By Mike Templeton
A primary way that the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition carries the message about the role and centrality of urban Appalachians in our local culture is through the arts. Poets, writers of all kinds, and visual artists are often able to reach people in ways that direct statements simply cannot. It is that magical something that the arts bring to us—a quality we discover in childhood and carry with us all our lives—that makes the arts such a compelling force for conveying our experiences. To this end, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition is proud to sponsor, in partnership with Originary Arts Initiative and Roebling Books & Coffee, Woven Branches’ “Land Matters.” A special evening of creative exploration will take place on Thursday, September 11, from 6–8 p.m. at Roebling Books in Newport, Kentucky.
Woven Branches programs are meant to provide support for socially engaged art and creative invention within communities—however defined—and to offer forums and events where writers and visual artists can engage each other around specific themes. Woven Branches is particularly interested in cross-generational forms of creative exploration that open up new areas of communication. These programs support the preservation and furtherance of local cultures, helping individuals find increased support within their communities. An exciting element for UACC is the expansion of our “primarily Ohio-side” outreach into Northern Kentucky’s historic Appalachian settlement communities. This will help us inspire a sense of community belonging among younger generations of Appalachians, as well as among newly migrated and settled neighbors.
The Land Matters event is co-led by Sherry Cook Stanforth and Michael Thompson, with featured contributions from Erinn Sweet, Joe Gallenstein, and Froggie Leman—writers, visual artists, and poets with experience in community-based projects. With such a powerful cross-section of talent and a wide range of individual interests within this group, attendees will be able to explore nearly any artistic form and cultural theme that falls under the larger heading of Land Matters. Woven Branches programs offer a supportive social arts platform—featuring creative invention workshops, story circles, and community arts celebrations—where writers and visual artists across generations can creatively interpret and express Cincinnati’s diverse migration heritage and homeplace stories. This particular event highlights the powerful ways that “land matters” in our memories, personal well-being, heritage, and future existence. Bring friends and enjoy an evening of creative invention and interchange, paired with art and writing practices.
Co-leader of Woven Branches and UACC core member Sherry Cook Stanforth explains that they are especially excited to celebrate younger adult talent through curious-minded explorations of homeplace identity, family heritage, and cherished landscapes. Stanforth said, “The land holds us from cradle to grave, shaping our life experiences in complicated ways. We’re offering people common ground for sharing personal experiences, cherished memories, and creative ideas that reveal just HOW land matters to specific people in this specific community.” These are just a few of the guiding ideas behind an approach that fosters so much cross-generational work and collaboration with younger artistic talent. Certainly, the way we interact with our physical space changes over the course of our lives. These changing and dynamic perspectives offer rich sites of exploration under the general rubric of Land Matters.
Woven Branches manages to bring together community engagement and community arts programs in a kind of seamless mixture. One could easily make a case that this is precisely the kind of work we need in our contemporary world, flooded as it is with distractions and background noise. Urban Appalachian activism and advocacy have always flourished within these kinds of programs. Woven Branches’ Land Matters is sponsored by the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition in partnership with Originary Arts Initiative and Roebling Books & Coffee. Woven Branches is also supported in part by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the annual ArtsWave Campaign, the region’s primary source for arts funding. Land Matters will be held at Roebling Books & Coffee on Thursday, September 11, from 6–8 p.m. The Roebling workshops are donation-based. If you wish to contribute to a session, we are grateful, but there is no pressure to do so. Simply show up.
If you have questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected].
Information on Roebling Books & Coffee can be found at this link: https://www.roeblingbooks.com.
Michael Templeton is a writer and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir, published with Erratum Press, and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications, and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, with Nut Hole Publishing. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative nonfiction, as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio, with his wife, who is an artist.