Artists pass down folk art to apprentices

By Susan Ahearn

An older Black storyteller stands before an audience, gesturing as she recounts an African parable. Every few minutes, she pauses so her companion, a 15-year-old girl, can speak.

The girl continues the story, stretching her arms wide and widening her eyes during dramatic moments. At the end of the tale, the teenager, Naomi Reid, delivers the kicker: “A man is not really dead until he is forgotten,” she says, as her fellow storyteller, Janice Curtis Greene, 75, smiles.

Greene and Reid are among hundreds of intergenerational teams that have been awarded grants by the Maryland State Arts Council’s (MSAC) Folklife Apprenticeship program.

Every August, the program awards $5,000 grants to 15 artist pairs: a master artist and an apprentice. The state announced the 2023-24 grants on Aug. 9.

The 20-year-old program is designed to preserve folklife traditions “by specifically supporting one master artist to work with one apprentice artist for up to one year,” explained MSAC Folklife Specialist Ryan Koons. It supports “community based, liv- ing cultural tradition handed down by example or word of mouth.”

Here’s how it works: The state gives $5,000 to a master artist, usually an older adult, to work one-on-one with an up-andcoming artist for one full year.

Although there’s no hourly time commitment, grantees are required to report how they spent the money. Sometimes the state sends a photographer or videographer, paid by the state, to record a team at work.

The Black storytelling tradition

Greene and Reid were awarded a grant in 2021. Greene, a Windsor Mill resident, is also the state Griot (pronounced gree’oh, a West African word for traveling oral historian).

The two met in a program called the Growing Griot Literacy Learning Program of Baltimore, which teaches young people the oral African tradition of storytelling. Reid, who is homeschooled, wanted to take part in the Folklife Apprenticeship program to continue working with Greene.

“She is a professional storyteller,” Reid said of Greene, “and she helped me im-

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Ask for Jim Schwartz or Chris Boggs: 410-747-4770 prove my skills in the tradition of African Black storytelling.”

Reid plans to use her skills in a future career as an elementary school teacher. “Sto- rytelling is definitely something that helps younger people learn things,” she noted.