Heritage Spotlight

In the Heritage Area, we welcome you to visit, talk, and interact with the artists as they demonstrate or exhibit their artwork. Be sure to stop in at the Seminar tent nearby to hear more in-depth interviews and conversations with several of our Heritage Area artists, as well as roundtable discussions and reminiscences from artists and honorees of this year’s festival.
The 45th Annual New Jersey Folk Festival celebrates the best of our last five festivals, and in the Heritage Area and Seminar Tent, we are spotlighting artists representing themes of Turkish Traditions, Native Americans of New Jersey, and Maritime Traditions. This year’s festival also coincides with Rutgers’ centennial celebrations of Paul Robeson. In honor of African American folk arts, we have invited African American storyteller Yvonne Cesear and quilter Cynthelia Cephas. Representing the arts of Turkey, Ylvia Asal and Zeynep Yurderi present Oya, lace needle weaving. Ms. Asal is a master artist who is passing on her tradition to Ms. Yurderi. To support this tradition, they have been awarded a Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. We are also pleased in to welcome Ms. Dilek Demirors as an artist in residence alongside Ms. Asal at the Livingston Student Center during the week leading up to the Festival. Ms. Demirors demonstrates the Turkish Art of Ebru.

We are also happy to welcome back several of the tribal leaders from New Jersey’s Native American communities. Trinity Norwood will demonstrate corn husk doll and bone jewelry making, and will accept an award in honor of her father, Pastor John Norwood, the principal judge for the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation. American Studies professor and specialist in Native American studies Dr. Jameson Sweet will lead a roundtable discussion with Vincent Mann, Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Nation and Chief Mark Gould, chief of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation.

Finally, we welcome back audience favorites Mary May, South Jersey basket maker, Barry Griffiths, Duck Decoy Carver and Olga Kobryn Ukrainian
Pysanky artist. The South Jersey Spinners and Weavers will demonstrate textile arts. Read more about our individual artists and take a moment to watch them at work.

Heritage Exhibitors

Artist in Residence

Ylvia Asal

Ylvia Asal was born in the Black Sea area of Turkey. Her formative education was followed by an intensive arts program in Istanbul, focusing on technique and design, along with accounting. Her greatest passion is Turkish Oya, which is a centuries old technique of creating hand-made lace. The skills required to master this art have been handed down from generation to generation. A decade ago, Ylvia began creating one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art in this age old tradition. The result is a beautiful collection celebrating this unique fusion which has culminated in her own business, Anatolia Art and Crafts Studio.

Dilek Demirors

Dilek Demirors is an Ebru (The Turkish Art of Marbling) artist. Ebru is the art of creating colorful patterns by sprinkling and brushing color pigments on a pan of oily water and then transforming this pattern to paper. She took Ebru lessons from famous Ebru artists in Istanbul. She has been working as a professional Ebru artist for 6 years. She joined many festivals and activities. She has several courses and workshops to teach Ebru. Paper marbling, widely practiced in Turkey, is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric. Through several centuries, people have applied marbled materials to a variety of surfaces. It is often employed as a writing surface for calligraphy, and especially book covers and endpapers in bookbinding and stationery. Part of its appeal is that each print is a unique monotype. There are several methods for making marbled papers. A shallow tray is filled with water, and various kinds of ink or paint colors are carefully applied to the surface with an ink brush. Various additives or surfactant chemicals are used to help float the colors. A drop of “negative” color made of plain water with the addition of surfactant is used to drive the drop of color into a ring. The process is repeated until the surface of the water is covered with concentric rings. The floating colors are then carefully manipulated either by blowing on them directly or through a straw, fanning the colors, or carefully using a human hair to stir the colors.

Zeynep Yurderi

Zeynep Yurderi is a Turkish native and apprentice to Master Ylvia Asal. She came to the USA in 1997 right after graduating high school to pursue a business education. After working as a director for a pharmaceutical marketing company, she hung up her business suits to pursue her passion of designing fashions. Zeynep’s work aims to embody the ancient designs of Central Asia while modernizing them to create tomorrow’s fashions. She admires the level of detail in the designs of the ancient Ottoman Empire and the Central Asian arts and works to incorporate them into modern day fashions through her ZEYZANI line.

Mary May

Based in Forked River, NJ, Mary May is a specialist in white oak basketry and other basket-making traditions of South Jersey who has been making baskets for over 20 years. Ms. May’s baskets are both strong enough to be used for their historical purposes (carrying berries, fish, eels, etc.) and to be put on display, as they have been at Tuckerton Seaport and the New Jersey State Museum. Ms. May has also demonstrated her craft at New Jersey Forestry Interpretive Center and the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, as well as on television programs such as Ebru TV’s “Blank Canvas.” In an effort to preserve and promote white oak and other traditional forms of basket-making, Ms. May teaches workshops regularly at the Jersey Shore Folklife Center, where she serves on the advisory board. Her extensive research and mastery of her craft landed her a 2016 Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant and title of Master Artist of White Oak Basketry from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Cyntehlia Cephas

Cynthelia Cephas - more commonly known as Cindy - developed a love for quilting during her formative years. She often watched her aunt construct intricate works of art by hand, using just scraps of fabric, a needle, and thread. Her interest was ignited when she became a member of the Nubian Heritage Quilters Guild of New Jersey and her hobby developed into a small business, C.C. Quilts. She is best known for made-to-order family picture quilts, which feature transposed photographs stitched onto the fabric. Her work has been displayed at various quilt shows and art galleries in New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia. Her quilts have even found her way to famous celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Aretha Franklin.

Olga Kobryn

Olga Kobryn has been decorating Ukrainian Easter eggs, the ancient art of pysanky, since she was ten years old. This Easter tradition, with its pagan origins dating back to before 3000 B.C., has been handed down through the generations. Her aunt who emigrated from Ukraine to America in the early 1900’s taught her this ancient art and traditional Ukrainian cross-stitch embroidery. Since those early years, Olga has shared her love for these Ukrainian traditions, by teaching her family, friends, and students, enabling her to share her cultural legacy. She has held annual Pysanky Workshops since 1999, participates in ethnic festivals, presents and conducts pysanky and embroidery workshops in various venues, and for many years has mentored the Ukrainian Easter Egg Club at the middle school where she taught.

Trinity Norwood

Trinity Norwood is a citizen of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indian Nation in South Jersey. She serves her people as an adviser to the tribal youth group as well as the head coordinator for the Tribal Royalty program. Upon graduation from college, she decided to take her love for sharing her culture and create the nonprofit organization, Native New Jersey. Native New Jersey a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading awareness, dispelling stereotypes and misconceptions about Native people, and educating both students and teachers alike about Native history, culture, and current events. 

Barry Griffith

The New Jersey Decoy Collectors Association (NJDCA) has recognized his work. The President of that organization, Jaim Lloyd, said, “Barry Griffiths joins a long line of outstanding New Jersey decoy carvers and collectors that our association has honored each year over the past 25 years. Not only does Mr. Griffith’s pedigree of blue ribbons distinguish him, but he is one of our carvers and collectors that can trace his love of decoys to a long line of ancestral baymen and boat builders.”

South Jersey Guild of Spinners and Weaver

The South Jersey Guild of Spinners & Handweavers was formed in 1975 to promote fine craftsmanship and excellence in the fiber arts and to provide its members with educational opportunities in pursuit of these goals. Through guest speakers and study groups we explore the many applications of spinning, dyeing, and handweaving, including ethnic, historical and contemporary designs, basketry, and other fiber arts. The Guild continues to promote excellence in the fiber arts, fosters the exchange of ideas, provides continuing educational opportunities to its members in pursuit of these goals, and educates the community about fiber arts.