One of over fifty state programs around the country, the Missouri Folk Arts is a decades-long partnership between the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri. Two staff folklorists coordinate a range of projects, including the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Folk Arts Grants, and the Show Me Folk initiative to identify, do
cument, and share stories of tradition bearers in Missouri. MFAP follows the lead of the National Endowment for the Arts for a key definition:
"The folk and traditional arts, which include crafts, dance, music, oral traditions, visual arts, and others, are those that are learned as part of the cultural life of a community whose members share a common ethnic heritage, cultural mores, language, religion, occupation, or geographic region. These traditions are shaped by the aesthetics and values of a shared culture and are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community through observation, conversation, and practice."
