Identifying and recording individuals and groups from throughout the region who have knowledge and skills about traditional life and arts is the core of what we do as an organization. By interviewing people and documenting them with audio or video recordings, photographs, and field notes, we are able to prepare and preserve a record of local life for later generations.

Demonstrations & Workshops

At various times during the year, TAUNY sponsors demonstrations and workshops led by outstanding traditional musicians or craftspersons, producing or teaching such arts as fiddling, social dancing, wood carving, rug braiding, basket weaving, Iroquois pottery, balsam wreath making, and fly tying. These events are held at either the TAUNY Gallery or in selected sites around the region. Check our News & Events page for current plans.

Changing Exhibits

Since we opened our first gallery in 1994, we have produced changing exhibits on a variety of topics ranging from model boats to log cabin quilts, from tramp art to memory painting and veterans’ oral traditions. We usually present three exhibitions in our gallery each year. We have also produced traveling exhibitions on changing St. Lawrence River decoy traditions, regional food customs, Mohawk and Amish crafts, and more, for galleries from the Lewis County Historical Society to the Frederic Remington Art Museum and the North Country Cultural Arts Center in Plattsburgh, and schools and public libraries in several counties.

Recent exhibits include:

Check our News & Events page for current and planned exhibits.

Publications & Recordings

Using new research and materials from the archives, TAUNY has produced a number of publications and recordings that interpret specific traditional arts and artists for the public. Especially noteworthy have been our first place national award winning cookbook Good Food Served Right by Lynn Case Ekfelt, our CD and audio cassette recordings of tall tales and poetry recitations by Adirondack storyteller Ham Ferry, entitled Where’d You Get That Hat?, and our video documentary of folk art of all kinds--sand castles, mailboxes, tattoos, yard art, etc.--on display in public spaces in New York State, called Everywhere You Look.

Radio Productions

TAUNY produced Meet the Masters: Conversations with North Country Traditional Artists, a series of half-hour documentary programs for North Country Public Radio. Each program features one or two North Country Heritage Award recipients TAUNY received a Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History for the series. Currently under production with NCPR is a similar series of short programs that will highlight the North Country’s cultural landmarks included in the Register of Very Special Places. TAUNY and North Country Public Radio also collaborated to create a series of five live, call-in broadcasts called Looking for the North Country: Radio Conversations about a Region’s Sense of Place and a series of 17 short radio documentaries on regional and ethnic food customs called Home Cooking: The Folk Art of Good Food.

North Country Folklore Online

Our second website -- www.northcountryfolklore.org --is dedicated to educational resource materials for school age and adult learners and teachers about the folk culture and traditional arts of our region. While we plan to expand the site eventually to include music, art, and more, it currently is the home of four modules: Tales of the River: Collected Stories from St. Lawrence River Communities; Good Food Served Right: Food Traditions in New York’s North Country; Meet the Masters, a growing collection of short documentary features, produced with North Country Public Radio, on over 40 of our North Country Heritage Award recipients, and Register of Very Special Places, TAUNY’s documentation of selected cultural landmarks in our region.

North Country Heritage Awards

North Country Heritage Awards is TAUNY’s annual program for recognition of individuals, families, or community groups who have mastered traditional arts or customs identified with our region and have remained committed to passing them on to future generations. Each fall we present the Salute to North Country Legends, the awards concert and presentation ceremony for heritage awards. Having begun in 1993, the 2007 awards will mark the note the 15th year of the program, with 53 recipients to date. Recipients are featured in The North Country Wall of Fame, TAUNY’s gallery of photographic portraits. Click here to see a virtual exhibit of photographs, audio, and video clips for each artist

Register of Very Special Places

The Register of Very Special Places [RVSP] is a project undertaken by TAUNY to create an inventory or register of sites in communities throughout the North Country that are special to the life of those communities. Called "cultural landmarking," with this project we encourage and train local citizens to nominate and document places such as diners, general stores, barber shops, Grange halls, and community gathering places that have special meaning to those who use them. The Register is a central repository for information about the sites and a resource for historic preservation activities. The Register’s website module includes profiles and photos of each of the sites currently on the Register, a guestbook for people anywhere to submit favorite stories about sites, and an open invitation to North Country residents to nominate sites for TAUNY’s consideration. It presents detailed information about documentation techniques to make a record of the sites for the community and the Register.

Archives

Over the years TAUNY has accumulated a significant collection of primary materials from our own research projects and from contributions of folklore scholars who have worked in the region, most notably invaluable collections donated by folklorists Robert Bethke, Richard Lunt, and Edith Cutting. The collections include audio and video tapes, photographs and slides, interview transcripts, student research projects and books. These are the primary materials upon which we base our own projects, such as exhibits, publications, and radio programs. Materials from our collections can be available to students, scholars and the general public for educational purposes. Please call ahead for an appointment.

Consulting Services

Our staff is available to consult with faculty and administrators of school districts, with community arts organizations or historical societies, and with corporate, business or civic leaders about developing programs, curriculum materials, or grant requests about family and community traditions, history, arts, and cultural or heritage tourism. For major activities, contractual arrangements can be negotiated.