated to demonstrate or performaspartofFolkMastersareSteve Dabbs(Sheridan),saddles/trees;Marcus Dewey (Arapahoe), Northern Arapahoe beadwork; Gloria Goggles and Jennifer Runs through Lodge (Fort Washakie), parfleche; Leanne Linnell (Riverton) and Brook Miller (Shoshoni), horsehair hitching; Darrell & Tyson Lonebear (Fort Washakie), making and performing Arapaho hand drums; Tom Lucas (Lander), Bighorn Sheep horn bows; Ernie Marsh, Lovell and James Guyllon (Jeffrey City), silversmithing; Jack Mease (Lander) and Mila Ready (Hudson), rawhide braiding; Von Ringler and AlexWhistler(Powell),leatherwork,and Mt. Sinai Jewish Dancers, Cheyenne.

The Big Horn Basin Folk Festival has become a fixture of summer in Hot SpringsStatePark.Featuringthebestof Wyoming artists, artisans, skilled crafts persons,musicians,andstorytellers,itis the only festival of its kind in Wyoming.

The event is open to the public without charge. It is sponsored by Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation and Hot Springs State Park with support from Wyoming Arts Council, Wyoming State Legislature and Hot Springs Travel & Tourism. Additional support is from Hot Springs County Education Endowment, Thermopolis Community Fund and Pinnacle Bank.

The two-day event also features the Kiwanis Trading Post with other arts and crafts for sale as well as a food court. The festival is held the same weekend as the Gift of the Waters Pageant Days. The pageant tells how the hot springs were given to the state by the Native Americans on the Wind River Reservation. The pageant will be performed at 6-7 p.m. in the area around the Big Spring, Saturday and Sunday evening. For more information and schedules: http://www.wyomingfolkfestival.com.

For more information on the Folk Masters, contact Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Tradition Arts Specialist, Anne Hatch at anne.hatch@wyo.gov or call 307-777-7721.

For more information on the Kiwanis Craft Fair and Trading Post and Food Court, interested vendors should contact Linda Herrin ,jandlherr@rtconnect.net