Appalachian Arts Center

Figure 1, outside of arts center.

Appalachian Arts Center

Morgan Wallace Gilbert
University of Florida

Appalachian Arts Center

Abstract
Exploring art education through local Appalachian Art can mean workshops, storytelling,
traditional music, or just browsing a gallery. The Appalachian Arts Center in Wardell, VA
challenged the ideas of traditional art by pushing envelope of traditional techniques
into contemporary practices. The center offers a large retail space for artwork, an ever
changing gallery featuring the work of local artists, and space for classes and
workshops. Sustaining an arts center in a rural area can be difficult. By creating a
community of artists, students, and community members, the arts are alive and opening
to an area of the world where arts education never existed. The Appalachian Arts
Center is fostering a sense of growth and exploration for students, community, and
artists alike that will have a presence for years to come.

Keywords: Appalachian Art, community art, art education

Appalachian Arts Center

The Appalachian Arts Center provides an avenue to show, discuss, and sell the
works of Appalachian artists in an area where arts visibility is minimal. Started as a way
to highlight the work of rural artists, many of whom had never had the means of showing
or selling their work. In the nine years since it opened, the arts center has evolved into a

hub for discussion, collaboration, and education in the arts.

Figure 2.

The Appalachian Arts Center is an annex of the Southwest Virginia Community

College. Other than some work-study students and some small funding from the
college, the Appalachian Arts Center works independently to promote mountain culture
in craft, fine art, music, dance, storytelling and writing. It is not only a retail venue for

Appalachian Arts Center

local artists, it strives to be a community hub for discussion and exploration of the arts.
The Appalachian Arts Center has a retail space, a small gallery space with monthly
gallery showings, workshops, and more.
Located in rural Tazewell County, Virginia, Appalachian Arts Center was
established with the idea of creating a space where the unique mountain culture of the
region, as manifested in its arts: (craft, fine art, music, dance, storytelling & writing) is
celebrated, preserved and promoted. The Center provides a cultural hub where
members of the community can routinely gather for rotating exhibitions, presentations,
workshops and performances- and in so doing-gain insight into the creative process,

Appalachian Arts Center

connect with one another, share and carry forward traditions, and discover opportunity
through education.
(Appalachian Arts Center,
2015, para 1.)

Figure 3.

For my first visit, I wanted to start looking at the Appalachian Arts Center from an
observational perspective. Having worked with the center several times on exhibitions
and the annual quilt challenge, the need to take a non-biased look towards it was
especially important. The first thing that was important for me to assess was the location
of the center. Although located on a main local road, the arts center is located in a very
rural location, away from any major towns or cities. It is approximately a mile down the
road from the community college. The building is well marked and covered with vibrant

Appalachian Arts Center

barn quilt square paintings. It is definitely an eye catcher! Once inside, there is a large,
open retail space to your right and a gallery space to the left. There are several small
retail rooms to explore, seemingly around every corner. There are two back rooms, one
large and one small, which are being converted into spaces for classes and workshops.
Classes have been offered for children, teens, adults, and older adults. However, due to
staffing, only two part-time employees, scheduling multiple workshops is not possible.
The Appalachian Arts Center is seeking to hire an Education Coordinator position in the
near future. Currently, a few classes are being held with folding tables in the large retail
spaces. When speaking with the Executive Director, Sarah Romeo, she talked about
how the center is in a bit of a transition period between their initial purposes of
showcasing local artwork, into focusing more on facilitating the making of art. They have
started accepting bids on tearing down a few walls to create a room for workshops and
classes that is separated from the retail space (personal correspondence, September
25, 2015).
As I continued my research at the Appalachian Arts Center, I began processing
the ideas of what it takes to create a successful rural arts center. In large towns and
cities, there is a larger base of clientele to help sustain these successful centers. In rural
areas, it seems as though no matter how good the quality of artwork, interesting
workshops there are, or driven and willing leaders there are, it is just hard to sustain.
Many art centers feel like they need to have lots of options open (retail, gallery,
education, etc.) to draw in as many people as possible. However, is it more important to
do one specific thing really well; How do you get people in the door and intrigued in this
high quality art that would be flying off the shelves in the city; What does it take to

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sustain an arts center? In a world of constant budget cuts and dwindling grant
opportunities, arts centers must begin to fill a niche.
Unfortunately, there are no workshops or classes scheduled during my field
research period. A newly established Zentange workshop is meeting the last Saturday
of each month. There has also been success with lectures on Appalachian culture that
Romeo shared they want to do more of in the future. The director also offered an
opportunity for teaching workshops for myself or other local artists.
When reflecting on art education outside of the classroom, Romeo indicated,
Just having a gallery in a community like this is art education. There are people who
have never been to a gallery and theyre like, Oh, this is all made here? We have
people in our community who made these things? and they're really proud of it. We
had the Boy Scout group that came in, who voted on the quilt challenge. They had
never been in a gallery, and I feel like that is education in and of itself, having people
experience a location where artwork is on display and for sale, it adds a level of pride
and ownership to themselves and their community. Although it's not traditional
education, it is still education. (personal communication, September 25, 2015)
Fostering a community of artists and art appreciators seems to be solid approach
to growing the center in the directors eyes. In my opinion, creating these community
relationships are important, but marketing what this community is doing to the
traditionally non-arts oriented community is just as vital. As an art educator, it is
important for me to incorporate community events to show students that there are
people in the community interested in their artwork, and that being a part of an arts
community is important. Presenting opportunities for visitors to come to the arts center,

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reasons to visit more than once, and getting the word out when these events are going
on is an important avenue for the small town arts centers.
Romeo stated, when talking about important aspects of their work, Artists talks
and shows are important because people come in and hear an artist speaking from their
own perspective of why they have created something. It gives insight into something
they otherwise wouldnt have had an opportunity to understand. We have done
storytelling, performance, but often the performances we have done, Im thinking about
Andrea Belcher, she talked not only about her own life, but people from this area
migrating outside of this area, and there were some younger people in the audience
which had never really learned about that. She also did some work in the schools. She
talked about the Appalachian dialect and about self-esteem and people proud of where
you are from. I think that exposing people to a wider variety of perspectives, thats
education. (personal communication, September 25, 2015)
When I visited, there was also an exhibit of artworks in the gallery called Harvest
Moon. The showing was local artists of various mediums, interpreting their ideas on all
things connected with autumn. With the beginning of autumn, lunar eclipse, and blood
moon all coinciding, it seemed especially relevant to reflect on this time of transition
from a time of growth (summer) to a time of reflection (fall).

Appalachian Arts Center

Figure 4, main retail space.

The idea of preserving Appalachian culture through the arts, sharing it with the
community, and nurturing contemporary Appalachian artists are fundamental to the
work happening at the center. Preserving these traditional techniques for the sake of
them being around in the future is important, but providing a springboard for young or
emerging artists keeps the innovative nature of art alive.

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10

If schools and teachers assist students in internalizing a culture of peace

through activities designed to promote cooperation and intercultural understanding,
young people can apply this knowledge to many facets of their lives, contributing to the
construction of a better future for all (Bae, 2012, pg. 54.) Sharing local culture, as well
as that of world culture allows a communication about what is important about the
students own culture and how they want to preserve it.
Living in the Heart of Appalachia, I am constantly influenced by the traditional
craft legacy that is around me. When we think about craft, we think about the
connections to the traditional. Usually, the first thing that comes to mind is an old lady,
knitting or quilting. Why do we associate traditional with old? In Hallams (2000) case
study of the exhibit, Cultural Encounters," she explores how museums could explore
less biased ways of representing research on the culture of others. Appalachian
culture is one of the most stereotyped and misrepresented cultures, often associated
with poverty and prescription drug use. Publications such as the Foxfire book series
(n.d.) help bring awareness to traditional techniques, but there is very little research in
the progression of contemporary Appalachian artists.

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11

Figure 5, local artist work.

Traditionally, craft
techniques were learned through
a passing down amongst families or a traditional apprenticeship. With the dawning of
technology, we are becoming more independent in our learning. Dont know how to fix
something in your house? Look it up on YouTube instead of hiring someone or asking a
neighbor! As we are becoming more globally aware, are we opening up and taking in
this information, or using it to establish more biases and closed-mindedness? Teaching
traditional crafting techniques like quilting, weaving, pottery, and woodworking show
students techniques their ancestors used to provide for their families when there werent
Target and Amazon to instantly get anything they want. Learning these techniques are
great, but does is really teach students about the necessity of making a quilt or freezing
in the cold night?

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12
It is

often assumed that art is multicultural by virtue of its cultural

diversity. By merely presenting exemplar of cultural products such
as Egyptian Hieroglyphics, American Indian totem poles, and/or
Australian bark paintings followed by the production of copies of
these forms, many art educators are missing the point. Such
tokenism not only trivializes the aesthetic production of all
sociocultural groups, but, what is worse, it avoids confronting the
real challenge of critically apprehending the meaning of the
object, artist, process, in the sociocultural context. Further it fails
to make legitimate links and contributions to the students lives in
ways that are morally, ethically and cognitively sound. (Stuhr,
1992, p. 21)
Allowing students to explore traditional craft techniques and contemporary
artisans working with these techniques opens up a new world of art making techniques
that can be integrated with contemporary conceptualism to create a new evolution of a
culture.

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13

Figure 6, photograph of local landscape in retail space.

Art Education comes in all shapes and sizes. We conventionally address art
education venues as places one can take classes and workshops. However, through
my research, reflecting on the idea that art education can be anything from opening up
a world where artists realize their artwork is good enough to sell, utilizing social media
and web design to highlight artists work, welcoming a visitor whos never been in a
gallery before, or talking about the value of our culture and the artwork that is being
created in it. Exposing people to the arts ultimately becomes art education. When
people get interested in something, they want to learn about it. The Appalachian Arts
Center is fostering a sense of growth and exploration for students, community, and
artists alike that will have a presence for years to come.
Despite difficulties in location and relative newness, the Appalachian Arts Center
staff is actively seeking to remain involved in local artists and art making trends.
Continuing to host gallery shows, lectures, and workshops will be a selling point for this
facility. In an area where it is hard to even have restaurants or stores due to the low
population, it proves that quality does persevere.

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14
References

Appalachian Arts Center. (2015). Retrieved September 26, 2015, from

http://www.appalachianartscenter.org/
Arnold, A. (1994). Building Community through Art Experiences, Art Education, 47(3),
47-51.
Bae, J. (2012). An Intercultural Peace Mural Project: Let's Make a Peaceful World Hand
in Hand! Art Education, 65(1), 47-54.
Hallam, E., & Street, B. (2000). Cultural encountersRepresenting otherness'. (pp.
1-10, 260-283). New York City: Routledge.
Romeo, S. (2015, September 25). [Personal interview].
Stuhr, P. L., Petrovich-Mwaniki, L., & Wasson, R. (1992). Curriculum guidelines for the
multicultural art classroom. Art Education, 45(1), 16-24.
The Foxfire Approach. (n.d.).Retrieved from https://www.foxfire.org/teaching.html