Appalshop
In this milestone video, we feature the nonprofit Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Appalshop—through media productions, public presentations, and educational projects, including film, video, radio, new media, music, theater, and community exchanges—documents the voices and celebrates the culture of people living in Appalachia and rural America. NEA has provided continual support for Appalshop since its founding.
Produced for the National Endowment for the Arts 50th anniversary celebration.
For more on the National Endowment for the Arts 50th anniversary, go to
Folks at Appalshop in Whitesburg discuss capitalizing on culture
People from Lafayette College's Economic Empowerment Global Learning Project presented a plan of action for exporting Eastern Kentucky's culture.
Motorcycle ride up Pine Mountain whitesburg Ky
Who needs the dragon this place is awesome, the riding in and around Eastern Kentucky is some of the beat I have seen
The Starfruit Tree
Appalshop hosted thirteen Indonesians from Jakarta and Yogyakarta as part of a multi-phased, international exchange project made possible by a grant from the US Department of State, Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs. The project pairs a growing network of Indonesian media organizations with Appalshop with a commitment to cross cultural exchange in a process of shared learning. The exchange included workshops and a collaborative production with Appalshop's youth media program AMI, the Appalachian Media Institute. This is one of three videos produced during the collaboration.
Whitesburg Kentucky Snow Day 2-17-15
This video is about Whitesburg Kentucky Snow Day 2-17-15
Belle Star Appalshop KY 2018
Andy's parents visit Whitesburg, Kentucky
My blog:
RUX Alumni Maria Lewis
Maria T. Lewis is a Horse Cave, Kentucky native. She is graduate of Western Kentucky University with a Bachelor in Interdisciplinary Studies (BIS) with an emphasis in Organization and Communication of Ideas. Maria is a library assistant at Western Kentucky University’s Library Special Collection and a Kentucky Arts Council/ Kentucky Folklife Program Community Scholar. As a community scholar, Maria has lead the Horse Cave Narrative Stage in partnership with the Kentucky Folklife Program.
Maria joined the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange as a member of the 2017 learning cohort and was excited to step out her comfort zone, learn about Kentucky and get to know new people. Maria joined the RUX Steering Committee in 2018.
***
Did you know that more than 160 Kentuckians from 34 counties have been collaborating for Kentucky’s future? Each summer, the RUX is hosted in three regions of the state and is designed to help participants understand and value the culture, landscape, context, and people of each place.
The Kentucky RUX is a partnership of The Art Of The Rural & Appalshop, and is supported by RUPRI and dozens of Kentucky businesses. We have been hosted in Whitesburg, Louisville, Paducah, Harlan, and Lexington so far, bringing dozens of people to these regions for the first time. From an Eastern Kentucky hotel development to integrated learning across our community college system, a dozen collaborations have developed.
Learn more about the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange at kyrux.org.
Since 1968: The Center for Traditional Music & Dance and Appalshop
A symposium exploring the themes of cultural work, geography, and community as manifested in the history of three organizations that emerged from the social, political and cultural transformations that reshaped national and global society in 1968: the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, Appalshop and the Drum and Spear Bookstore. Panel one: Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2018, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance's programs and documentation celebrate the wealth of cultural heritage found in New York's immigrant communities. Appalshop is looking toward its 50th year (in 2019) of presenting the cultures and experiences of Appalachian communities as counter-narratives that combat the surrounding the region. Founders and current staff members will reflect on the unique history of each organization and discuss questions in common about the role of cultural documentation, heritage vitality, and plurality of experiences across rural and urban spaces.
Speaker Biography: Alexander Gibson serves as executive director of Appalshop, a multimedia arts organization located in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Before joining Appalshop, Gibson practiced law within the torts, insurance and business litigation practice groups at Stites & Harbison PLLC in Louisville, Kentucky, and in the business litigation group at Ballard, Spahr, Andrews and Ingersol in Philadelphia.
Speaker Biography: Martin Koenig founded New York's Balkan Arts Center in 1968 and together with Ethel Raim, guided its transformation into first, the Ethnic Folk Arts Center and then, the Center for Traditional Music. Together they were were co-artistic and executive directors of Center for Traditional Music and Dance, until Koenig's retirement in 1994. Koenig has recorded, filmed and photographed music and dance in Balkan villages and in urban immigrant communities in the United States since 1966.
Speaker Biography: Ethel Raim is co-founder and artistic director emerita of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. She has been a national leader in revitalizing diverse ethnic traditions and awakening Americans to a broader appreciation of our traditional music and dance heritage for more than a half century.
Speaker Biography: Peter Rushefsky is a klezmer musician and executive director of New York City's Center for Traditional Music and Dance, a leading folk/traditional arts organization based in New York City.
Speaker Biography: Herb E. Smith is a co-founder of Appalshop, the internationally known arts and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky. He believes in the importance of place and seeing what can be done by staying in one place for a long time. Since 1969, when he was a high school student, Smith has played an active role in Appalshop, and continues to make films in the area where he was raised.
For transcript and more information, visit
Sen. Paul Wellstone in Whitesburg
n 1997, Senator Paul Wellstone retraced the steps of his hero, Robert
Kennedy, through Appalachia, focusing in particular on eastern Kentucky.
With him was his wife Sheila, daughter of Letcher/Harlan County natives
Delmer and Ellen Ison, and a frequent summer visitor to Kingdom Come Creek
when she was growing up. Also accompanying the Wellstones was senior aide
Tom Lapic. All three were tragically killed in a plane crash on October 25.
During the 1997 tour, Paul, Sheila and Tom spent several days visiting a
Head Start classroom, touring a housing rehabilitation site, and hearing the
concerns of working and disabled coal miners, their wives and widows. On
August 30, Senator Wellstone held a Town Meeting at Appalshop where he
listened for several hours as folks from all over central Appalachia
expressed their concerns about the economy, community development, health
care, education, poverty, workers' rights, and social and environmental
justice. Here are the Senator's closing remarks.
Blackey
Appalshop hosted thirteen Indonesians from Jakarta and Yogyakarta as part of a multi-phased, international exchange project made possible by a grant from the US Department of State, Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs. The project pairs a growing network of Indonesian media organizations with Appalshop with a commitment to cross cultural exchange in a process of shared learning. The exchange included workshops and a collaborative production with Appalshop's youth media program AMI, the Appalachian Media Institute. This is one of three videos produced during the collaboration.
Backroads: Summit City Lounge
Backroads: Summit City
Calls from Home: Prison Radio in Appalachia
Produced by WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky, Calls from Home is a weekly radio show that broadcasts messages from friends and family of those incarcerated in the prison system of Central Appalachia. WMMT is the non-commercial, community radio service of Appalshop, Inc., a not-for-profit multimedia arts center founded in Whitesburg in 1969 as an economic development project of the War on Poverty.
Calls from Home records calls every Monday night from 7-9pm, and then broadcasts the messages from 9-10pm. WMMT's local radio signal reaches: United States Penitentiary Big Sandy in Inez, KY; Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright, KY; Wallens Ridge State Prison in Wise County, VA; Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, VA; Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Oakwood, VA; United States Penitentiary Lee in Lee County, VA; Wise Correctional Unit in Coeburn, VA, and many regional jails and detention centers. Seven of these eight penitentiaries were built in the last 20 years, and they house prisoners whose families live hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles away.
Calls from Home immediately follows Hot 88.7 Hip Hop from the Hill Top, one of only two hip hop radio shows broadcast from the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky -- both produced by WMMT. Hosted in turn by DJ Jewelz, DJ Sly Rye, DJ Izzy Lizzy and DJ Amelia, the show features the best of old school, new school, underground and southern hip hop, every Monday night from 7-9 pm.
We're grateful to Appalshop, WMMT, Amelia Kirby, Sylvia Ryerson, Elizabeth Sanders, and Ada Smith for their vision, generous support of this video, and commitment to the many families with loved ones in prison. For more information, visit wmmt.org and appalshop.org.
Produced by Field Studio, May-July 2012
Electricity Fairy
They reach out and flip the switch and the light comes on. Well, there's not a magic electricity fairy . That electricity comes from a power plant that feeds on coal
Eugene Mooney, past commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources
Artist Bonita Skaggs Parsons | Kentucky Life | KET
Artist Bonita Skaggs-Parsons has long used whatever was at hand to create her pieces. She likes to recycle and upcycle old newspapers and scraps of paper to create soft sculptures. A self-taught artist, she works in a variety of media, including wood carving and painting.
Her work has been exhibited at Appalshop in Whitesburg and at the Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead State University.
She loves her Elliott County home. But with an artist's eye, she sees both the good and bad elements in the community. Her art makes strong statements about the impact the drug problem has had on her community. She and her daughter, Misty Skaggs, worked together on Prescription Panes, an exhibit of poems by Misty and art by Bonita depicting the prescription drug epidemic in Eastern Kentucky.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn more about KET's programs at
Visit KET's Facebook page:
Subscribe to the KET channel:
1972 WHITESBURG KY H S HOMECOMING
Hwy 119 From Pineville, Ky To Whitesburg, Ky 5 18 2019 Part 3
I do not Own Music Rights. Music Provided by; Bon Jovi. Nice ride From Pineville, Ky. To Whitesburg, Ky.
Lynch Mob - Tooth And Nail - live at the Appalshop Theater 8/7/15
Whitesburg, KY
Ernie Thacker's Introduction By Willard Hall
First time in 2 years Ernie Thacker returns to the music at the Appalshop in Whitesburg KY on the Bluegrass Express Live. September 5th, 2013.