Only a year ago, the Folk Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts joined with the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Folklife Programs to present fifteen outstanding American artists with the very first National Heritage Fellowships in the nation's history. These fellowships were signaled by a certificate of honor hailing each of the fifteen as "a Master Traditional Artist who has contributed to the shaping of our artistic traditions and to preserving the cultural diversity of the United States."

The event represented this nation's especial adaptation of the seminal Japanese concept of "living cultural treasures." In inaugurating such a program in the United States, some accommodation was necessary to encompass the enormous range of artistic traditions that have entered this country during two hundred years of immigration. So rather than be exclusive we determined to revel in these big numbers, to rejoice in their great variety.