By Lauren Huneycutt

“She ran her leg up my body and whispered something ever so slightly in my ear,” said Arnold Carbone, storyteller for the latest The Folk and The Lore Inc. event, Love Lust and Adoration.  “I couldn’t quite hear her, but I thought it must be something romantic, ‘what did you say?’  Turns out she wanted a mayonnaise and jelly sandwich.”

Truly Scary Reno, Farm Fork Family and Love Lust and Adoration are all themes that have been used thus far for the monthly live story-telling events of The Folk and The Lore Inc.  Carbone is one of many volunteer storytellers who have participated in the events. The Folk and The Lore is a new, aspiring non-profit with an artistic goal.

“I loved dissecting the term folklore,” said Jessica LeMay, director and founder of the company.  “It’s catchy, but also truly describes what we are all about: the people and the stories.”

LeMay is a native of Reno, Nevada.  After her graduation from McQueen High School, she attended Montana State University to study filmmaking and photography.  LeMay’s true passion is in documentaries, but the Montana film program focused heavily on fictional work.  So after learning all the basics of filmmaking, LeMay dropped the film portion of her studies and graduated with a degree in photography.

The Folk and the Lore launched in October of 2013.  Before that LeMay solely focused on her for-profit businesses, Jessi LeMay Photography, Heirloom Films and Yea Big Films.

“Wedding photos are my bread and butter,” LeMay said.  “They are what really pay the bills and I’ve been doing that for eight years.”

LeMay designed Heirloom Films specifically for people to be able to document their own histories and their family stories in a short documentary format.

“Some people hire me because they have a huge anniversary and others hire me because they don’t have much time to live,” LeMay said.  “A lot of times I will do those ones for free.  When people are dying and want their stories documented for their families, I am happy to help with that.”

LeMay designed Yea Big Films specifically to document the first year of a child’s life.  The films begin with the pregnancy and conclude after delivery of the baby.

“Yea Big is really fun,” LeMay said.  “I’ve been in the delivery room for a lot of the babies being born and these are just adorable mini films.”

In the midst of running three businesses and being a single mother, LeMay was inspired to take on another endeavor, The Folk and the Lore.

“In the process of editing wedding photos you have a lot of mind numbingly boring time looking through thousands of photos,” LeMay said.  “To fill that time I listen to podcasts.  After doing this for years I started to think about how Reno doesn’t have anything like this.  There is a story-telling trend growing across the country, but it hasn’t made it to Reno yet, so I decided why not start it here and with my artistic background, it is totally doable.”

Thus The Folk and The Lore was born.  There is an event every month with a different theme of LeMay’s choosing.  Each event consists of five or so live storytellers, who share real pieces of their lives relevant to the theme, and LeMay puts together multiple short documentaries to play in-between the volunteer story tellers.  The Folk and The Lore has been extremely successful so far with its monthly events.

With the help of sponsors and paying out of her own pocket, LeMay has high hopes for the success of The Folk and The Lore and bringing more art to the community.  LeMay’s goal is to document the people of Reno and archive their stories to be shared long after the people have gone.

“Each event has gotten bigger than the one before,” LeMay said.  “I have this belief that Reno truly has the most interesting people with the most interesting stories and the more events we have, the more that people get involved.  It has been great and I am so excited to watch it grow.”

Lauren Huneycutt can be reached at news@http://archive.archive.nevadasagebrush.com.