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FOLKLIFE IN FOCUS – What is Material Culture

Welcome to the Follow the Folklorist blog! Founded by Rebecca Snetlesaar and currently led by Nevada State Folklorist Brad McMullen, our blog is dedicated to exploring the rich tapestry of cultures, traditions, and celebrations that make Nevada such a vibrant state. Through our two main topics, Folklife in Focus and Notes from the Field, Brad will share his unique insights and experiences, providing a captivating glimpse into the diverse and fascinating world of Nevada folk traditions. Join us on this exciting journey as we delve into the stories, customs, and heritage that shape our state’s identity. Get ready to be inspired and amazed! 

What is Material Culture?

Just like any way of categorizing the arts, the field of folk and traditional arts has different ways of subcategorizing artistic genres. If you apply for one of the Nevada Arts Council’s Folklife grants, one of the questions is “What is the artistic discipline of the project?” with your options being:  

  • Material Culture: includes traditional hand-crafted objects, decorative arts, ceremonial costume  
  • Oral Traditions/Performing Arts: includes music, dance, ritual/celebration, and verbal art  

Many traditions have elements of both, so we don’t force you to pick just one! But I still want to take some time this month to talk about material culture and just want traditions can fall under that umbrella.  

Put simply, material culture is a traditional art form that results in a tangible object. The easy examples of this are things we traditionally think of as folk arts – everything from basket weaving, embroidery, cowboy gear, ceramics, quilts, jewelry and other useful tools and art objects. Clothes are another example of material culture, whether they are clothes you wear for special occasions, like regalia for Powwow or a Saint Lucia crown; specific clothes you might need regularly in your line of work, like a cowboy’s chaps; or just the everyday things you wear that were made using traditional methods, like handknit sweater or wooden clogs.  

However, material culture goes beyond these examples, which might be the first to mind. Traditional foodways are another example of material culture. Many cultures have specific foods you eat to mark the New Year and bring luck, as well as other foods with cultural importance and just foods specific to them. All of these are an equally important part of their traditions as any piece of clothing or a useful tool or decorative object, even if they don’t last beyond a meal.  

On the other hand, some examples of material culture can persist for decades, centuries, and even millennia. There are traditional styles of architecture and buildings specific to the cultures and landscapes that surround them. Plenty of ranch buildings throughout rural Nevada are built from materials like railroad ties, chicken wire, and even empty bottles, making use of whatever was on hand as shelter from the elements. Nevada’s indigenous people have traditional ways of building structures based on the materials found in our landscape. All the various cultures that have moved to Nevada brought materials, knowledge, and a sense of aesthetics with them when they arrived that have shaped buildings and landmarks throughout our state.  

One great example of this is with our state element – neon. While the first thing that might come to mind is the boneyard of retired signs at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, neon signage can still be found all over Nevada, marking casinos, stores, hotels, restaurants, brothels, and everything in between. And while neon signage might not be exclusive to Nevada, one could argue that it has reached a level of artistry and cultural significance here that isn’t matched anywhere else in the world. That level of cultural significance and the way the art of creating and caring for neon signs is treated here in the Silver State makes neon signs something culturally significant to all of us as Nevadans, regardless of what other cultural groups we might belong to, making it a tradition shared by all of us.  

There are all sorts of traditions associated with various pieces of material culture. For example, a group of school kids playing MASH or using a cootie catcher to see if their crush likes them back is making material culture in order to complement oral traditions belonging to their folk group, and that’s far from the only example of material culture connecting over to less tangible forms of folk art. To return to the holiday dinner analogy from my last post, the food on the table is material culture, as are the table settings, any decorations people made, and so on. It’s the stuff all around us.  

And that’s where we’ll leave it this month! I’d love to hear if you create anything from your culture or about people in your community who do good work! Feel free to reach out to me at bmcmullen@nevadaculture.org and share the material traditions happening in your community!  let me know! And if you’re looking to support the traditions you practice, consider applying for the Nevada Arts Council’s Folklife Artist Grant and Folklife Community Grant!


Visit the Nevada Folklife Archives on Flickr

Folklorists working for the Nevada Arts Council have been documenting folklife and folk arts in Nevada since 1986. After completing an ambitious 10-year project to digitize 22,823 color slides recorded between 1986 and 2005.

We’ve begun to share these images in photo albums on the Nevada Folklife Archives’ Flickr page, along with more recent photography completed over the past 15 years.

Are you conducting a project and looking for photographs? We’ll happily check the archives and post new albums for your viewing pleasure.

In 2020 Monica Ortiz received a Folklife Artist Grant to share her knowledge of how to make pasteles.