Upper Peninsula Artist Application & Selection Process
The Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival planning committee invites traditional arts practitioners from throughout the Upper Peninsula and Upper Midwest representing a wide variety of cultural backgrounds to apply to present their work through demonstrations, workshops, or other educational activities. Represented artistic media must meet the criteria of traditional arts, defined as art forms or crafts that are learned in an informal environment, from artist to artist, rather than in an education institution.
Applications to gauge artist interest and eligibility will be accepted through Friday, June 12, 2026 and reviewed in late June by the Festival committee. From there, planning and coordination with artists will continue into the late summer. An official schedule of events will be made public by Friday, August 28, 2026. Thanks to the support of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, Michigan Arts & Culture Council, and regional organizations and agencies, artists can expect to receive compensation for their contributions to the Festival program.
Interested artists may apply by submitting an application at this link by Friday, June 12, 2026. Please note: this application is intended to gauge initial interest and by no means commits artists to presenting at the Festival; the Festival committee will follow up with artists following the application deadline for specific activity coordination.
For questions or additional information, please contact dtruckey@nmu.edu.
Artist Prospectus & Application
Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival
October 2-4, 2026
Marquette, MI
In effort to celebrate, share, and preserve traditional arts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a group of regional arts organizations present the inaugural Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival, October 2-4, 2026 in Marquette, Michigan.
The goal of this Festival is to feature traditional arts practitioners from throughout the U.P. and Upper Midwest from a variety of cultural backgrounds including our region’s Indigenous peoples and European descendants including the U.P.’s large Scandinavian and Nordic populations. The Festival, however, will be more than just a demonstration of artists’ work; it aims to offer learning opportunities for participants in an effort to increase interest, awareness, and appreciation of traditional arts.
The 2026 Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival is supported by the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the leading cultural and educational link between the U.S. and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, and the Michigan Arts & Culture Council.
What Are Traditional Arts?
Traditional folk arts are art forms or crafts that are learned in an informal environment, from artist to artist, rather than in an educational institution. Some examples would be part of a quilting bee, a folk song circle, or a father teaching a son to carve duck decoys. It is a creative tradition that is passed from one person, or a folk group, to another member of that folk group. A folk group could include cultural groups, such as Native American tribal members or members of an ethnic community such as Finns, Italians or French-Canadians. The folk group might also be a group of people who are not necessarily connected by race or ethnicity but share a common expression through the craft or artform, such as rag rug weavers or ski makers. There are many examples of what a traditional art could be but here are some other examples that are common in the Upper Peninsula: indigenous beading, canoe building, folk dance, chainsaw carving, felt making, weaving and yarn spinning, and spoon carving, just to name a handful.
About the Festival
The inaugural Upper Peninsula Folklife Festival will be held in Marquette, Michigan on Friday, October 2 – Sunday, October 4, 2026. The event will be headquartered at the Northern Center on the campus of Northern Michigan University, with additional community host venues to be determined as planning continues through the spring.
The two days will include demonstrations and performances with emphasis placed on instruction through workshops. The goal of the Festival is not only to present an opportunity for artists to present their work, but also for them to help keep traditional alive through passing on their knowledge and skills to another generation of artists. As such, some artists will lead actual workshops teaching their traditional skills to an audience. For instance, one workshop may feature lessons on how to play the rhythm bones by a master artist, and in another workshop, attendees will learn how to carve wooden spoons. Other artists may demonstrate their work in a convention hall but will not conduct specific workshops. Musical and dance artists will perform during the festival if they are not conducting a specific workshop.