The Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University has a full spring lineup, including a storytelling concert, a mending workshop, and a dulcimer jam.
The West Virginia Storytelling Guild will usher in spring with five tellers on Friday, April 10, at 7 p.m. Featured tellers include Ilene Evans, Linda Durrett, Larry Jent, Jo Ann Dadisman, and Francene Kirk. Admission is free and all are welcome.
“We’re always thrilled to host the Guild and see what creativity and energy they bring,” said Folklife Center Director Dr. Lydia Warren. “They do a wonderful job carrying on a community-based tradition, and this concert will be a nice way to say goodbye to winter!”
On Monday, April 20, at 5 p.m., the Folklife Center will host a Mending Workshop. Costume expert Sherry Harper-McCombs will show archival examples of historical mending techniques and demonstrate stitches used in traditional mending, along with weaving for darning. Attendees will make a sampler using sashiko-style mending. The workshop is free but registration is required at fairmontstate.edu/folklife.
Harper-McCombs is Professor Emerita of Theatre at Dickinson College and is presenting as part of the Folklife Center’s Accessing the Archives initiative, which provides scholars with funding to research and teach at the center.
“Somewhere post WWII, there was a shift from mending and saving what you had was patriotic and the thing to do to an attitude that new is better,” Harper-McCombs said. “We currently seem to be shifting away from that model to a model where saving our clothes by mending is more sustainable. This focus on sustainability has made mending both more popular and more visible.”
The Wartz ‘n All Dulcimer Jam returns on Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a lunchtime break. All are welcome to jam, try their hand at playing on a cardboard dulcimer provided by the Folklife Center, or simply watch and listen. Musician Rob Lackey brought the longstanding event to the Folklife Center before his passing in 2023; today Bob Snyder and Jim Fawcett keep the event going to honor Lackey’s legacy.
In addition to these special events, the Folklife Center hosts monthly recurring events open to the public, including an acoustic Old Time music jam on the last Friday of every month at 6:30 p.m. and a Craft Club on the last Wednesday of every month from 12:30 to 2 p.m.
For more information, email wvfolklife@fairmontstate.edu or call 301-367-4286.
