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In South Dakota, Apprenticeships Give Traditional Arts a Bright Future

by Jennifer Vosters

A digital collage of photos showing an artist standing by their hand-painted bowl on display with award ribbons, a person painting a bowl, and a close up of a rosemaling pattern
Photo Credit: Tonya Mandy and Amber Zora
For hundreds of years, Norwegian decorative painters have painted intricate designs—often featuring flowers—on doors, ceilings, trunks, bowls, chairs, and more. “Everything we do comes from the old,” says rosemaling artist Tonya Mandy. “You really have to learn the root of everything and understand the foundation.”

Apprenticeships have shaped Tonya Mandy’s path as a traditional arts practitioner and mentor, thanks to a program that ensures centuries-old craft finds new learners.

For Tonya Mandy, there’s a science to the art of rosemaling.

“I’m a chemical-engineer-turned-rosemaling-artist. My mentor was a surgical tech in an emergency room,” says the Rapid City, South Dakota, native. “There’s this part of coming from a technical background [that] makes you more apt to do the work and research and approach it in a methodical way.”

A hand painted bowl with intricate floral designs
Photo Credit: Tonya Mandy
Mentoring in the apprentice program requires immense preparation, says Tonya Mandy, but is also deeply rewarding. “I wanted to give back because I knew how impactful it was for me,” she says. “That tradition was passed down.”

Rosemaling—Norwegian decorative painting—requires a surgical level of precision. Since the 1700s, generations of rose painters have kept the practice blooming in Norway and the United States. Through the South Dakota Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Mandy has played a key role in passing the brush . . . as an apprentice, and as a mentor.

Despite only starting in 2014, Mandy has risen to acclaim in the rosemaling community. A major milestone was studying with award-winning artist Judith Kjenstad through the apprenticeship program in 2018.

“I was a decent painter before that, but when I started painting with Judith, I almost relearned how to paint from the beginning,” says Mandy. “She’s a freehand painter, painting directly from old pieces, using old-style materials. Almost no one else paints like that.”

The program offers grants for South Dakota folk artists and culture bearers to seek a mentor or take apprentices, ensuring a vibrant traditional arts ecosystem in the state. Mandy was drawn to the rigor and tradition in Kjenstad’s work, which had earned her the rare Gold Medal at the National Norwegian-American Folk Art Exhibition.

During her apprenticeship, Mandy visited Kjenstad four times in Minneapolis, Minnesota, painting and absorbing as much instruction as possible before returning to Rapid City with homework. Between sessions, she emailed Kjenstad pictures when she got stuck and got feedback over the phone.

“That’s really what it is: access to someone that can give you critique,” says Mandy. “That’s what an apprenticeship gets you that no amount of YouTube videos or classes, nothing on Zoom, gets you anything close to.”

In 2024, Mandy earned her own Gold Medal. “That’s Judith’s success too,” she emphasizes. “It was my work, but none of that would have happened without the apprenticeship.”

Mandy has now mentored through the same program twice, most recently to artist Amber Zora in 2024-2025. Zora, who like Mandy has Norwegian heritage, was drawn to rosemaling because it reminded her of her grandparents.

A person painting on a flat unfired pottery piece
Photo Credit: Amber Zora
“What struck me most about Tonya as a teacher is the depth of her study of early practitioners. She is truly a subject matter expert, and she attributes much of her knowledge to her mentor, Judith,” says Amber Zora, who apprenticed with Tonya Mandy.
Two pieces of unfired pottery pieces resting on a table as artists paint on them.
Photo Credit: Amber Zora
After beginning her apprenticeship with Tonya Mandy, Amber Zora visited a museum in Norway and “was able to really see the rosemaling patterns and recognize distinctions between regional styles in a way I couldn’t before,” she says.
A hand painted skateboard displayed on a white pedestal
Photo Credit: Vesterheim Museum
Mandy painted this skateboard based on a panel by Knut Luraas, featured in the Hallingdal Museum in Nesbyen, Norway. The skateboard was purchased by Vesterheim Museum & Folk School and is now in their collection. “There is a small nod to skater culture in it as well,” says Tonya Mandy.
A person standing next to a hand painted bowl displayed on a pedestal with purple ribbons of recognition.
Photo Credit: Tonya Mandy
Artist Tonya Mandy with her award-winning work at Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, Iowa.
A hand painted decorative wooden box
Photo Credit: Tonya Mandy
Tonya Mandy and her mentor Judith Kjenstad paint almost exclusively on handmade wooden items like hand-turned bowls and boxes made by Midwest artisans. But the designs themselves are all very old, which is a rare trait. “I think that the emphasis of painting directly from old pieces is really important,” says Mandy. “It is what sets things apart from most other expressions of rosemaling.”

“As an artist, I initially thought this would be something I could pick up easily. But the process is much more challenging than I expected,” says Zora. “The biggest challenge was allowing myself to be bad at it…but Tonya was very supportive about teaching me while also letting me know when it wasn’t quite right.”

Only a small number of rose painters worldwide practice painting in old ways, on traditional surfaces, directly from old pieces. For Mandy, the tradition is the point, the driving force behind each brushstroke.

“I think that preserving rosemaling sometimes has a very heavy weight to it,” she says. “If you don’t have people that paint in old ways, from old pieces, and keep that going, who teaches the next generation?”