Guest Curators

We want to say thank you to our outgoing Guest Curator, Luisa Del Giudice, Ph.D.! If you missed a chance to see her fantastic artifacts, please stop by the Guest Curator Archive Page. You can also examine all of our past Guest Curator’s as well.

Welcome to our Guest Curator, Ruth Stotter!

A storyteller and folklorist, prior to retirement Ruth was active in the Folk Narrative and Children’s Folklore sections of the American Folklore Society.  From 1988-1998 she produced The Storyteller’s Calendar to draw attention to the link between art objects and the oral tradition.

As this site illustrates, artifact collections often have  intensely personal connections.  In 1980, a grant from the Alaskan Art Council to perform and teach in six Yup’ik villages in southwest Alaska changed my life. When I returned to California, Sonoma professor Hector Lee invited me to present my experiences at an AFS annual meeting — which led to pursuing a graduate degree in Storytelling and Folklore. The Alaskan Yup’ik  objects posted here were gifts or purchases while I was on this embryonic  transformational journey.

IVORY STORYKNIFE (1980) 15” Artist: Anthony Glazer WOODEN STORYKNIFE (1980) 12” This storyknife was made for me by the father of one of the schoolchildren in Scammon Bay, Alaska. Three school girls took me outside and patted the snow down, drew a circle, and each drew figures representing setting and people as they told their stories. The first girl told a Yup’ik legend. The second girl told an original story. The third girl retold a story that I had just told in her classroom.
“Eskimo” TOTEM POLE 10”
Artist: Helen H. Smith Hooper Bay, Alaska Height: 10”
Height 9”
Room – 18 1/2” x 12”
Miniature Punch and Judy stage 4 3/4” x 2 1/2”
Height 9” Width 13”
Height 9” Width 13”
1/2”
Tamil Nadu, India Height: 15”
Height: 15” Width: 23”
Height 4” Width 10”

If you are a folklorist or a collector of folklore/popular culture artifacts, please consider becoming a Guest Curator. Your objects will be highlighted here on a rotating basis.

All we ask is that the objects be yours, you have a photograph of the objects, and all or most of the information about the object (see the guidelines below, for more details).

Guest Curator Guidelines:

1. Artifacts must fall within the subject of our website (folklore, folk art, popular culture, etc).

2. Artifacts must be a part of your own personal collection.

3. Submissions must be limited to no more than five artifacts.

4. Submissions must contain a photograph of the artifact, as well as the title, purpose, country of origin, culture , materials, and dimensions of the artifact.

5. We also would like your photograph and a brief biography to accompany the collection.

Please contact, flpcgallery@gmail.com and write Guest Curator in the subject line for further information or with any questions. We cannot wait to highlight your collection!