Apprenticeships

Past Apprenticeship Projects:

Artisanal Fishing Lures

Bomba

Boot Making

Cartonería

Colombian Bullerengue Music & Dance

Conjunto Accordion

Flamenco

Hindustani Sitar

Indian Classical Dance

Indigenous Storytelling

Polka Accordion

Qawwali

Texan Swing Guitar

Trail Riding

Texas Folklife Apprenticeship Program Map
Alex Meixner (Mentor), Levi Burroughs (Apprentice) Photo by Mariela Freire

Keeping Texas’s living traditions alive.

Each year, Texas Folklife supports art forms that might otherwise be lost—preserving and celebrating the cultural richness of communities across Texas. Whether a tradition is uniquely Texan or carried here through diaspora from cultures around the world, we support it, so long as it’s practiced in Texas.

The program awards honorariums to roughly eight master artists each year, giving them the means to offer one-on-one training in an artistic, cultural, or heritage practice to a dedicated apprentice over six to eight months.

By deepening mentors’ mastery, broadening apprentices’ skills, and passing knowledge within and between communities, the Apprenticeship Program carries Texas’s folk and traditional arts into the next generation.

Since the 1987 Launch

403 artist mentors & apprentices supported

98 cities & towns represented

70+ traditional art forms championed

Among them, 3 NEA National Heritage Fellows and 1 Grammy Award winner.

Since the 2015 Re-launch

$135K+ awarded directly to artists

40,000+ members of the public reached

This program is funded in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts.

2026 Apprenticeship Program Cohort

Mexican Cartonería Sculpture
Waco
Mentor: Rocio Ramirez-Landoll
Apprentice: Zazil Pacheco

German Texan Polka Accordion
New Braunfels
Mentor: Alex Meixner
Apprentice: Levi Burroughs

Colombian Bullerengue Music & Dance
Austin
Mentor: Beatriz Lopez
Apprentice: Paola Ward

Spanish Flamenco Dance
San Antonio / RGV
Mentor: Genevieve Obregón
Apprentice: Matthew Guerra

Afro–Puerto Rican Bomba
Austin
Mentor: George Rosario Demers
Apprentice: Karolina Arocho González

Texas Fiddle
Burleson
Mentor: Joey McKenzie
Apprentice: Michael Tarpley

Conjunto Accordion
Los Fresnos
Mentor: Juan Longoria
Apprentice: Ulises Ulloa

For more information, please contact:
Jeannelle Ramirez at JRamirez@texasfolklife.org

or Texas Folklife at (512) 441-9255

This program is made possible in part by the board and members of Texas Folklife and from a State Partnership award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art, in partnership with the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Eligibility

  • Apprentices must live in Texas.
  • Artist mentors may live in Texas or a neighboring state: Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Arkansas.
  • No age requirements for apprentices or artist mentors.
  • Previous participants: If you participated in the 2025 Texas Folklife Apprenticeship Program, you must wait one year before applying again.

What the program does not fund

  • Re-creations of historic artifacts or staged productions that attempt to reenact lifestyles from the distant past
  • Contemporary, individual studio art projects
  • Ongoing classes in a classroom setting (mentor as instructor for a group)
  • International apprenticeships

Review criteria

Artistic Quality and Commitment (60 points)

  • Artistic strength of the mentor’s work, based on the standards of the traditional community
  • Apprentice’s established skill and demonstrated commitment

Feasibility (15 points)

  • Clear and achievable work plan
  • Appropriate budget
  • Strong potential for a successful mentor-apprentice collaboration

Impact (25 points)

  • Role and significance of the tradition in community life
  • Potential impact on sustaining the tradition over time

Skill level and program focus

Apprentices should have some experience in the tradition and be ready to deepen their skills through focused, hands-on learning. This program supports skill-building and continuity of living traditions through mentorship.

Financial requirements

  1. If selected, participants must submit:
  2. A W-9 tax form

The program will NOT fund:

Recreations of historic artifacts or staged productions of village folk traditions that attempt to reenact lifestyles from the distant past
Contemporary and individual studio art projects
Ongoing classes where an artist mentor instructs in a classroom situation
International apprenticeships

Payment Process

Awards will be distributed over three payments: the first at the signing of contracts, the second upon completion of the Program Coordinator’s meeting with the artist team and documentation of the apprenticeship, and the third upon submission of the final report to Texas Folklife following the public presentation.