About the Folk and Traditional Artists Roster


This resource features Iowa folk and traditional artists and performing groups. The IAC has reviewed these artists based on their excellence and how their ethnic, occupational, regional, or religious traditional skills and knowledge reflect their community's aesthetics and heritage. Most traditional arts have endured through several generations. Skills and traditions are typically learned informally and passed from one generation to the next by observation and imitation rather than through academic or formal means.

Folk and traditional arts do not include folk-inspired art, which is produced by individuals and groups who are not part of the cultural community that originally produced/created/developed the art form, even if the quality of the art is excellent. 

A folk and traditional artist actively practices, passes on, and preserves the living cultural traditions of the cultural community to which s/he belongs and is recognized and acknowledged as a folk & traditional artist by that group. 

To learn more about Folk & Traditional Arts in Iowa, please visit these resources as well:

Iowa Folklife Volume II - http://www.uni.edu/iowaonline/folklife_v2/

Folklife Education Curriculum - http://www.uni.edu/iowaonline/folklife/intro/index.htm

Iowa Roots - http://www.iowaartscouncil.org/programs/folk-and-traditional-arts/iowa-roots/index.shtml

Application Form and Guidelines (Word Doc)