Masters of Ceremony, 1995-1996, 1995-1996

The Masters of Ceremony collection consists of color slides, B&W and color photographs, cassette recorded interviews, project notes, exhibit development notes, ephemera, artifacts, an educational publication, videos, and a virtual exhibit at www.ohs.org/exhibitions/moc/. This collection encompasses the work of creating a major exhibit at the Oregon History Center. The exhibit featured ten master folk artists who create and/or perform traditional art forms that are intricately related to ceremonies and ritual in their communities. The thematic approach links the works of traditional artists to four rites-of-passage: birth, coming-of-age, marriage and death.

The exhibit looked at Cayuse and Wallulapum cradleboards, Palestinian embroidered clothing, Hmong wedding ceremonies, Wasco burial rites and Iu-Mien coming-of-age ceremonies, to name a few. The featured artists in the exhibit were Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim (Palestinian embroidery), Eva Castellanoz (corona and healing), Larry Dick (Wasco medicine man and tule mat weaver), Valeriana Bandwa (Angolan basket weaver), Jeremias Bandwa (Angolan storyteller), Sophie George (Plateau beadworker), Maynard Lavadour (Cayuse traditional dress and beadwork), Chiem-Fihn Liem Saechao (Iu-Mien shaman), Agnes Goudy Lopez (Wallulapum-Palouse storytelling and basketry) and Boua Xou Moua (Hmong shaman and musician).

The exhibit received financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Oregon Arts Commission, The Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Community Folklife Program, Portland General Electric, James F. and Marion L. Miller Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation and the Jeld-Wen Foundation.