For some time now I have been working on a Folklorist's project for the Colorado Council on the Arts called, "The Ties That Bind". The project is getting very close to completion. You can get a preview of it at dogstar.org/ties.

The site brings folk arts to the classroom and is an update of a project started in the 1980's

The site was originally conceived to be a static site--very simple and straight forward. Through a series of twists and turns it has become deceptively more complicated that how it looks on the surface.

The site was put together using Drupal utilizing book and page for the most part. Four audio tapes were digitized using Audacity. In mid-sampling of some pretty old tapes--they were produced in the 1980's, my tape deck broke. I ended up getting a new deck from the local thrift shop for a little over $5. The cables to get it to connect to my iMac were more expensive! All told, seventy tracks were ripped as MP3s. A video, produced by the Colorado Council on the Arts, was digitized from an old VHS tape using a ReplayTV and DVArchive. These were resampled to provide a small and large version of the offering.