Amanda Sprinkle fell in love with basket making when she took a class with her future mother-in-law over 24 years ago, and has been weaving ever since. “I loved the way basketry incorporated both function and artistic expression,” she explained. She also views baskets as a way to connect to Appalachian culture, where basket makers were born out of necessity.
When Anna Mullins was growing up, her dad carried his camera everywhere, teaching her to “make a camera my companion as well.” After raising her family, Anna began to devote more time to photography. She found a mentor in eastern Kentucky-based photographer Malcom J. Wilson, whose Humans of Central Appalachia project implores viewers who want an honest story about Appalachia to “ask an Appalachian,” and pairs portraits with quotes from residents of central Appalachia. Anna’s work follows in this vein, focusing on what she calls “real Appalachia.” Her work in the region, documenting its culture and peoples, connects on a raw, intimate and heartfelt level.
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum explores the story of the 1927 Bristol Sessions, the ways that evolving sound technology shaped their success, and how this rich musical heritage still thrives in the Appalachian region and beyond. Through multiple theater experiences, interactive and stationary displays—along with a variety of educational programs, music performances, and community events—the exciting story of these recording sessions and their far-reaching influence comes alive.
Erin Simons is an artist and educator from a family of Appalachian makers—her father a woodworker, her grandmother a watercolorist. She discovered broom making while attending the Arrowmont School’s Legacy Program, a program for educators to build skills in Appalachian crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and instantly knew she needed to try.
The Fleenor Family are regular as bracket racing at the Bristol Dragway, aka Thunder Valley. Bracket racing is a form of drag racing in which the drivers make a series of time runs down an eighth-mile tarmac strip and then mark their expected time. During the head-to-head races drivers attempt to be as consistent as possible without going faster than their posted time. Bristol-area mechanic Larry Snead said it breeds more camaraderie with the drivers because they are racing against themselves, not against each other. It also rewards consistency and reliability over straight-line speed.
In hindsight, Jackson Cunningham’s career as a luthier was meant to be. He began piano lessons with his grandmother at age seven, picked up guitar soon after, and learned to play banjo and fiddle in his teenage years. Around the same time, Jackson’s stepfather introduced him to woodworking. The confluence of these interests brought Jackson Cunningham to the threshold of instrument craft, which he eagerly pursued after moving to Grayson County, Virginia, from his home in southern Oregon. There he found a community in the musicians, luthiers, and craftspeople that stewarded traditional Appalachian music.
Jesse Halverson’s mother taught her how to crochet when she was a young child, and since then, she has “derived great pleasure and satisfaction from creating with my hands.” Jesse soon learned how to cross stitch and knit, frequently finding herself either working on a project or planning her next one. After encountering spinning as an adult, she tried to teach the craft to her daughter—who instead wanted to learn how to weave, after seeing a demonstration at a local festival. Jesse and her husband bought their daughter a small table loom for Christmas, which prompted Jesse to take a weaving class from the Overmountain Weavers Guild. “Joining this guild and helping my daughter with her loom ignited another passion in my textile journey,” she said.
John Alexander is a broom maker, poplar basket craftsman, and educator living in Grayson County, Virginia. Growing up on their small farm, John’s father taught him how to make the things they needed with the raw materials found on their land. Small scraps of wood became simple toys, and poplar tree bark was woven together to become baskets. To John, this self-sufficiency is what defines Appalachian art and culture.
In 2016, Katie Hoffman did her father-in-law a favor: Hoping to help his sales, she shared a photo of his vast collection of cast iron skillets, pans, and kettles on her Facebook page. The tremendous response from friends led Katie and her husband, Brett, to realize that they might accidentally have started a business restoring and reselling vintage cast iron.
After working on the road as a sound engineer for the bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland, KT Vandyke found himself back in Southwest Virginia, doing instrument repair and setup at Front Row Music in Abingdon. There he met Walter “Skip” Herman of the nearby Frog Level Guitar Shop. Herman had learned the luthier trade from “Uncle” Dave Sturgill in Piney Creek, North Carolina, and decided to pursue repair full-time once he saw the reliable demand for, and importance of, the work. As Herman explains, “You can make the very best instrument in the world and if there is no one out there to repair it, it’s like having a Ferrari where there’s no mechanic in the world who can fix it.”
Ron Carson, together with his late wife Jill Carson, founded the Appalachian African American Cultural Center (AAACC) in his hometown of Pennington Gap, VA, in 1987. The mission of the AAACC is to collect narratives, artifacts, and ephemera of African American life in Appalachia, and in doing so, preserve the history, heritage, and culture of Black people in far Southwest Virginia and the broader Appalachian region.
Stephen Curd’s Lavelle Boutique takes its namesake from Stephen’s grandmother, Eva Lavelle, a skilled seamstress whom Stephen recalls accompanying to fabric stores to pick out patterns and designs for his school clothes. When he was in school for nursing, Eva Lavelle would send Stephen letters encouraging him to take classes in art to give him opportunities to express himself. Through her support and encouragement, Stephen decided to study men’s fashion instead of nursing. For Stephen, Eva Lavelle is the very reason why Lavelle Boutique exists.
