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To order contact: email: Early Banjo & Minstrel Banjo Maker |
James Hartel made his first banjo in 1973 and has continued to play and make banjos ever since. During the last few years, he's been focusing on the emergence of the banjo in America and reproducing early minstrel banjos.
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James
Hartel with Greg Adams at the Smithsonian Museum
comparing necks from two Boucher banjos, August, 2006
photo by Bill Graham III
Greg Adam's Banjo Sightings Data Base
Jim has worked as a museum administrator, a visual artist, and teacher. He was executive director of the Carnegie Art Center , video curator for Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY, director of Artists' Gallery of Western New York, and the education curator of the Burchfield-Penny Art Center at Buffalo State College. In addition, he is internationally recognized as a sculptor and video producer. He has served as a grant panelist for public funding organizations including the New York State Council on the Arts and The New York Foundation for the Arts. And, he has received individual grants including a curatorial grant from the Folk Art Program of the New York State Council on the Arts for the "naive" painting exhibition, "Honest to Goodness Art," and a video production grant from NYSCA for the documentary movie "The Mechanical Pleasure Ride." which features the legacy of woodcarving in the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum of North Tonawanda, NY.
