Each year Sheila Arnold and I create a new program and offer it to a charitable cause to raise money. This year you can bid on the program to support @nsnstorytellers . Bidding ends March 6! Link in my linktree. #storytelling #folktales #storyart
Come see me at a public event during the next six weeks around the country. Event links are in the linktree. DM me with questions. See y’all there! #storytelling #performingarts #folktales #appalachianart
VCCA post 2/3
Here are some images of one of my work walls in my studio at the @vacenterforthecreativearts residency (see post 1/3 for context). My process of building a new story involves collage, drawing, and asking questions. These images show some of these elements in a new concert story I’m working on, which will be the 1960s contribution to my Appalachian 20th Century series. #appalachian #storytelling #vcca #artistresidency
VCCA post 1/3
I spent the last two weeks of January at an artist’s residency at the restorative @vacenterforthecreativearts . I was gifted uninterrupted time to work on a new concert story (details in another post), took daily walks in the snowy woods (wonder tales, anyone?), and was in the company of many inspiring creatives working in composition, painting, printmaking, poetry, novel, playwriting, and memoir. A place like this is truly a magical realm. #artistresidency #appalachian #storytelling #vcca
I’m sharing a few posts to highlight the artists who’ve provided visual representation to the concert stories in my Appalachian 20th Century Series. @wvteller (that’s me) made the collage that accompanies Mr. Patches. Learn more about the story below. Mr. Patches, from the 1990s: A plot twist, combining Joseph with Prometheus
A small-town’s neighborhood school is saved from demolition when it is retrofitted into low-income assisted living apartments for senior citizens. Hope is a nurse who works in the very same school building she attended as a girl. It is there she discovers her new patient is Mr. Patches, the mesmerizing school storyteller from her childhood. Hope slowly unwinds his secret past - and her future - in this tale set in the present with vivid flashbacks to the 1990s in Appalachia and the 1940s in Europe.
Dedicated to my mother, Terri Booth. #josephbiblestory #prometheus
I’m sharing a few posts to highlight the artists who’ve provided visual representation to the concert stories in my Appalachian 20th Century Series. @kegergely made the painting that accompanies Daniel The Great. Learn more about that story below. Daniel The Great, from the 1980s: A thriller, combining The Prodigal Son and Daniel & the Writing On The Wall
Danny works as a midway fortune teller for a traveling carnival, drawing upon his experiences as a child in the Pentecostal church. When the fair makes a stop in east Kentucky, he returns home after many years to find his preacher father has died, his brother Thad has taken over their holler’s spiritual life, and their church is suffering from inner turmoil that his presence has caused. As the summer rains fall around the church, so do the reins of control. #appalachian #storytelling #prodigalson #writingonthewall
I’m sharing a few posts to highlight the artists who’ve provided visual representation to the concert stories in my Appalachian 20th Century series. @or.jpg made this digital painting that accompanies Ashton. Learn more about the story below.
Ashton, from the 1920s: A tragedy, combining Ashpet and Orpheus
Ashton’s musical life in a small coal town is forever changed when record company representative Ralph Peer comes collecting mountain music in Bristol. With love for her coal-miner husband Billy at her core, Ashton hitches a train and ventures to the city with her mountain songs and hope for a better life.
Hopeful, touching, and sad, this piece brings listeners to laughter and tears. Ashton is also available as a live recording.
Dedicated to Elizabeth Ellis. #appalachian #storytelling #performanceart #cinderella #orpheus
I’m sharing a few posts to highlight the artists who’ve provided visual representation to the concert stories in my Appalachian 20th Century series. @omar_th3_artist made the sculpture that became the image for my story Blind John. Learn more about the story below.
Blind John
1900s: A Ballad, combining Faust and John Henry
Blind John’s reputation as a womanizer and masterful musician precedes him through the south in juke joints, prisons, and churches. There is mystery in where his musical ability came from as well as this new style of blue music he performs. Rumors swirl about an unholy pact and his legendary father.
As his finishing time draws nigh, John must make a spiritual trek to the Great Bend Tunnel and face his own demons along the way: his mother, the church, the men and women he has wronged, and the man he is deceiving into taking over his deal with the Devil.
Dedicated to Susan Gordon. #Appalachian #storytelling #johnhenry #faust
Could you ask for a greater group of people to be your provided family? Not pictured: lots more. All scenes from the National Storytelling Festival @storytellingcenter #storytelling #nationalstorytellingfestival
