FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Arts Council recently added 25 artists to the Kentucky Crafted program. Kentucky Crafted is an adjudicated arts marketing assistance program that provides visual and craft artists with arts business training, networking, sales, exhibits and promotional opportunities.
One of the artists, Mame Ndao, is a Louisville resident originally from Senegal in western Africa. Ndao began making baskets very early in her life.
“You start when you’re four or five years old,” she said. “I learned from my grandparents. It was part of a daily routine. No one holds your hand. You learn by watching and doing.”
As a child learning how to create the unique baskets of her homeland, she didn’t consider it art.
“It was something you had to know how to do. It was a part of us.”
When Ndao immigrated to the United States and moved to Louisville 20 years ago, she said she left that part of her behind, but it caught up with her eight years ago when she resumed weaving the colorful African baskets she learned how to make as a child.
“I wanted to do something that connected back to the community, share a part of my culture,” Ndao said. “My life is split in two – half here in the U.S. and half in Senegal. Africa is my origin, but I love it here. I wanted the culture present here in the U.S. that would touch both my worlds.”
Inclusion in Kentucky Crafted also makes artists eligible to exhibit at The Kentucky Crafted Market, an annual showcase of the best in Kentucky visual art and craft, on March 9-10 at the Kentucky Horse Park’s Alltech Arena.
Ndao said she is excited to be able to add the Kentucky Crafted brand to her artwork.
“I couldn’t believe it when I found out I’d gotten in. I called my whole family,” she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it every day.”
Artists who juried into Kentucky Crafted in the most recent round, listed by name, discipline and county, are:
- Dave Barker, wood, Jefferson County;
- Rachel Carter, jewelry, Wolfe County;
- Reyna T. Davis, jewelry, Lincoln County;
- Kim Loren Dixon, fiber, Fayette County;
- Ryan J. Durbin, ceramics, Campbell County;
- Corrie R. Dyer, graphics, Laurel County;
- Darryl W. Halbrooks, mixed media, Madison County;
- Nancy Hall, painting, Fayette County;
- Sean Patrick Hill, photography, Jefferson County;
- Lori Lea Janevicius, painting, Fayette County;
- Brandon M. Long, 3D mixed media, Garrard County;
- Benjamin A. Maddox, 3D mixed media, Fayette County;
- Martin Matisoff, fiber, Franklin County;
- Laura Green McGee, fiber, Warren County;
- David Leland Napier, wood, Fayette
- Mame B. Ndao, baskets, Jefferson County;
- Kirsten P. O’Daniel, furniture, Washington County;
- Marty Osbourn, painting, Jefferson County;
- Wesley Page, jewelry, Barren County;
- Jannette R. Parent, painting, Caldwell County;
- Charlotte Ann Pollock, painting, Jefferson County;
- Micah E. Sierp, leather, Fayette County;
- Nicholas M. Tudor, graphics and mixed media, Jessamine County;
- Katherine Updegraff White, painting, Lincoln County; and
- Billy Yarosh, photography, Fayette County.
For more information on Kentucky Crafted, contact Dave Blevins at [email protected] or 502-892-3120.
