Friendly Competitors Approach the Court

Can an artifact that includes a Styrofoam penguin, a blown glass ship, watch parts, and a plastic-coated wire flower be called “folk art”? Yes, when it represents the work skills and innovative interpretation of participants from the Massachusetts program of the 1988 Folklife Festival joining forces to create a bocce tournament award.

THE STORY –
MAKER
Louis Carpentier, Donato BiBona, Robert DiGiacomo, Peter Erickson, Archie Nahman, Paul Piquette
LOCATION
Massachusetts, U.S.A.
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
1988 Ingenuity and Tradition: The Common Wealth of Massachusetts

MATERIALS
Styrofoam, plastic, metal, glass, paint
MEASUREMENTS
9” H x 12” L x 4” D
CATALOG NUMBER
MCC 228. Gift of makers

As a newly minted Festival program curator, I had to overcome a huge learning curve in figuring out how to represent a whole state with approximately one hundred people on the National Mall. With the help of an advisory group, we decided to focus on relatively few Massachusetts communities (ethnic, regional, occupational) as a way to give a rich, if selective, view of the state.

Including Italians was a must; they make up the second largest ethnic group in the state. And where Italians live, so do bocce courts and players. The game is easy to learn, and building a court, while daunting, was not impossible on the Mall. When the Festival opened, it quickly became a center of attention for participants and visitors alike. A friendly competition arose between staff and participants, and a tournament was born.

A tournament needs an award, and who better to make it than the Festival participants working in “industrial crafts”? Their skills in scientific glass blowing, watch making, machine-tooling, and even computer building and repair combined to create this truly unique trophy. It was presented to the winning team who then presented it to Richard Kurin (far right in the photograph below), who would go on to become our director, as a reminder of the “hard-earned success” of the programs.

For me, the award is a metaphor for the Massachusetts program itself, and my fond memories of the first program I curated. From the makers of the award, I learned how a theme starts as an abstract idea and then plays out on the Mall; in this case how innovation and tradition work in real life. The participants who crafted the award brought their occupational skills together to craft something whimsical but with amazing depth: old, new, ingenious, playful, and heartfelt. It also reflects the skills they had honed over many years of work in a way they never had before, with fellow Massachusetts residents they had just met. The award tells a story of cooperation, pride, respect, friendship, and humor. A curator could not have asked for a better artifact as a reminder of her first Festival.

—Betty Belanus, program curator