ClimateLore
What Are We Going to Weave With?
An Akimel O’odham basketweaver on how a changing climate is impacting plant materials by Alice Manuel, as told to Kimi Eisele I started weaving baskets when I was 19, learning from my mother-in-law, Hilda Manuel, who was at the time…
It’s Gonna Be Okay: Faith and Climate on a Hopi Drylands Farm
by Michael Kotutwa Johnson, as told to Kimi Eisele Photos courtesy of Michael Johnson I met the cornfields early, riding with my cousins in the back of my grandfather’s old pickup truck, bouncing up and down, hitting our heads up…
Essays
Harvesting Cholla: The Pleasures of Intangible Heritage
Audio essay by Kimi Eisele | May 2020
Audio essay by Ruxandra Guidi | April 2020
End-of-Life Care
A Great Mercy: A Death Doula on Grief and Transformation
Interview by Kimi Eisele ADRIENE JENIK is an artist, educator, and death doula living in the California desert near Joshua Tree. She is a faculty member at Arizona State University’s…
Possibilities at the Edge: David Fife on End-of-Life Comfort
Interview by Rebecca Crocker David Fife is Social Services Director at Casa de la Luz Hospice. As so often happens in Tucson, where a good dose of “old Pueblo” homespun…
Building an Archive: A Hospice Nurse on Working towards a Good Death
As told to Charlie Buck Marc Goodman works as a registered nurse case manager with Casa de la Luz Hospice, providing end-of-life care to patients in Tucson. Hospice care calls…
Master Artists
Dirt Cheap: A Conversation with Adobe Brick Maker David Yubeta
Interview by Valentina Andrew David Yubeta is an adobe brick maker and conservator of earthen architecture. He spent 25 years preserving earthen resources in the arid Southwest for the National Park Service. He is the recipient of a 2019 SFA Master-Apprentice Artist Award. In March, just as shelter-in-place went into…
Tools and Time: A Conversation with Blacksmith, Zach Lihatsh
Zach Lihatsh is a blacksmith who has trained with teachers from Italy, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, and throughout the United States. A recipient of a 2019 SFA Master-Apprentice Artist Award, Lihatsh is teaching the trade to apprentice, Austin Rose, a former student of his at Pima Community College. BorderLore editor Kimi…
“It Sounds Like Mexico”: Lessons in Mexican Folk Harp
Adrian Perez, 30, has been playing the Mexican folk harp for 15 years. The instrument traces traditional roots to jarocho music of the southern coast of Veracruz and mariachi music from western Mexican states of Jalisco and Michoacán. Perez is a recipient of SFA’s 2019 Master-Apprentice Artist Award, which supports…
Thinking like a Folklorist
Folklife in the Age of Pandemics
by Maribel Alvarez As occupations go, folklorists are not usually in the top ten list of “first responders” most people think of when disasters or other major disruptions to everyday…
Reciprocity in Fieldwork
by Jim Griffith The relationship between folklorist and informant is, by its very nature, reciprocal. To start off, I don’t really like the word “informant” for the person who gives…
How Writing Docudramas Taught Me to Listen
by Milta Ortiz I came to playwriting from poetry, where I focused on writing from personal experience. When I started writing plays, I carried that along, writing from my own…
Remapping LA
by Alison M. De La Cruz On April 17, 2019, ArtChangeUS: Arts in a Changing America convened nearly 400 arts and cultural workers for ReMap LA, a Cultural Equity Summit at…