The 4th Annual
American
Folk
Festival
The Maine Folklife Center
Art & Craft Demonstrations
Saturday & Sunday
12 - 5 pm
August 22-24, 2008
Madawaska Weavers:
Patty Hill of Eagle Lake, Jackie Lozier and Brenda Caron of Fort Kent
Mills
Patty
Hill learned to spin and weave while living in California where
her interest was piqued while watching a spinning demonstration at a
county fair. Patty spins with a variety of materials including wool,
flax, cotton and silk. Recently she has become interested in spinning
with bamboo and is experimenting with a bamboo/flax blend. For weaving
she favors the traditional overshot patterns for making lap blankets.
Patty has demonstrated spinning for Madawaska’s Acadian Festival in
Maine and the Maple Meadow Farm Festival in Mapleton, Maine.
Jackie Lozier
traces her interest in
waving back to the bedspreads woven by her
mother when Jackie was a child. She has carried this interest
throughout her life, and twelve years ago, she bought a loom and learned
to weave herself. Taught informally by weaver Debra Durkin, Jackie
primarily uses her loom to weave rugs in her own creative
patterns. She creates her rugs using scraps of re-used woolen material
from old clothes, carrying on a tradition of resourcefulness found in
Acadian culture. Jackie creates rugs for the Nezinscot Farm in Turner,
Maine, and she demonstrates weaving at Madawaska’s Acadian Festival, The
University of Maine at Fore Kent and at the St Agatha Historical
Society’s Historical House.
Brenda Caron fell in love
with spinning two years ago when she met a woman who spun for Acadian
festivals. An avid knitter, Brenda has always been interested in fiber
arts, so the transition to spinning came naturally to her. Using wool
given to her by friends, Brenda usually spins two-ply yarn which she
uses to knit and weave such items as fishermen’s socks. Brenda has done
spinning demonstrations at the Acadian Family Reunion festival in St.
David and at the St. Agatha Historical Society’s Historical House.
John
Connors St. Francis, comes from a long line of
boatbuilders and learned the traditional skill of boatmaking from his
grandfather, David Connors. In the late 1940’s, John joined his
family’s boat shop in St. Francis.
John has worked many river drives transporting logs on the Allagash and
St. John rivers, and he has also worked 30 years for the Irving
Woodlands sawmill operation.
Most
recently, John and fellow boatbuilder Dave Wylie
built a batteau for the 2006 Acadian Festival in Madawaska. This
batteau is based on the traditional St. John river-driving batteau,
styled and patterned by David Connors, which is a large, low-sided,
flat-bottomed boat used by lumbermen in the early 20th century. Steered
with poles, these agile, light-weight batteaux were used extensively in
river drives to transport lumbermen and their supplies on roaring Maine
rivers. John has been named a Traditional Arts Master by the Maine Arts
Commission.
Chace Jackson, Allagash,
attends high school in Fort Kent but when he is not doing that he works
as an apprentice to John Connors. He is also active in the Allagash
Historical Society. With a keen interest in his community’s history and
traditions, Chace represents the hope of future generations remembering
and carrying on the tradition of bateau making. Earlier this summer he
studied at the Story Bank Institute and is conducting interviews with
tradition bearers in the greater Allagash area.
Rodney Richard
(pictured on Narrative Stage Schedule page) is
a wood-carver in the Acadian-American tradition. Working with hand
tools and his chainsaw, Rodney creates everything from small animals to
10 foot tall woodsmen complete with their own hand tools. His various
creations, from rabbits to fishermen to black bears, vary in size
depending on the piece of wood.
Along with his son, Rodney Jr., he also carves
delicate fan towers out of white cedar. These fan towers, a specialty
of Rodney’s father, traditionally came from Finland, Sweden, and Russia
and have since spread throughout Canadian and northern Maine logging
camps.
The towers, which require an incredible amount of skill, are
made by using an assortment of knives to split pieces of white cedar
into fan shapes which are then placed around a central shaft of wood.
Rodney has appeared at many festivals, and he has received numerous
awards such as the Marshall Dodge Traditional Artist Award (1987) and
the Governor’s Service Award (1997). With his son, he has twice been
awarded a Maine Arts Commission’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship, and
he has also been named a Traditional Arts Master by
the Maine Arts Commission.
