Kentucky Crafts Encyclopedia

The KENTUCKY CRAFTS ENCYCLOPEDIA (KCE) is a portal to information about Kentucky craft makers, practices, craft history, craft institutions, and places that exhibit or sell craft products.  Besides providing a basic overview of the topic, the site's many links direct visitors to other websites or to places that supply more extensive information. The site presents most of its content from the home page in alphabetical order, but also offers an index, a timeline, a map, and a calendar of events. 

 

Viewers are encouraged to provide additional information and suggestions about Kentucky crafts producers, organizations, fairs/shows/exhibits, museums, bibliographic references, schools and more.  CONTACT

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ORIGINS:

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The KCE site is developed by Thomas A. Adler, chair of the KCHEA Kentucky Crafts Encyclopedia Committee. He is a lifelong bluegrass banjo player who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He earned his Ph.D. in Folklore studies at Indiana University.  While still in graduate school, he participated in several team fieldwork survey projects for the Library of Congress.

 

Along with three other academic folklorists, Adler came to Lexington in the early 1980s to join the faculty of the University of Kentucky in the English Department.  Eventually leaving the University, he held a series of subsequent positions: as a computer publishing support specialist, a database manager, a digital video creator, and as the author of a book-length history of the rural country music park in Bean Blossom, Indiana formerly owned by the “Father of Blue Grass” Bill Monroe.

  

Adler served as the first Executive Director of the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, and, prior to his retirement in 2013, provided I.T. Support to the University of Kentucky’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine.  

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His longstanding interest in folklore and folklife topics has led to work and publications on bluegrass music, foodways traditions, folk art, and to his involvement with the Kentucky Craft History and Education Association.