Dolly Exhibit

NATIONAL JURIED ART EXHIBITION

OLLY: P/N 35

DOLLY: P/N 35

NATIONAL JURIED ART EXHIBITION

Juried by Logan Lockner Editor, Burnaway Magazine

February 18–March 13, 2020 : Slocumb Galleries February 26: Awarding Reception and Artists’ Talk with Performance by ETSU Chorale: 5 to 7 p.m., Slocumb Galleries March 3: Panel on Dolly Parton’s Impact on Appalachian Culture 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Slocumb Galleries Cover image

Jolene Best of Show Oil Painting Kymberly Day Dolly: P/N 35 National Juried Art Exhibition © Slocumb Galleries and Participating Artists, 2020 | All rights reserved Images and artist statements courtesy of the Artists and representatives. | Gallery exhibition images taken by Slocumb Galleries staff.

All images of work are copyright property of the artists. | Catalogue design by Alice Salyer ETSU is an AA/EEO employer. ETSU-CAS-0096-19 50

ARTISTS Stacy Beam Jane Broderick Kymberly Day Jen Delos Reyes Chelsea Dobert-Kehn Trevor Doell Amy Evans Amber Farley Kevin Ford, Kevin Gardner Mira Gerard & Justin Seng Edwel Granadozo Ashley Gregg Jodi Hays Dawn Hunter Jake Ingram Ellen Knudson Alanna Lacey

Marta Lee Randall Lilly Laura Little Katie Maish William Major Gina Mamone John May Mary Nees Shawn Quilliams Claire Rau Alice Salyer Katie Sheffield Todd Simmons Mary Ruth Smith Page Turner Megan Paige Ward Anna Wehrwein

JUROR

LOCKNER

LOGAN

Juror’s Statement The artworks in Positive/Negative 35 are assembled around the figure of iconic Appalachian singer- songwriter, actress, and humanitarian Dolly Parton. Over fifty years after the release of her debut album in 1967, Parton maintains a unique position in the cultural landscape, remaining a celebrated icon to people and communities who would otherwise have little left to agree upon among the cultural and political divides that often characterize America today. Though some of these artworks depict Dolly directly, others gesture toward the numerous ideas or associations she represents: homespun charm and Appalachian heritage; camp and celebrity and sexuality; an embrace of Christian traditions alongside vocal and longstanding support of the LGBTQ community; the working woman; the self-made singer-songwriter in Nashville; gender and identity performance.

Together, these works present a vision not only of Dolly as an individual but also of the countless people who have found her as an enduring source of identification and inspiration.

Paintings by Stacy Beam and Kymberly Day coincidentally both show Dolly wearing yellow, though at different moments in her career. In Beam’s Hello Dolly, she appears smiling onstage, footlights glimmering nearby, the cut of her costume suggesting the 1970s. In Day’s Dolly Looks Into the Future, a more mature Dolly is surrounded by golden-edged clouds as though in a grand history painting, one red-nailed hand on her hip and the other covering her eyes as she peers into the distance.

Other images of Dolly are less directly representational. In a trio of sculptures by Randall Lilly, three busts of Dolly adorned with glittering butterflies illustrate the maxim see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Created using a combination of airbrushing and brushwork, the images of Dolly in two paintings by Kevin Ford feel suffused with memory or nostalgia.

In Kevin Gardner’s Apotheosis of Dolly, a performance at Dollywood becomes an almost hallucinatory religious vision.

Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists provide opportunities to reflect on Appalachia and its influence on Dolly’s creative output.

Ashley Gregg’s Holler is Hollow shows the confusion and shame that often accompanies speaking using a stigmatized dialect as a pictorial breakdown of language. A quilt by Jane Broderick takes a mystical view of the mountains, and sculptures by Todd Simmons and Megan Paige Ward offer abstract reinterpretations of craft traditions carried on by mountain makers for generations. A playset made

by Page Turner imagines the materials for

amusement that may have been available

for a young Dolly. In her largescale sculpture Gawd’s Eye (Dolly’s Tears), Laura Little transforms a familiar craft object into a monumental space for reflection.

Other works in the exhibition show the people who populate Dolly’s world: the characters in her songs, her fans, the people waiting in line for a funnel cake at Dollywood. Another painting

by Kymberly Day shows the red-haired woman who is perhaps the most famous of Parton’s characters: Jolene.

The tie-dye-wearing teen in Trevor Doell’s Daegan reminds me of the sort of person who might have grown up listening to Dolly but also finds joy in her being a queer icon. (Someone like me, I guess.) In Marta Lee’s We note two or more races have been selected, an image of Dolly appears among a collage of signifiers indicating the artist’s multiracial heritage.

Civil War reenactment—show blurring boundaries between past and present.

(A costumed woman holds a parasol, a line of parked cars visible behind her.) In an untitled self-portrait, Will Major shows himself wearing a wig and make-up, appearing dazed by the light.

It’s a remarkable image, and one that captures the spirit of this show:

Dolly is all of us.

In a pair of photos by Edwel Granadozo, we see the real-life results of Dolly’s philanthropic work promoting literacy in the state of Tennessee through her Imagination Library, which provides children with a free book each month from birth until the age of five.

Several of the other photographs in the exhibition play with ideas of theatricality and performance. In two photographs by Katie Sheffield, scenes from a historical reenactment—likely a

Dolly Parton © Andy Warhol From the ETSU Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries Collection

BEST OF SHOW KYMBERLY DAY

Honorable Mention Kevin Ford Kevin Gardner Marta Lee Randall Lilly William Major Katie Sheffield

He is inspired by his surroundings, having grown up in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. A lifelong fan of Dolly Parton, Stacy’s first job after high school was as a performer at Dollywood, and he currently plays the organ for the Christ Church Choir, who has performed with Dolly on multiple recordings and awards shows.

He lives with his wife, Amanda, their daughter, Bentley, and their Labradoodle, Annie Pearl.

Hello Dolly Oil on canvas

Seeing Through the Soles is the second in a series about sensing place through the feet, the soles

as eyes gathering history of place from the earth where we walk and live.

Seeing Through the Soul Quilted fiber art

JOHNSON CITY, TN

“Art is all about emotion. I believe the human experience is shared most effectively through art. I paint what I find to be beautiful, inspirational, and uplifting. Dolly is the perfect subject as she embodies those qualities like no other.”

I have shifted to where I now use threads and stitchery to form my images. I am excited to work with naive figurative forms, geometric shapes, and the patching together of rich textures and colors in ways that sometimes seem visually competitive, in either a striking or extremely subtle way. Hand stitching is a must. It is akin to my applying stroke after stroke of paint on canvas, yet with a different visual intention. Currently the repetitive process of stitch after stitch is a form of prayer for me. Each artifact imbued with the sense of healing and gratitude for this place in which I live and for the life surrounding me.“

BRODERICK

STACY BEAM NASHVILLE, TN

Stacy Beam is a self taught oil painter from Nashville, Tennessee. His career began as an equine portrait artist and has expanded into classical portraiture, large scale landscape and abstract paintings. His keen eye for color, technical mastery and classical sensibilities set him apart as a contemporary artist worth watching.

“Since I was a young child I’ve been creating and constructing with a variety of materials to satisfy all sorts of expressive needs and I identified as an artist early on. Oil painting, watercolor, pastel, and charcoal are mediums that captured my focus for many years. They fostered the creation of paintings and drawings that blend imagery from my dreams, meditations, and waking life reality.

I consider myself a colorist, where color is used symbolically. The image making process is a sort of dialogue between me and the image with the meaning unfolding and becoming clear when the work is complete. Often in the form of lessons for personal growth or deeper understanding of truth that is difficult for me to access with words. Each image seems to link to stories or narratives that are sometimes surprising and then comforting. I believe that when an artist represents from a place of truth and honesty the eventual audience will be able to tap into the image through their own experiences, their own story.

JANE

“I paint what I find to be beautiful, inspirational, and uplifting. Dolly is the perfect subject as she embodies those qualities like no other.”

“The second track on the 12 Steps of Dolly playlist is The Seeker. Teachers are all around us, they often come in the form of challenging dynamics, triggers, individuals, or relationships. There are lessons to be had if we are willing to let these situations guide us to the places we still need to grow and heal. It can be hard to admit our weaknesses, to confront hurt, but if we are willing to reach down deep and learn we keep seeking out our best selves.”

BEST OF SHOW

Dolly Looks Into the Future Oil on canvas Jolene Oil on canvas

Jen Delos Reyes was born in Winnipeg, and educated first in its local music scene of the mid-90’s infused with the energy of Riot grrrl and DIY. How she works today is rooted in what she learned in her formative

years a show organizer, listener zines creator and band member. She received her graduate degree from the University of Regina. She is a creative laborer, educator, writer and radical community arts organizer.

Her practice is much about working with institutions as it is about creating and supporting sustainable artist-led culture. Delos Reyes worked within Portland State University from 2008-2014 to create the first flexible residency Art & Social Practice MFA Program in the US, and devised a curriculum that focused on place, engagement, and dialogue.

She is the Director and founder of Open Engagement, an international annual conference on socially engaged art that has been active since 2007 and hosted conferences in two countries at locations including the Queens Museum in New York.

Delos Reyes currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois where she is the Associate Director of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago.

12 Steps of Dolly Print on paper

DELOS REYES

“The first track in the 12 Steps of Dolly playlist is 1971’s Here I Am. Here I am, the person who can give you all the love you need, it’s yourself. We can’t rely on others for the deep security and sense of well being that can only really come from loving yourself. We each need to find ways to cultivate self-love and fill our lives with joy and share it with others.”

JEN

“My oil painting practice is based on digital photo collage that utilizes both figure and still life object in reconstructions of narratives taking place in the Appalachians and American West. The arrangement of the subjects in the paintings draw from the trending nostalgic idealization of the American cowboy or explorer. Navigating the landscape becomes a spiritual journey.

While spatial uncertainty mimics that of video game logic and glitching of virtual spaces, figure and object relationships probe the worlds of sexuality and coming of age as related to spiritual journey.

Furthermore this mirrors my personal quest to return to my Texan roots, though it may be a futile gesture.”

PORTLAND, OR

KYMBERLY DAY SIMPSONVILLE, SC

TREVOR DOELL

DOBERT-KEHN

CHELSEA

RESTON, VA

WALNUT GROVE, MO

“Coming out isn’t always a positive experience: you may face many challenges throughout the process. When coming out, there isn’t a rule book on how to build up the courage to tell the ones you love that you’re a little different. There also isn’t an easy way to deal with your family, friends, and strangers’ opinions. Some will be positive while others will be negative, and the ones who will be there to support you will surprise you the most. In my own personal experience, I did have the support from some of my friends and family, but, deep inside, I still didn’t feel that acceptance that I desired when coming out. For the longest time, I didn’t feel that sense of acceptance. Even today as a human, I still long for that feeling.

Dolly at Waffle House With Friends Digital collage

Chelsea Dobert-Kehn is an artist and activist currently focused on the intersection of queer politics and pleasure. Their work is deeply imaginative, yet informed by historical activists, events, and pop culture. Their digital collages create new situations and stories by blending reality with fantasy, they create worlds they want to see. Chelsea moved to rural Appalachia just before the 2016 election. Being queer in that region became burdened with the realization that legal protections and community support for queers was threatened. However, rural queers are some of the most resilient and creative people. Humor is used in Chelsea’s work to balance the struggle of queer politics with the joys of queer culture and love. Dolly Parton exists in an ambiguous space of feminism and country traditions. While she shies away from the label “feminist”, lyrics and subjects from her early songs tell a different story.

Dolly is seen as a uniting force among hillbillies and queers, that power is used in Chelsea’s work as a symbol of harmony between queer politics and country livin’.

Chelsea Dobert-Kehn received their MFA from Western Carolina University in 2019. While there, their research on queer and Appalachian art culminated in the first art exhibition of queer Appalachian art, “Queering the Mountains”. Since, they have gotten involved at Queer Appalachia creating digital content and helping to manage social justice projects. Most recently, Chelsea started Mutual Aid Lube, a project which seeks to erase Appalachian medical debt through queer sexuality. Within the first 5 months, Mutual Aid Lube has been able to erase over $100,000 of Appalachian medical debt by selling lube, and art celebrating queer pleasure.

Finding my place in the LGBTQ community is what really began to fill that void of wanting to be accepted. When finding people that you can connect with on a personal level because you share similar stories, you begin to build a bond.

That feeling of friendship then begins to turn into more than that—they become your family.

For me, personally, I found my chosen family within the drag community. There is something fascinating when a person paints their face and becomes a different person through this persona that they, themselves, have created.

When seeing my friends perform in drag, I can sense the confidence that they embody and it’s as if nothing can knock them down. For me, as a gay man and also as an artist, this gave me the courage and confidence in myself to be the person that I truly am. When you have people that are genuine and are constantly supporting you to achieve your best, that is when acceptance can be, finally, felt.

These paintings are a representation of not only the idols that I look up to but also my chosen family. They are the people who taught me to love myself for who I am all the while giving me a place to finally feel accepted. As a young, gay male living in the center of the Bible Belt, I want the LGBTQ youth to see themselves represented in a positive way by people who have gone through the same struggles and difficulties.

Because knowing that there are people out there who will love you and support you fully is something that should always be relevant. When you feel the sense of being lost when coming out, you do want to know that it does get better, and it does. Whether your family or your chosen family, accepts you for who you’re, there are people out there that will support you and cheer for you no matter what.”

Daegen Watercolor

“I am interested in the domestic

object as souvenir, the collection of objects as identity, and the connection of objects to the idea of community. My research often

focuses on traditional craft with a particular focus on objects and methods historically utilized by women. My most recent body of work is inspired by the knitting process and the idea of what attracts people to communities or cultural identities. Translating the knit and purl pattern into clay came as a way to connect my chosen material to the ideas of tradition, community, and object as souvenir.”

Amy Evans is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Head of the Art Department at Walters State Community College where she has been teaching art history and studio art courses for 14 years. Prior to teaching at Walters State, she has taught workshops at the Arrowmont School of Art and Crafts, The Appalachian Center for Arts and Crafts, and The St. Peter Clay Company. She received her MFA in ceramics from East Carolina University in 1998 and her BFA in design from the University of North Texas in 1993. She has exhibited her work nationally and has been included in several publications including Ceramics Monthly and 500 Pitchers.

Body Envelope (Knit & Purl Series) Ceramics

AMY EVANS

SEYMOUR, TN

AMBER

FARLEY SHADY VALLEY, TN “The Valley is a photographic project I began in 2010 that focuses on the topic of family and home. The project started off as a way to explore my mountain home of Shady Valley, Tennessee by connecting with my family and the place where I was living. As a military child I grew up on various military bases around the states and spent the majority of my childhood on the island of Oahu, more than 4,500 miles away. Coming home to the valley was always something I looked forward to because for me this was our home base, where our family came from, and where I dreamed of returning to. The valley was always a magical place for me and provided the perfect subject for me to study once I moved back for good.

Shady Valley is a small rural community secluded in the mountains of East Tennessee; it is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest and encompassed by Cross, Holston, and Iron Mountains. I started out photographing the farms and mountainous landscape in the area and then began photographing my family and members of the community. My family provided not only a springboard for the portraits in my project, but they became the primary

focus of much of my work. Through photographing my brothers and their friends, I found I enjoyed interacting with a younger age group and used my time with them to explore their world through their view.. I wanted to document their lives, their activities, and the area they live in. Many of my images are taken outdoors because I try to incorporate this sense of the rural area into many of the portraits.

I work primarily in black and white although I also shoot digitally which allows me the option of working in color.

My images are digitally printed using archival ink. The use of black and white in my work is to romanticize reality by playing up the light and contrast of an image, creating a dramatic effect which I use to create timeless images that I hope people can relate to and project themselves into each piece of work.

Family is such an important topic and each family has their own dynamic and culture. This work is meant to tell not only the story of a particular place and time, but of my family here in the valley and the life that each member leads within the community of a small rural town in East Tennessee.”

Rex & the Machete Archival inkjet print

“...one never copies anything but the vision that remains of it at each moment, the image that becomes conscious. You never copy the glass on the table; you copy the residue of a vision... Each time I look at the glass, it seems to be remaking itself, that is to say, its reality becomes uncertain, because its projection in my head is uncertain, or partial. You see it as if it were disappearing, coming into view again, disappearing, coming into view again-that is to say, it really always is between being and not being. And that is what one wants to copy.”

-Attributed to Cézanne by Joachim Gasquet Dolly (9-5) Acrylic on panel

KEVIN FORD

NORWALK, CT

HONORABLE MENTION

My objects (often corporeal, comical, and overlooked) are rendered as barely there-inhabiting a space between a glance, observation, and memory. One object bleeds into another, mimicking the visual slippage of internal images. While painting, I draw on a wide range of visual traditions and histories as I explore the very immediate act of looking.

In 2019 it has become possible to see the very pores on your newscaster’s face, to see what your ex is preparing to eat for dinner, to see a street view of Ulaanbaatar from a screen in your hand during your morning commute. The Enlightenment and Silicon Valley would have us believe that being seen makes the world more real, but the growing consensus seems to be that everything feels totally surreal.

Leonardo developed a painting style known as sfumato, which is Italian for “vanished or evaporated,” and which involves a style of blending that elides transitions between colors and between areas of light and shadow. According to Leonardo, sfumato meant “without borders, in the matter of smoke, or beyond the focus plane.” The prevailing style at the time relied heavily on outlines and clear edges between shapes. Sfumato was celebrated by contemporaries for its stunning realism, revealing a very real distinction between clarity and reality or in other words, the idea that part of seeing is actually not seeing.

Dolly (9-5) Acrylic on panel

My paintings are made with an economical combination of delicate brushwork and loose airbrushing. They are soft, sfumato, to the extent that it is sometimes hard to see what they depict.

But their smokiness isn’t the dusky smoke from a Renaissance fireplace, it’s sour apple Juul vape. They simultaneously allude to the atmospheric sfumato of Renaissance pictorial space, the narrow depth of field of photographic images, and the pixelization that occurs as one zooms in on a digital image. Each painting reads as a catalogue entry on a specific object or experience, seemingly chosen at random from the vast array of objects and experiences available in what we call the real world.

This documentary specificity gives the paintings a certain perceptual frustration when seen through their Juul haze. Why are you showing me this specific thing without letting me see it? Especially in 2019, when HD technology has allowed me to see the edges around Judge Judy’s eyes where the foundation ends and the eye makeup begins? My interest lies in the strange sense of utter reality in these paintings, residing in the tension between documentation and vapey illegibility. Objects hover in and out of focus, capturing how our eyes hold onto things, release them, and then return to them once again: the internal projection of the thing and the thing itself.

KEVIN

GARDNER BEREA, KY “Art is, at its best, more beautiful, better crafted, and more interesting than the reality we think influences it.

However illusionistic it may or may not be, art is, in the end, purposefully unreal.

In pursuit of this ideal, my drawings and paintings prize aesthetics for its own sake, and they do so by revealing artistic process and through searching for the precise visual moment that separates illusion from material. As an artist who finds content by reflecting on the experience of being an artist, I am in dialogue with artistic traditions.

My painting is the creation of something new through variation of historic ideas, images, and methods.”

Born and raised in Escanaba, Michigan, and Seattle, Washington, Kevin Neal Gardner currently lives, paints, and teaches in Berea, Kentucky.

HONORABLE MENTION Apotheosis of Dolly Oil on paper

&

MIRA JUSTIN GERARD SENG

For this collaboration, Gerard did a drawing based on an image of Dolly Parton looking into the distance and after listening to the “Dolly Parton’s America” podcast. She was moved by the episode where Parton remembers her Tennessee Mountain home

Seng created a screenprint from Gerard’s drawing and combined it, along with other printed elements, with thrifted and found materials, bringing bright, candy colors to the melancholic, dreamy theme. Images of Elvis are obscurely embedded in some, and bittersweet Dolly Parton lyrics about lost love are in others. They both adore Dolly Parton and are planning to (finally) take a couples trip to Dollywood, which they hope will make their LDR a little sweeter.

Edwel Granadozo is an amateur photographer from Johnson City, TN. Due to his immigration status in the United States, he is not allowed to accept employment. Being a fulltime dad afforded him not just the opportunities to take care of and witness the growth of his child, but also to document Karmina’s growth and development.

For Granadozo, photos should be captured during the ordinary times

LDR Problems #2 Spray paint, screenprint on glass

of the day. Photos that are not staged, but rather taken in authentic contexts are the best representations of real life.

The selections for this competition depict Karmina’s love for reading. The first entry shows how she is consumed by the magic she encounters on the book on her hand. The second entry shows how she seems to can’t get enough.

Consumed Digital photograph Soar Digital photograph

JOHNSON CITY, TN

Justin Seng is a country musicloving punk musician and artist residing in Fargo, ND, and Mira Gerard is a painter and displaced New Englander living in Tennessee.

Throughout the last two years, they have developed a habit of giving each other multiple Dolly-themed gifts like a skateboard deck with an original illustration of Dolly on it, Dolly Parton ornaments and cards, and vintage Dolly Parton albums.

Her voice and vibe have become a funny, bittersweet drumbeat to this whole affair, which has often left them both in awe of each other’s patience and maturity.

and the hosts go find the actual place. Gerard drew the cabin, as a replica on her head–not only as a shoutout to Rococo hairstyles but to cheerfully reference the weight of personal history, and the pain of nostalgia, as Dolly Parton would, with brightness and lightness. The crystallization and replication of the cabin in Gatlinburg, and Dolly’s intensity about it, also reminded her of her own childhood spent in an impossibly idyllic ashram in New Hampshire.

EDWEL

These pieces were done as a collaboration through the mail which became, ultimately, a ballad of a long distance relationship.

GRANADOZO

JOHNSON CITY, TN / FARGO, ND

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, AR) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a rural vernacular (of the American South). Her painting practice has become a way of note taking or organizing knowledge; landscape, abstraction, among others. These systems (grids) become a scaffold for pictorial inclinations. Stripes generate a placement in pattern, repetition and seriality. Textiles, associated with warmth, the body, pattern, domesticity and weave (stripes) inform her work. Hardedged shapes exist with more rounded/ floral moves, inviting associations with the architecture of the rural; awnings, bead board, weathered boards and lumber. This core iconography elucidates a conversation on abstraction and a generative, inexhaustible mark.

She has exhibited her work at galleries and museums across the United States including Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brooks Museum of Art, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Cooper Union and Boston Center for the Arts. She is a recipient of several awards including from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

The deconstruction and recontextualization of these repeated materials are processes that allow me to critically engage with the custom of rote learning.

Edge Oil on stretched fabric over panel

My art practice continually asks,

Corner Oil on stretched fabric over panel

what role does rote learning play in shaping the dissonance between the way my culture is perceived and the way my culture perceives?”

Holler is Hollow Letterpress, colored pencil on paper

HAYS

indoctrination and tradition.

NASHVILLE, TN

I utilize the double entendre to playfully and diplomatically approach the false dichotomies that are formulated out of blind obedience. For examples, the opportunity to consider more than one interpretation is featured in the titled work Holler is Hollow and in the application of the word “genes” on a jean fabric cut out. The core of my making is to develop a contemporary awareness of familiar, comfortable, and unquestioned concepts that others and I have been indoctrinated with.”

JODI

PARROTTSVILLE, TN

ASHLEY GREGG

“I am exploring ways in which the alteration of familiar materials and imagery could be employed as a tool for decoding formative experiences in Appalachian culture. In my current art practice, I am focusing on repetitious acts and their ties to themes of indoctrination and tradition. I gather select materials that are tied to the Appalachian culture that I was raised in, such as gauze, barbed wire, and denim. The tool of repetition prominent in my work is a reference to two primary school acts: one being the practice of following the dotted line to develop a muscle memory for writing and the other being the punishment of writing lines over and over. This “over and over” is suggested in the reoccurrence of motifs like the notebook lining, the flag, and the clothesline in my body of work. I choose processes of repetition, such as stitching, letterpress, and the drawing of lines over and over, to further reference modes of

Luscious Outside Acrylic/oil on board

DAWN HUNTER

I find it important to begin researching new subjects through a sense of intuition and inference while examining facts. Through the creative process, I investigate, discover, reconsider, and explore. I find that by doing so, I can expand a dialogue and delve into new territory. What makes one female?

Biology defines gender by sexual organs and hormones; however, it exists visually in culture in a social context. In some tribal cultures women look forward to menopause, because when ovulation ceases they are considered males– a life change that is celebrated ritually. With these thoughts in mind, the contemporary iconic image of Dolly Parton becomes a paradox. After a well documented hysterectomy in the early eighties, her bustline, through surgical assistance, has expanded from a 36DD to the current 48DD bustline. My paintings explore her presurgical, natural physical body juxtaposed with her hyper female cultivated image that is obtained through objects of artifice, i.e., wigs, costumes, nails, etc.”

COLUMBIA, SC

9 to 5 Lithograph

INGRAM

There are many tellings/retellings of Cinderella.

The basic information is the same in each story.

What is important in each retelling are the details and the context in which the subject has been reconceptualized - How is the same content focused differently? What details remain? How are details organized? How do new ideas sit next to one another to generate a new perception of experience rich in its own unique and highly identifiable textures? Reconceptualization is important because that is the tapestry of insight that makes a retelling of Cinderella significant or not.

KNOXVILLE, TN

Jake Ingram is a printer and artist currently working and living in Knoxville, TN. He received his BFA in drawing in 2012 from East Tennessee State University and his MFA in drawing with a concentration in printmaking in 2015 from the New York Academy of Art. He attended Tamarind Institute in 2017 and was awarded his Printer Training Certificate in 2018. He was one of two people selected to stay an extra year as an apprentice and in 2019 he earned the designation Tamarind Master Printer. His interest lies in the synthesis of fine art and craft, therefore his personal work often involves printmaking and sewing. In addition to lithography, Ingram is trained in woodcut and intaglio. His work has been exhibited around the US and internationally.

When not hanging out in the print shop you can find him hunting for Jackalopes and Bigfoot.

JAKE

“I am drawn to subjects that have a strong identity or familiarity to the masses within culture. Details found within the information, facts, and references are mutually exclusive from artistic expression, interpretation and content conceptualization.

ELLEN

KNUDSON GAINESVILLE, FL

“Our minds and feelings are stitched together bit by bit by experiences.

Each part of our flesh, blood, and bones shift and change to accommodate our conscious choices. It’s human tendency to block our flaws

The In-Between Monotype and hand drawing

Dolly Would Never Linocut on paper

LACEY LAFAYETTE, CO

Knudson is a book artist / designer producing handmade books under the imprint Crooked Letter Press. She is currently an Associate in Book Arts at The University of Florida. She holds an MFA in Book Arts from The University of Alabama.

Knudson has been a book artist for 18 years and a professional graphic designer for 25+ years including graphic design positions at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Detroit Institute of Arts. She has taught letterpress printing and Book Arts at The University of Florida, The University of Alabama, and graphic design at Mississippi State University and Wayne State University, as well as letterpress & book arts workshops around the country.

Her work is in the collections of The Library of Congress (DC), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Yale University (CT) and many other national and international collections.

from being exposed to the world and we work incredibly hard to maintain a flawless façade.

I choose through my own practice to expose the very flaws that I hold near and dear to me and will continue to do so in continuing my research through Anthropology and Psychology.

The ways in which my practice ties into the theme of Dolly is through the song, “For the Good Times.” Her words near the beginning of the song are, “but life goes on and this old world will keep on turning.” These prints are a mark of change and development for me personally through the imagery of a rabbit’s death. The rabbit, for most viewers, is that of innocence and serenity yet a darkness came along and took the life away. I relate to the rabbit through this narrative because I think I change and develop in my own practice pieces begin to die. In this instance, another piece of innocence.”

ALANNA

Alanna Lacey is a multimedia artist from Boulder, Colorado. She will be earning her MFA from the University of Colorado in the Fall of 2021 with an emphasis in Printmaking. Lacey graduated in May of 2018 from the University of Colorado Boulder for a BFA with an emphasis in Printmaking and a BA in Anthropology with a minor in Art History. Currently she’s the lead organizer for the Spring 2020 conference, Embracing the Wilds. Lacey drives for multimedium printmaking and developing the imagery past the traditional printmaking style. Her main focus within her art practice is building narratives through printmaking that tell the stories of the past and present within her own story and others.

“I’m interested in the distillation of a subject using typography and image within the book form. Reading is a sequential and time-based process. My interest in the book lies in the opportunity to guide a reader’s progression through the visual organization of text and image.

I also revel in the craft of book art: the exploration of materials, and the effort to strike a balance between artistic and practical choices. Those processes involve intimacy and acute observation. That is ultimately what my work is about.”

LEE NEW YORK, NY

MARTA

living room to capture the essence of our connection.

“I use my practice to explore where I am from and At Anderson Ranch Arts Center this spring, I made examine how place impacts our experiences. I several unstretched canvases based on still lives am interested in our differences, as well as what we arranged in the studio. The objects in these works might unexpectedly share. As a Half-Chinese queer woman who grew up in Washington before moving to functioned both symbolically and formally, entering Tennessee, I have spent a lot of time feeling displaced. a conversation where Chinese and White become When I participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency, somewhat equivalent to red and blue, top and bottom, being in a place where my sexuality felt normal for the or Dolly Parton and Natalie Merchant. first time made me question my interest in belonging.

While I had thought I was missing a sense of home Earlier this year, I found a jigsaw puzzle in a thrift from moving across the country, I realized that store. The previous owner had placed some orange much of this void resulted from the lack of a diverse tape on the front of the box with a written message, community I could relate to.

“ALL PIECES PRESENT.” What I found at first to be a humorous piece of advice soon became an optimistic I hope to create paintings that encapsulate everyday mantra for my practice: Everything that you life: timeless textiles, worn-out sneakers, seemingly need is here. The pieces may not be in meaningless mundanity, rendered in layered acrylic order, and you might have to search, but paint and matte-medium transfers. I am very inspired the pieces are all present.” by my surroundings and the commute from place to place. Last year, I painted my friend Bucky’s couch and We Have Noted Two or More Races Have Been Selected Acrylic, transfer, crayon, canvas

Through Dolly May I: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil Mixed media sculpture

HONORABLE MENTION

“If I had wings, I’d fly away from all of my trouble, all of my pain” Dolly Parton sings on her 2014 track “If I Had Wings”. Similar themes pop up in Dolly’s work throughout the years and that is one of the many reasons I hold her so close to my heart. These ideas of escape and freedom from one’s troubles resonate deeply within me. Dolly herself is an escape for many, including myself. One can simply look to Dolly to lift them out of their current situation and go to a place where everything that glitters really is gold.

I truly believe in Dolly Parton. She is everything I wish every person, including myself, could embody. Dolly is often, jokingly, referred to as “Saint Dolly” and as silly as it may seem, she really is. If only we could all break off relationships with people who oppressed us with the thoughtfulness as when she ended things with Porter Waggoner singing to him, “I will always love you”. If only we all had the fortitude to fearlessly and authentically be ourselves, no matter how over the top the aesthetics may be. If only we all could strike a balance of energy that does not offend, but unites people of all different backgrounds. If only.

For this piece I wanted to adapt imagery I have previously used in my work to create a non-representational portrait of Dolly. For years I have been making lady head vases. Lady head vases are commercially

HONORABLE MENTION

manufactured vases that hit the height of popularity in the 1950s and 1960s in America. They are kitschy ceramic objects, that depict stereotypically beautiful caricatures of American women with an opening at the top of the head for flowers. Most of the work I have done with these objects has been to subvert their original intent. To mock the ideas of traditional beauty and of femininity being weak. This would not do for a piece dedicated to Dolly Parton. I decided to incorporate my interpretation of a now cliché motif: the see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil little statues. This motif originates as a Japanese pictorial maxim where monkeys are using their hands to cover their eyes, ears, and mouth. In my version there are three pink glittery lady head vases with golden butterflies obscuring their eyes, ears, and mouth. For this piece I have chosen to forgo the traditional slip casting method that is typical of lady head vases and use resin. It is a very plastic and artificial material. Dolly has said, “I might look artificial, but where it counts I’m real”. The glitter and glitz may obscure her/my message but if you are willing to look beyond the surface there is a message that, while simple, is important to learn. Most of the messages that Dolly presents to the world can often be tossed aside as cliché bumper sticker lessons on life.

How many times have we looked at the world as evil, and let despair settle in and emit from us? Would we not all be better choosing to see the light in things, to only hear the good, and to only speak of good things? Lord knows it is not always possible, but shouldn’t we give it a chance?

RANDALL LILLY CAMP CREEK, WV

KATIE MAISH

LAURA

LITTLE CHAPEL HILL, NC

LANCASTER, PA

Gawd’s Eye (Dolly’s Tears) Gone Fishin’ in the Bathtub For Halo’s & Thorns Mixed media sculpture

“Above all, I am a collector. My work relies on strategies of accumulation to create sculptures and installations that fantastically and earnestly reframe Biblical mythology specifically within the socioeconomic and geographic landscape of the Southern United States. Using the detritus from the overproduction of consumer capitalism, my artistic practice is a playful and rigorous material exploration that interrogates our cultural desire for myth and faith. I accumulate personal and repurposed artifacts like old clothes and food packaging products and combine with materials like craft and home improvement supplies. I use products that are often designated as signifiers of class status, considered “cheap” or “tacky,” and bury them in hyper-treatment. This overworked “failed” maximal aesthetic results from combining handmade with the reused to mimic the

natural and supernatural realms. I may not have gold and rubies to use in the protection and adornment of my holy conch shell, but I do have plastic flowers and styrofoam coolers. This is a form of provisionalism; a quick fix, based on what one has or can swiftly attain, because immediate action is imperative.

My practice is a quest of entangling religion, nature, and the environment to further understand ideological and religious influences on the determination and treatment of nature and sacred objects within contemporary society.

My work is made with notions of urgency, drawing influence from past mythological prophecies and current consumer culture to make relics for the possible futures.”

“In my art practice, I use paper and negative space to create opportunities for dialogue about women and work. Marcella is a crystallization of two strong, hardworking southern women that remind me of each other, my grandmother, Marcella Thompson, and Dolly Parton. The white palette flecked with bold color is quite common in my work and is inspired here by Marcy’s and Dolly’s unapologetic glamour, a fascinating contradiction to their humble beginnings.

Marcy grew up in rural Tennessee and always admired Dolly’s talent and fashion sense, and I think she was also a little proud of their shared heritage. When I hear Dolly speak in an interview – even beyond the accent and cadence that sounds so strikingly similar – there’s a pragmatic, “keep your chin up” attitude, steely resolve, and effervescent charm I hear in her that they share. In Marcella, the warmth of the quilt composition juxtaposed against the hard beauty of the glitter and sequins visually describes a complexity to their respective personalities that I find compelling.

It feels uniquely situated to where and when they grew up.”

Maish is a visual artist and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Rhodes College, a M.F.A. in Photography from the University of Memphis, and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Memphis. Maish currently serves as editor of Number and resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Marcella Paper, thread, sequins, glitter

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small liberal arts school, Milligan College, and graduated in 2015 with a bachelor of arts in photography and humanities. He also received his master of fine arts degree from the University of Georgia in 2019. Major has shown his work across the southeastern United States as well as exhibiting in New York City, London, and Amsterdam. He has been featured in Ain’t Bad magazine, Southern Glossary, is part of the collection Looking at Appalachia, and is in the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. While at the University of Georgia, he attained the Outstanding Teaching Assistant award. Major is primarily a documentary photographer who explores the idiosyncrasies of southern culture and fringe groups. Major also experiments with the mediums of video and sound.

These pieces are how I have found bridges between the dichotomies that exist within Appalachia. They beg questions about performance and identity, finding recognition and validation on stage or in front of the camera, and how we can piece together objects from the past to create a new future.”

Major explores varying performances and unique talents through portraiture and video. As a graduate student, he worked with wrestlers, contortionists, circus performers, singers, dancers, and a host of other performers. He explores the motivation behind these performances - where validation, recognition, and exposure are generally key. Spectacle is an important part of this research, as well as subverting its coded language. Major has also delved into Christian iconography in Appalachia and the greater southeast, family history, storytelling, and bringing his love for music into his craft.

WILLIAM MAJOR

JOHNSON CITY, TN

Judy Squared Rubix Cube with digital photos

Gina Mamone was born and currently lives in the coalfields of West Virginia. They are the creative director of Queer Appalachia.

Mamone’s work explores the limits of the Appalachian concept of “homespun” and the emotional textures of contemporary maker culture. At Queer Appalachia, they deal with a lot of people whose family do not treat them like family. Dolly Parton is a great unifier for those people. Dolly is a safe topic, who everyone can get behind.

In a time when people are forcing sides to be taken, & weaponizing small rural communities against each other.

GINA

Untitled (performance) Archival pigment print

Even when I lived an hour away in the metropolis of Asheville I felt like a stranger on my own land. I was exoticized for being a hillbilly. I was told that I would never amount to anything. I was told that I couldn’t be taken seriously for my accent. I was either too educated or too dumb. While I lived in Georgia working on my master’s degree I wanted to study the region I left. I fell in love with the place that I initially never wanted to live in again. When I moved back to East Tennessee I saw the multitudes of the region. I saw its inherent beauty in the people and the landscape. But I also saw its flaws and how tragically horrible it can be for its inhabitants.

This time, instead of wanting to run away, I wanted to help.

MAMONE BLUEFIELD, WV

“I always wanted to leave Appalachia. William Major hails from the mountains of Northeast Tennessee. Major attended the When I did, I became an outsider.

John Edwin May is a photographer located in Knoxville, Tennessee. May studied photography at Lincoln Memorial University, University of South Carolina and East Tennessee State University, where he earned an MFA in 2010. He has held teaching posts at Pellissippi State Community College, Lincoln Memorial University, Walters State Community College, East Tennessee State University, and Arrowmont School of Art. An avid workshop participant, he has studied with Marsha Burns, Mark Goodman, Tim Grey, Christopher James, Brian Kaufman, Mary Ellen Mark, John Sexton, Craig Stevens, and Joyce Tenneson.

JOHN

MAY OAK RIDGE, TN

May’s photographic work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Of recent, his interest has been photographing the small-town wrestling venues with their constructed realities.

Dolly is Moving Digital Pigment Print

MARY NEES

JOHNSON CITY, TN

“A good portion of my work is an intuitive response, rapidly laid down. This does not mean that the result evidenced on canvas or paper was altogether quick conceptually.

My visual output is a considered extension from what has simmered from long-term engagement in both the Hebrew and Greek texts in the Bible. Thoughts collide and coalesce; prayers go up on a typical working day especially in the areas that are murky. And I live, as a sensitive observer, influenced and challenged by much around me. Of particular interest is an apprehension regarding the mystery of beauty. Add to this: mourning over so much that is broken. And my own confidence that through all of time the Creator is a communicator and His story is continuing.

In 2017 several things collided. I was examining the words of Hebrew prophecy, particularly in Ezekiel’s visions. My very best friend lost her battle with cancer.

And I decided to audit a painting class at the University with a fine new instructor there. He had us stretch our own huge canvases, and hired a male model for figure studies made large. Working this big, and with figures is not normal for me but the challenge was exciting. You might be able to discern if you view closely that this canvas was laid out originally with gestures on the figure rotated 90 degrees several times, like tilt a whirl, until the best orientation was discovered.

I have a sense that what is being imagined here on my canvas, sourced from Ezekiel’s wild and noisy words, is already beginning to take form.”

Nees received her training at Cornell University, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The Barnes Foundation and finally earned an MFA at East Tennessee State University in 2007. She has taught foundations courses and Art History at ETSU as an adjunct faculty member.

Dry Bones Rising; Ezekial 37 Oil on canvas

QUILLIAMS SEVIERVILLE, TN

SHAWN

“Through my paintings, I explore the relationships of queer people with their familial units and the dangers that come with this. The act of coming out in today’s society has become the easiest it has ever been, but queer people are still being rejected, kicked out of their homes, and even killed. By using my own experiences of coming out in Sevierville, Tennessee, I address the positive and negative sides to coming out in an unsafe place and the fear that comes along with it.

By using unnatural and eccentric color palettes, I create the feeling that something is off in my compositions, and this is to evoke the danger that accompanies coming out. Through trial and error, I realized painting is a more physical act than just slowly laying paint down on a canvas. The different ways an

CLAIRE RAU

artist can lay paint on a ground can elicit many different thoughts and emotions.

I apply paint chaotically and carefully to show the dichotomy of coming out itself, for queer people do not know if someone will react positively or negatively to their statement.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO

I primarily use the male figure to represent the relationships between queer people and unsafe environments.

My work focuses on the liminal space queer people enter when coming out to strangers, and I show the potential outcomes of that space. Through storytelling, I want to challenge the

Part of a series of work from Havoc, these pieces explore gender dynamics and sexuality in American life. The pervasive struggle for equity is dominated by opposing forces of discrimination. These objects embrace these constant conflicts in our work and domestic environments, often through the symbolism of the everyday.

notion that everything is “okay”

now in queer communities when, as a society, we have a lot of improving to do to ensure that it is safe to be queer in America today.”

Fixin ‘a Fire Oil on canvas

A founding member of The Front, an artist collective and gallery space in New Orleans, Claire Rau was born in Sandusky, Ohio and raised in Northeast Tennessee. Working in both printmaking and sculpture, she completed her graduate work at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and presently teaches foundations at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her work engages with objects, straddling politics, sexuality, and terrain. Recent shows include Living Arts in Tulsa, the Morris Graves Museum of Art, MASS Gallery, and Vox Populi.

Androcentric Pantyhose, 2x4’s, steel, screws

TODD SIMMONS

ALICE

SALYER JOHNSON CITY, TN

VALRICO, FL

“This body of work consists of minimalist sculptures that reflect the simplicity and natural beauty of the East Tennessee Mountains. The work showcases locally sourced woods, light, and metals.

Lee County, VA Archival pigment print

“Southern Gothic in literature and art refers to work based on the freakishness, the grotesque,

decay, isolation and a sense of place found in less traveled areas in the South. It often includes irony and combines

eeriness with banality. I am exploring images of Southern Gothic decay in areas of the South that are personally significant.

Lee County is the Southwestern-most county in Virginia, wedged between Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. The Southern side of my family is from there, it’s a place of many childhood memories.

Mountainous, rural and sparsely populated, the collapse of the tobacco and mining industries left Lee County with low employment and high addiction rates. Visiting there as an adult holds

little resemblance to the place in my memory, with the exception of certain buildings, the mountains, and the excessive kudzu. I began photographing the area in the mid-1990’s for college photo classes, but since then most of the family has died or moved away I haven’t had much reason to spend time there in the intervening years.

Some places in my memory are gone, decaying or smaller and less dramatic than I recall. Now that I am looking, I find many previously unnoticed deteriorating buildings. The textures of rust, old boards, fading signs combine with the overgrowth of kudzu and weeds in the lush mountain landscape. Other areas show the lurch towards progress; stoplights, four lane roads, a Wal-Mart.

The history of this place is left to the mercy of the elements, one wonders what happened to families whose homes and businesses are left deep in fields or crumbling into a creek.”

After many years as a graphic designer and commercial illustrator, I had become increasingly discontented with the absence of the hands-on design and rendering process brought about by computer technology. After falling victim to the financial collapse of 2008 and losing almost all material possessions, I was afforded the opportunity to pursue a life-long dream of creating fine art. My work reflects reactions to my life experiences and is primarily process driven subconscious revelations that provide escape from the unfortunate events that shaped my past.

Ironically, those very events led me to find peace and direction within myself and my work.”

Lighting in the Mountains Steel, Walnut, reflected light

“My photographs focus on individuals who portray their ancestors through American Civil War reenactments. I have chosen to focus on the roles children play, and the awkward situations adults place them in. This is meant to illustrate the perplexing and amusing side to their characters.

The enactments allow those involved the freedom to present their own personal interpretation of history with an idiosyncratic demonstration of days past. These performances tend to create a strange connection between the actors and the audience due to the recreation of such a tumultuous period in our Southern heritage.”

KATIE SHEFFIELD

Unititled 1 Archival pigment print

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PINEY FLATS, TN

Culturally, tattoos are recognized today as a form of body decoration whereas in previous generations, they were thought to be distasteful and

Tattooed Ladies Paper, fabric, thread

After receiving two degrees in home economics, Smith, born and raised in Virginia, taught art at Pi Beta Phi Elementary School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

This experience became the impetus that steered her to pursue art in both her personal and professional life. Moving forward, Smith taught related art courses at the University of Houston. For the first time in her career, she became a teacher who practiced making art and exhibiting it. After sixteen years of teaching and exhibiting her work in more art-oriented venues, she felt the need to teach in an art-oriented institution. Hence, she left her tenured position and pursued an MFA in Fabric Design from The University of Georgia and a PhD in Art Education from Florida State University. Presently, she teaches surface design, weaving and non-woven classes at Baylor University.

SMITH WACO, TX

Tattooed Ladies is a most recent piece in the series whereby I used illustrated hat pictures on vintage pattern envelopes to collage together through apps on an iPad. This arrangement was digitally printed on a simple representationally-designed commercial fabric. Then, the designs were hand stitched to define the important elements of the composition, fusing the printed abstract flower pattern on the fabric with the printed figures.

offensive. Tattoos have moved from their subculture roots to pop culture. Tattooed Ladies brings importance to the outward acceptance of this bodily decoration in present-day practices.”

MARY RUTH

“During the latter part of the 20th century, my work focused on using stitch to completely construct art fabric, to trace the markings on fabrics, to draw directly onto fabric, and to bring details to patchwork.

The 21st century brought forth a new way to use stitch.

I became interested in imagery that related to my love of fashion, which has always held my attention from early childhood to the present. Sewing clothes in high school and college provided opportunities to peruse pattern catalogs in department stores, specifically, Woolworth’s five and dime. Pattern Recall is an ongoing series about fashion, as it existed during the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, the years of my mother’s time as well as my early years.

A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Page Turner collects items of deep personal meaning to painstakingly create delicate objects that honor the feminine along with the desires, experiences and roles of women. Her powerful assemblages include found objects such as fur, wood, shells, paper, and bone that firmly position her work culturally and geographically in the Appalachian region.

Turner stitches these objects together with family heirlooms, antique fabric, and other personal objects, by hand, to create delicate sculptural pieces infused with a new feminist aesthetic and a soulful reverence for her heritage.

Raised as a devout Mormon, her work is informed by both her Mormon heritage and a feminist perspective. She looks to the religion and its complex history as inspiration, and explores the divide between righteousness within the faith and women’s personal power. With deep reverence, she pays homage to pioneer women of the Mormon faith, as well as the contemporary sisterhood and her Appalachian community’s pioneer sisters.

Recently featured in 50 Contemporary Women Artists: Groundbreaking Contemporary Art from 1960 to Now, her work is grounded in the Appalachian region of Virginia. Turner has exhibited widely in Virginia, North Carolina, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. Her recent exhibitions include FemiNest at Equity Gallery in New York; a joint exhibit with her husband, Contemporary Appalachia: Zephren & Page Turner, at Artists & Makers Studios Gallery in Maryland; and a solo exhibition Power & Restraint: A Feminist Perspective on Mormon Sisterhood at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University in Roanoke. Turner was the cover artist for Exponent II Magazine—Publishing the Experiences of

Mormon Women since 1974 and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Her sculptures have been featured in Immediate Present, Artemis Journal: Artist and Writers of the Blue Ridge, and in multiple issues of Studio Visit Magazine and Exponent II Magazine. Turner attended Virginia Western Community College and Brigham Young University.

nostalgia, but I identify it as faith

Dolly’s Playset Hand stitched assemblage

for we cannot go backwards. We can only go forward. It has been said, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” The precious memories from our past are sweet glimpses of what is to come. It is through faith that I have this hope.

I explore the concept above through the creation of objects, forms, and materials drawn from architectural and domestic spaces. Preconceived ideas of comfort and stability are questioned through opposing form and material juxtaposition.

The raw materiality of aged and reclaimed wood in union with raw and unrefined ceramics and concrete hearken back to days of old; memories of childhood. The multiple and repetitive processes displayed, communicate a sense of order and expectancy that tempt a feeling of comfort. Yet, upon closer inspection, situations that seem to have gone awry are apparent. Ceramic doors, depicted as bricks, are unable to be opened, grid-like scaffolding How Firm a Foundation V Cast concrete, Walnut, brass nails

Be still. Listen. Observe pearls and wellcrafted wooden structures nestled in harsh concrete pillows, fragile eggs in a tattered quilt, and a small seed-like pod perched in chaotic structures made from remnants of dilapidated homes. Faith grows. Quiet and still moments. That is where hope is found.

WARD GATLINBURG, TN

ROANOKE, VA

is constructed in a temporary and tenuous fashion, and pillows are cast in concrete.

Noise. Noise. Noise!

MEGAN PAIGE

PAGE TURNER

Tension. It is present within our world. We desire comfort, peace, and rest, but are often met with pain, confusion, and toil.

Often, to overcome the burdens that we face, we reflect on moments of tenderness, tranquility, and ease that come from our past. Reflecting on memories of yore, we long to go back. Some call this

Wehrwein is an artist originally from the Boston area. She received her BS in Art and BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Tennessee.

Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Friend of the Artist, and West Branch Literary Journal. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent shows at AUTOMAT Collective (Philadelphia, PA), The Warbling Collective (London, UK) the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC). She was finalist for the Hopper Prize in 2018, has been an artist in residence at MacDowell Colony and Vermont Studio Center, and is currently an artist in residence at Anderson Ranch Art Center. She lives in Columbia, MO where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Missouri.

Tennessee Colored pencil, watercolor on Coloraid paper

ETSU Chorale under Professor Matthew Potterton, Chair, Department of Music

ETSU CHORALE

WEHRWEIN COLUMBIA, MO

ANNA

“I make paintings and drawings that reimagine the domestic space as a site of creative action and communal agency. Within the established settings of home and garden, the women in the paintings—all of them friends and fellow artists—engage in manual and immersive tasks. They cut each other’s hair, give each other tattoos, and repot houseplants. These are scenes that, while based on real events, appear fictive, even utopian. Through the limited aperture of cinematic lens and painting precedent, intimate gestures and mise-en-scène may be interpreted as zones of maternal nurturing or eroticism. But this limited reading of madonna or harem is not so much inaccurate as unsatisfying. The figures themselves are not particularly concerned with how they are being looked at or who is looking at them. Instead, they are absorbed in drawing, watching, and listening—in what they are looking at.”

RECEPTION

William Major, one of the artists in the Dolly:P/N 35 exhibition, will discuss the dichotomies of living in Appalachia.

Organized by the Slocumb Galleries Student Guild in collaboration with the Center for Appalachian Studies and the Student Government Association (SGA)

Logan Lockner This year’s Juror, Logan Lockner is an Atlantabased writer and editor of Burnaway, an online magazine of contemporary art and criticism from the American South.

His writing has also appeared in national and international publications including Art Papers, Pelican Bomb, Photograph, and The Rib, and he recently edited the anthology Stranger, Harder, Brighter: The 2019 Burnaway Reader. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Rabkin Prize for Arts Journalism. He has given talks and led workshops on art writing at venues including the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art and Georgia State University’s Ernest G. Welch School of Art. An East Tennessee native, he holds a BA in English Literature from Emory University in Atlanta.

is a great unifier for those people. Dolly is a safe topic, that everyone can get behind. In a time when people are forcing sides to be taken, & weaponizing small rural communities against each other.

Chelsea Dobert-Kehn is an artist and activist currently focused on the intersection of queer politics and pleasure.

Their work is deeply imaginative, yet informed by historical activists, events,and pop culture.Their digital collages create new situations and stories by blending reality with fantasy, they create worlds they want to see. Dobert-Kehn moved to rural Appalachia just before the 2016 election. Being queer in that region became burdened with the realization that legal protections and community support for queers was threatened.

However, rural queers are some of the most resilient and creative people. Humor is used in Dobert-Kehn’s’s work to balance the struggle of queer politics with the joys of queer culture and love. Dolly Parton exists in an ambiguous space of feminism and country traditions. While she shies away from the label “feminist”, lyrics and subjects from her early songs tell a different story. Dolly is seen as a uniting force among hillbillies and queers. That power is used in Dobert-Kehn’s work as a symbol of harmony between queer politics and country livin’.

Chelsea Dobert-Kehn received their MFA from Western Carolina University in 2019.

“Growing up here I felt like a “hillbilly” or “outsider” to the rest of the nation. I felt like I had to change aspects about myself - try Jane Broderick to eliminate my accent, get as much education as possible, “During the late 90s I embarked on a career path to become an make myself feel better by saying “Well at least I don’t live in early childhood educator, a field with great potential to bring poverty in a holler.” Then I left the area for a while; I was either opportunities for creativity to many people who may otherwise seen as dumb or exoticized. Hearing things like, “Wow, I bet you lack these experiences. In this role as an educator I came to overcame so much.” “Oh man, I bet you got to see Johnny Cash East Tennessee State University to teach in the Early Childhood all the time at the fold. We have a bluegrass scene in Brooklyn, Program and have helped develop the program into a ya know?” So, I want to talk about how I came back home, what Department. Living in this area of Appalachia, the southern end Dolly has meant to me over my lifetime (seeing her as the of the trail we were near in our previous home, allows me to stereotype of the region and eventually realizing that I wanted still be surrounded by nature and an abundance of experiences to embrace my roots and not feel ashamed). within the local culture that feed my creative juices. Bluegrass and Old-Time music, the mountains, the traditions of gardening, Gina Mamone and Chelsea Dobert-Kehn will focus on LGBTQ growing and using herbs, and quilts are aspects of the culture and Queer issues and Parton’s role in the development of this I loved in the Northeast and continue to love within this new mariganalized group. context in Tennessee.”

Gina Mamone was born and currently lives in the coalfields of West Virginia. They are the creative director of Queer Appalachia.

Mamone’s work explores the limits of the Appalachian concept of “homespun” and the emotional textures of contemporary maker culture. At Queer Appalachia, they deal with a lot of people whose family do not treat them like family. Dolly Parton

Ashley Gregg, Facilitator MFA Candidate, Treasurer for Slocumb Galleries Student Guild, received grant from SGA for Dolly:P/N 35 exhibition.

Panel on the Impact of Dolly Parton on Appalachian and Pop Culture

Ted Olson has taught Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University since 1999. In 2008 he was Fulbright Senior Scholar in American Studies in Barcelona, Spain. The author of a number of books, articles, essays, encyclopedia entries, poems, and reviews, Olson has produced many documentary albums of Appalachian music. Ted Olson teaches courses in Appalachian music history. He is music section editor for The Encyclopedia of Appalachia; book series editor for the Charles K. Wolfe Music Series (University of Tennessee Press); coeditor of The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music; author of Blue Ridge Folklife; and producer of and album notes writer for several documentary collections of recordings from Appalachia, including boxed sets collecting the 1927-1928 Bristol Sessions, the 1928-1929 Johnson City Sessions, and the 1929-1930 Knoxville Sessions. For his work as a music historian, Olson has received six Grammy Award nominations, an International Bluegrass Music Association Award, an Independent Music Award, and two Jack Spadaro Documentary Awards. Prof. Olson will discuss Dolly Parton’s musical contribution in contemporary culture.

STUDENT MENTORING

Wall Mural at JC Justice Center by Raven Cordy

GIRL SCOUTS

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

JC Justice Center donation drive for displaced survivors of domestic violence

by Slocumb Galleries Student Guild coordinated by Chasity Watson

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: Student Government Association (SGA), SG Student Guild, Department of Music and the Center for Appalachian Studies