Applications now open for 2024-2025 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

Jun 13

Vermont Folklife is pleased to announce the 33rd year of its Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (VTAAP). With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts through a partnership with the Vermont Arts Council, this program supports the continued vitality of Vermont’s living cultural heritage. Information about the program is available in fourteen languages spoken within the state, including Dari, Pashto, Somali, Nepali, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

VTAAP provides stipends of up to $2,000 to master artist and apprentice pairs to cover the time, materials, and travel expenses associated with learning an art form. 2024-25 applications from master artist and apprentice pairs will be accepted through July 21st.

*Master granite carver Heather Milne Ritchie explains carving to VTF staffer Mary Wesley, as apprentice Becky Lovely observes.*

The 2023-24 VTAAP cohort consisted of 18 apprenticeships, including Judaic ritual weaving, granite carving, Burundian dance and song, Scottish dance and fiddle, and Nepali sarangi playing. The almost 400 apprenticeships supported since the program’s inception in 1992 represent a broad spectrum, from the arts and cultural practices of Abenaki, Yankee, and Franco-American regional cultures, to the arts of Somali Bantu, Tibetan, Bosnian, Bhutanese Nepali and other communities from immigrant and refugee backgrounds.

A traditional arts apprenticeship brings teachers and learners together who share a commitment to sustaining these art forms. It provides support to a community-recognized master artist who has achieved a high level of expertise in their art form and a less-experienced apprentice. Master artists and apprentices apply together and jointly plan when, where and what they expect to accomplish during the apprenticeship. Apprenticeships can take the form of anything from short-term, intensive sessions to meetings spread over a year. This program supports master artists and apprentices who have already decided to work together. Vermont Folklife staff do not match apprentices and master artists. The purpose of VTAAP is to provide funding to help compensate the master artist for their time and to cover the cost of travel and of materials used during the apprenticeship.