Regional folk-arts program serving a nine-state area in the South. The Atlanta-based
Southern Arts Federation (SAF) established its folk-arts program in 1989 to serve the
traditional artists and arts presenters of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The program was the first to
be based at one of the seven regional arts organizations in the United States and was
funded initially by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts folk-arts program.
Building upon the work accomplished by state folk-arts programs, the SAF goals are to
create networks, provide leadership, and effect positive change in the folk-arts
communities of the South.
The first regional-arts service organization to be formed in the South was the Southern
States Arts League. The league was established in 1921 in Charleston, South Carolina, to
assist visual artists reach a wider regional audience. Exhibitions were sponsored by the
league in a number of Southern cities, the most successful being the 1935 exhibition
mounted in Nashville, which was attended by a reported 12,000 visitors. The Southern
States Arts League also sponsored an annual conference and published a monthly
newsletter in an effort to further arts education in the South and to help the public
develop a “sense of art values.” Due to internal conflicts and other factors, the league was
dissolved in 1950, leaving a void in regional-arts services for a period of twenty-five
years.
The Southern Arts Federation, incorporated in 1975 through the Southern Growth
Policies Board, was established to share, enrich, and preserve the diverse artistic
expression of its nine-state Southern region. The SAF is a nonprofit organization
supported by its nine member states’ arts agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts,
and corporate and foundation partners. From its inception, the SAF and its member-state
arts agencies have addressed the fundamental and advanced needs of the artists and arts
institutions that inhabit this region of rich cultural diversity and rapid cultural transition.
Recognizing the vast, underserved constituencies of traditional artists and arts
presenters in its region, the SAF convened a meeting of Southern folklorists in 1987 to
provide guidance on how the agency might best address the needs of Southern folk
artists. From this meeting, a proposal was developed and submitted to the National
Endowment for the Arts folk-arts program to establish the position of regional folk-arts
coordinator. The SAF folk-arts program works closely with Southern state folk-arts
programs to bring local and state initiatives into a regional network. The program
disseminates information, creates opportunities to collaborate across state lines, provides
performing and visual-arts touring programs, artist fellowships, and educational
programs, produces publications and media products, and lends technical assistance to
locally-based folk-arts projects in the region.
Peggy A.Bulger