Chippewa Valley Museum
The Chippewa Valley Museum tells stories. Surprising, entertaining, enriching, personal, and authentic stories that illuminate the Chippewa Valley for those near and far, but also help tell the larger story of America.
Folklore, folklife, folk arts
Folklorists can study a lot of different things -- music; food; crafts and skills, like knitting sweaters or stacking hay; architecture, like barns; beliefs and superstitions; jokes or stories.
But two things are always important to folklorists: tradition and community. Everyone has connections to the past, and connections to other people. That means we all have folklore in our lives.
Not everything you know came from school. You also learn through observation -- watching your dad put bait on a hook -- and through experience -- doing it yourself. You might learn to cook with the guidance of your mom. And you might learn NOT to do certain things -- like never to go into a bull pen -- by hearing stories about people who did.
That's what folklorists study: the informal ways we learn, and our everyday expressions of what we find beautiful and important in life -- from making a quilt to celebrate a special occasion, to creating art from tools and objects we find around us, to planting corn in straight, perfect rows.
In our stories, we also choose what's most important to us. And our stories happen in places important to us: our living rooms and kitchens, our churches and taverns, our workshops and barns.
As a folklorist, I listen to stories to see people's lives as they see them. I hope you'll listen, too, and I hope you'll keep listening, to see what matters to people: about their past, their present, and their communities.
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