Exhibit honors Maine’s National Heritage Award winners

    AUGUSTA — The Maine Arts Commission is currently honoring Maine’s five National Heritage Fellowship recipients with a display in the Governor’s Gallery on the second floor of the Capitol Building in Augusta. Images and facts about the recipients are viewable on weekdays until the end of June.
    The National Heritage Fellowship program, administered by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The program provides grants of $25,000 to master folk and traditional artists in recognition of artistic excellence and in an effort to preserve the nation’s diverse cultural heritage. Thus far this successful program has supported distinguished tradition bearers like Kentucky bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, a Grammy award winner considered one of the originators of bluegrass music; Grammy award winner and North Carolina bluegrass artist, Doc Watson, an icon of the ‘60s folk revival; and Mississippi blues artist B.B. King, also a Grammy award winner.
    Among the distinguished list of tradition bearers are five Maine artists who have been honored by the NEA as National Heritage Fellows. As part of the programs 25th anniversary the Maine Arts Commission is delighted to honor all five of these recipients within the Governor’s Gallery.
    Winners include Simon St. Pierre, a fiddler from Smyrna.
    Simon St. Pierre was born in Ste Benoit, Quebec, just north of Fort Kent in 1930. He grew up listening to his father and his brother playing tunes. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on a fiddle, and begged his brother, who was reluctant to share. Finally, when he was 14 years old, he talked his brother into a swap, and got his first fiddle.
    “It wasn’t great, but it was good enough to learn,” said St. Pierre.
    In 1955 St. Pierre moved from Quebec to Maine where he regularly played for square dances and festivals. He was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship in 1983
    Other award winners include: Ralph Stanley, a boatbuilder from Southwest Harbor; Sister R. Mildred Barker a singer from Sabbathday Lake; Mary Gabriel a Passamaquoddy basketmaker from Princeton and Clara Keezer, also Passamaquoddy basketmaker from Pleasant Point.
    The deadline for nominations is Oct. 1. Nominations can be made by the general public. For more information about the National Heritage Awards and how to make nominations, go to http://www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/nomination.html, or contact Keith Ludden at 287-2713, keith.ludden@maine.gov.