A guitar player with a friendly smile, wearing a festive hat and a traditional serape shawl.
Oregon Culture Keepers Roster
About the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster

Search the online Oregon Culture Keepers Roster—an ever-expanding, juried selection of folk and traditional artists—and connect with cultural experts documented through our regional surveys and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.

Rostered artists and culture keepers can provide educational presentations, hands-on demonstrations, or performances to a variety of audiences. We recommend a fee of at least $250 plus travel expenses unless otherwise noted, for such appearances. We do not serve as a booking agent, so please contact the artists directly.

Search the roster by county or keyword to find

  • highly skilled traditional artists for your classroom,
  • storytellers for your library event,
  • cultural experts for your humanities program,
  • performers for your festival stage, or
  • craft artists for demonstrations.

Check back often—we regularly add new folk and traditional artists!

Apply

Interested in applying to be on the roster?

First, review OFN’s definition of a Culture Keeper:

  • A Culture Keeper is a folk or traditional artist, who actively practices, passes on, and preserves the living cultural traditions of the cultural community to which they belong and is recognized by that community. Folk and traditional arts do not include folk-inspired art, which is produced by individuals and groups who are not part of the cultural community that originally produced/created/developed the art form, even if the quality of the art is excellent.

Second, fill out and send in the application form and all required work samples.

Or contact us at 541-346-3820 | ofn@uoregon.edu for assistance.

Culture Keepers Roster Map

 

 

Found 285 profiles.
Roger and Joe Pechanec stand near a wooden wall show off a metal riding gear.
Riding Gear Making
Roger and Joe Pechanec (Mitchell) are a father and son team who make riding gear for local cowboys. Roger specializes in leatherwork, producing headstalls, martin gales, and occasional leggings and saddles. Complementing Roger’s work, Joe braids and twists rawhide in the style he learned from local master rawhider, Roy Critchlow.
Roger Fairfield stands outdoors and holds a bamboo fly fishing rod with tall trees in the background. He wears a black jacket and jeans.
Bamboo Fly Rod Making
Roger Fairfield (Sisters) crafts bamboo fly fishing rods in his home workshop for use on local rivers and lakes. He begins with bamboo culms, cuts and shaves them into precision-tapered strips, and assembles these strips to form rods that have the characteristic “action” of antique fly rods. For Roger, who grew up vacationing at the headwaters of the Metolius River, fishing with bamboo rods is a family and regional tradition.
Ron Lauzon stands inside a garage next to a river raft boat. He wears a green jacket and a green baseball cap.
Fly Fishing Instructor & River Boat Guide
Ron Lauzon (Sandy) is a fly fisherman and river guide, among the few who fish the Clackamas River year-round.
Ron Phillips sits playing an acoustic guitar and singing into a microphone. He is wearing a tan hat and a blue and white striped button down shirt with suspenders.
String Band Music
Ron Phillips (John Day) works tirelessly to maintain the string band music tradition that he grew up with in the town of John Day. Twice a week, he hosts an open-participation session he calls Grant County Jammers. Often, Ron leads tunes he learned from his grandmother or uncles, with whom he played at grange dances in his youth.
Ron Wilson sits at a table near a workbench with a piece of leather. He wears a beige cowboy hat and a grey plaid vest over a blue shirt.
Leather-working
Ron Wilson (Arlington) is a leatherworker who first learned from fellow roster artist Alene Rucker in 4H. Today Wilson works in his leather shop in the back of Ace Hardware in Arlington. Wilson keeps busy making chaps, chinks (half length chaps), belts, purses, rodeo queen outfits, tack, and many other types of leather goods.
Rosa Villagrana stands in front of a brown wall with hanging windchimes. She wears a purple t-shirt.
Quilting and Foodways
Rosa Villagrana (Silver Lake) is a traditional Mexican cook and a quilter. She prepares traditional Mexican dishes that she sells at stores around Lake County. After learning to quilt from local quilters in the 1980s, Villagrana began hand and machine quilting.
Rosie Tom stands outside on a grassy field with trees and bushes in the background. She wears a black fleece jacket.
Beadwork, Basketry
Rosie Tom (Warm Springs) is a master bead worker whose experience dates back to the 1960s. Tom also makes moccasins, gloves, baskets, and quilts. She gathers and cooks native foods such as salmon, roots, and berries. Tom is actively involved in the NW Native American Basket Weavers Association and the Great Basin Native Basket Weavers Association.
Ross Westgate stands in front of a wooden wall with tools and a framed picture. He wears a denim button down shirt.
Gunsmithing
Ross Westgate (Chiloquin) is a gunsmith specializing in handmade muzzleloaders. To date, he has made 80 muzzleloaders. Each gun is made from a single piece of wood and is very accurate. Westgate also makes handmade arrows, quivers, and powder horns.
Samuel Becerra holding an Aztec Flute like instrument
Traditional Aztec Flute Maker
Samuel Becerra specializes in building Aztec flutes, clay flutes, using the same techniques that the Aztec peoples of ancient Mexico used over 800 years ago. These flutes are hand-crafted one at a time for traditional Aztec ceremonies.
Sandra Porter stands outside in front of shelves with potted plants. She is wearing a black shirt with a black apron.
Foodways
Sandra Porter (Cloverdale) is a traditional baker known all over the Nestucca Valley for her lip-smacking homemade pies that taste like no other. When the pie sign goes up at the Porter’s farm stand outside of Cloverdale on Highway 101, locals know they have but a short time to make haste. Pumpkin pie is Porter’s own favorite—made with home grown Jarrahdale pumpkins.
Sandra Van Liew sits at a spinning wheel and spins wool with shelves of framed photos and books in the background. She is wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans.
Knitting, Spinning, Sheep Ranching
Sandra Van Liew (Heppner) is a traditional knitter. She and her husband own the Windy Acres Jacobs Sheep Ranch, where she spins, knits, and markets her own products from her heritage breed sheep.
Sandy Micheli stands outside and holds a wooden stick with a green lizard on it. She wears a blue polo shirt.
Woodcarving
Sandy Micheli (Vale) is a traditional woodcarver. Always on the lookout for a good carving stick, Micheli has a gift for envisioning shapes in wood. Coyotes, snakes, lizards, birds, and other sundry animals come to life in her hands.
Sara Barton stands next to a table with an article of Native American regalia made from leather and decorated with small beadwork. She is wearing a purple shirt, blue jeans, and sunglasses.
Native American Basketry/Cradleboard-Making/Regalia
Sara Barton (Hines) is a traditional basketmaker who hails from a long line of basketmakers. Though her own ancestry is a mix of Mono Lake Paiute and Yosemite Miwuk, she now assists the Burns Paiute in keeping their basket and cradleboard traditions.
Sara Scott stands next to a white wire rack with crafted rawhide objects. She is wearing a lime shirt and a white hooded sweatshirt.
Root Digging, Leatherworking, Beadwork
Sara Scott (Warm Springs) is a traditional leather and bead worker as well as a root digger. Scott learned the traditions from her family and continues to practice them. She still digs roots on the south end of the Reservation where her grandmother first taught her to dig.
Sara Siestreem wearing a long sleeved blue shirt. She is leaning her arms on the ground and holding a woven basket in her hands.
Hanis and Miluk Coos Traditional Basketweaving
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) is a multidisciplinary artist who combines painting, photography, printmaking, weaving, and large-scale installation. Her art practice branches into institutional reform as it relates to curatorial and educational practices surrounding Indigenous fine art.
Sarge and CeCe Glidewell stand together inside a room with cream walls. CeCe is wearing a purple shirt and Sarge is wearing a black striped button-up shirt.
Round and Square Dancing
Sarge and CeCe Glidewell (Klamath Falls) are round and square dance leaders. They teach and call dances for their local club, the Klamath Country Squares. Sarge and other local callers call the dances to music on records, and occasionally to live music, while by CeCe leads a dedicated group of experienced dancers as well as novices.
Secret Bryant stands in her Portland studio, "Southern Styles & Barber," braiding pink extensions. She is wearing a black shirt, a black apron, and a black bonnet with a flower on it.
Hair Braiding
Secret Bryant (Portland) is a traditional African American hair stylist and hair braider. Every workday, she braids cornrows, box braids, extensions, and more. She learned hair-braiding techniques at her mother’s knee.
Kalapuya and Hanis Coos Drummer and Singer, Storyteller, Educator
Shannin Stutzman (Yoncalla), of Hanis Coos and Kalapuya heritage, is a traditional drummer, singer, storyteller, and educator. She performs and demonstrates her cultural traditions in schools and at public events and also coordinates the Indian Education Summer Camp, which her mother, Esther Stutzman, founded in the late 1970s. Stutzman also creates a variety of artwork inspired by her heritage and is enrolled with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz.
Woman holding a fiddle.
Irish and Appalachian Fiddling Teacher
Shari Ame (Corvallis) is an Irish and Appalachian fiddler, teacher, and contra dance musician. She always wanted to be a fiddler, and started playing violin in the school orchestra at age nine, then started Irish fiddle as a teenager.
Sherry Steele sits outside with grass and bushes in the background and holds a bundle of brown feathers. She wears a white shirt and a light baseball cap.
Fly Tying and Fly Fishing
Sherry Steele (Sisters), a traditional fly tyer, teaches for clubs and schools throughout central Oregon. With 13 years of experience, Steele is a board member of the International Federation of Fly Fishers and is passionate about her craft and teaching fly tying and angling skills to others.