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.
Four members of Los Amigos de la Sierra sit outside on a stone wall and each hold various instruments, including a bass guitar, two acoustic guitars, and an accordion.
Los Amigos de la Sierra
Mexican Norteño Music
Los Amigos de la Sierra is a traditional norteño band that performs throughout the Northwest, across the U.S., and in Vera Cruz, Mexico. Bandleader, Jose "Pepe" Contreras and several of the groups members first learned to play a variety of musical instruments in an after school program lead by Juan Antonio Martinez. The band formed in 2007.
Lourdes Parra wears a blue jacket and stands next to a mannequin displaying a red and white traditional Mexican dress.
Lourdes Parra
Traditional Mexican Dressmaking and Crafts
Lourdes Parra (Hillsboro) is a Mexicana dressmaker and fruit carver. She sews dresses adorned with images of Catholic icons for religious holidays and special occasions. Parra also creates intricately carved watermelons that serve as centerpieces for baptism and communion celebrations, weddings, and quinceañeras.
Loy Sampels dances in a dance studio and holds a microphone. She wears a blue shirt and black pants.
Loy Sampels
Clogging
Loy Sampels (Powell Butte) was raised in North Carolina near the home of American clog dancing, the hollows of Appalachia. For the past thirty years as an instructor, choreographer, and cuer, she has championed the contemporary clogging dance form across the US and Canada. Sampel’s Sunshine Exchange, now with second and third generation dancers, is based at The Clog House in Redmond.
Luis Vidart expressively tells a story in front of several shelves full of tools. He wears a black jacket and gray baseball cap.
Luis Vidart
Storytelling, Sheep herding, Lumbering, Hunting Tales
Luis Vidart (Orchard) is a master storyteller. His tales are of true-life experiences: plowing fields with oxen on the family farm in Basque Country, herding sheep in remote parts of California and Wyoming, hunting elk, and felling trees in Oregon’s Coastal Range.
Luisa Valentin Pelagio wearing a folklorico dance cosutume that is red and yellow. She is standing outside.
Luisa Valentín Pelagio
Folklorico Ballet teacher, performer, and Costume Maker; Día de los Muertos Altars
Luisa Valentín Pelagio (Medford) is an independent Folklorico Ballet dance teacher and performer. Valentín Pelagio obtained her Diplomado in folklórico dance in Mexico City at the Amalia Hernandez School. Besides her dance work, she also crochets, embroiders, and constructs Día de los Muertos altars.
Margaret L. Johnson sits in a red booth. She wears a green tank top and a multicolored beaded necklace and earrings.
Margaret L. Johnson
Beadworking
Margaret Johnson (Pendleton) is a Native beadworker. She learned to bead when she was about 14 from elders at Colville Reservation.
Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna stands indoors. She wears a black outfit with multicolored embroidery, as well as a yellow flower in her hair.
Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna
Ballet Folklorico
Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Laguna (Corvallis) is a master of Mexican Folklórico dance. Folklórico dances are the traditional dances from the states of Mexico that use expression, technique, style of dress, and use of accessories specific to each place. An Oregon Folklife Network Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Master Artist in 2012, Gonzalez Laguna began to dance at age 9.
Maria Diaz stands in a kitchen and holds a small tortilla. She wears a black polo shirt.
Maria Diaz
Mexican Foodways
Maria Diaz (Odell) has been making traditional carnitas (little cuts of meat) with her family her whole life. At the family run restaurant, The Michoacán Sports Bar & Grill, Maria serves up recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. Maria’s traditional carnitas are served with handmade tortillas.
Four members of Mariachi los Temerosos stand outside in front of a house playing various instruments, including guitars and a trumpet.
Mariachi los Temerosos
Mariachi Music
Mariachi Los Temerosos (Hood River) is a Mexican-American mariachi band that has been playing traditional music since its founding member, Juan Antonio Martinez, established the group shortly after moving in the early 1990s. The band was the first of its kind in the region and continues to delight audiences at quinceañeras, weddings, social and community events, schools, senior centers, Cinco de Mayo events, and more.
Marimba Primaveral de Guatemala pose wearing traditional white outfits and black vests.
Marimba Primaveral de Guatemala
Marimba Music
Marimba Primaveral de Guatemala (Portland) is an eight-piece ensemble of Guatemalan musicians under the leadership of its founder and manager, Domingo Martinez. The group plays locally for private parties and public events and travels nationally and internationally.
Mario Hanel stands in front of a wooden wall with saddle stencils. He wears a gray plaid collared shirt.
Mario Hanel
Saddle Making
Mario Hanel (Lakeview) has been making working saddles for ranchers, horsemen, and cowboys. His preferred style is the more decorative and detailed California-style of saddles but he has also turned out “roughouts” and plain saddles as well as chaps.
Marjan Anvari stands in front of a white wall and wears a blue t-shirt, a white vest, and a blue and white pendant.
Marjan Anvari
Tazhib
Marjan Anvari (Lake Oswego) is a master artist who specializes in tazhib, a traditional Persian form of gold illumination that dates back to the 3rd century.
Marjorie Kalama sits at a desk and works on beadwork. She wears a red and white polka dot shirt, a red blazer, and large round beaded earrings.
Marjorie Kalama
Beadworking
Marjorie Kalama (Warm Springs) makes traditional loomed and tack-down beadwork. Her method of two-needled tack-down beading requires the simultaneous use of two needles with different sized threads. Kalama has won six awards for her beadwork at tribal member art shows.
Mark Kelley stands outside under a gray and blue cover. He wears a black sweater under a gray vest.
Mark Kelley
Fly Tying and Fly Fishing
Mark Kelley (Klamath Falls) is a traditional fly tyer who has been tying flies and fly fishing for 55 years. He is a member of the Klamath County Fly Casters.
Mark Ross sits on a white couch and holds an acoustic guitar. He wears a blue collared shirt and tan hat.
Mark Ross
Folk Music and Old Time Banjo
Mark Ross (Eugene) is a master old time musician. His repertoire of over nearly 500 songs runs the gamut of American roots music, including ballads, train songs, blues, and western swing. He is a Grammy and INDIE Award nominated musician for his work with U. Utah Phillips. Ross sings and yodels and also plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo.
Marlene Meissner stands in front of a brick wall and wears a dark blue beaded blouse with a Rose City Accordion Club nametag.
Marlene Meissner
Accordion Player
Marlene Meissner (Keizer) has been playing accordion since she was 9 or so. In 1966, when she was 16, her hometown of Mt. Angel hosted their first Oktoberfest. Meissner, who is of German descent, played in her first Oktoberfest the next year and has played every year since.
Mary Jacobs
fisherpoet, boat captain, commercial fisherman
Mary Jacobs (Gold Beach) is a retired commercial fisherman and fishing boat captain and an active writer who is a favorite reader at Astoria’s annual FisherPoets Gathering. Jacobs, who captained an all-women crew for many years, is an experienced fisherman and eloquent writer. She writes vividly about her occupational life and her perspective as a fisherman’s wife. Her stories about commercial fishing delve into the dangers as well as the humorous moments of a life at sea.
Maryam Monadi holds three woven handbags. She wears a red blouse and a black jacket .
Maryam Monadi
Persian Weaving
Maryam Monadi (Lake Oswego) is a Persian rug weaver who studied with a master in Tehran to learn this ancient art. An expert in different weaving styles, Monadi makes carpets, decorative weavings, and woven purses and wallets.
The artist, Masumi Timson, smiling as she plays the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument.
Masumi Timson
Japanese Koto Music
Masumi Timson (Salem) is an acclaimed musician trained in playing the koto, a traditionally Japanese stringed instrument. Timson also sings classical Japanese songs with koto and shamisen accompaniment and enjoys collaborating with a variety of western musical instruments to explore a wide range of musical genres from Jazz, Blues, and Tango, to the compositions by Mozart and Brahms, etc.
Matilda Novak stands in front of a red brick wall inside Novak's Hungarian Restaurant. She wears a black long sleeved shirt under a white apron.
Matilda Novak
Hungarian Foodways
Matilda “Mama” Novack and husband, Joseph Novak (Albany) founded Novak's Hungarian Restaurant. Now run by the next generation, the restaurant serves traditional Hungarian dishes and authentic drinks. Mama says, "When we opened, we started with our family's favorite dishes." It is one of the few authentic Hungarian restaurants in the nation.

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