When travelers approach Hindman from the Hal Rogers Parkway, they are welcomed to the historic downtown by a large metal sculpture. Big Blue is a horse with a mailbox body created as a tribute to Irvine Pratt, one of the last United States postmen to deliver mail on horseback. He served as a lifeline for 30 families in these hills into the late 20th century, riding six hours, three days a week, to bring pension checks, magazines and news from Vietnam.
It is fitting that the welcome to the town of Hindman is a piece of public art that commemorates history. The community is steeped in Appalachian art and craft traditions. Perhaps its most noted craftsman was Uncle Ed Thomas, a luthier who created the world-famous Cumberland dulcimer with its signature hourglass shape at the end of the 1800s.
Music is a part of Hindman lore, but many other traditions, such as dancing, blacksmithing and writing, also were part of the fabric of everyday life for years. In Hindman today, two organizations are working to keep these traditions alive. Through a mix of teaching and apprenticeship, opportunity and support, they keep folk arts accessible as an inheritance, a craft and a source of livelihood for the community.
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Hindman Settlement School
When Hindman Settlement School founders Katherine Pettit and May Stone came to this part of eastern Kentucky in 1899, they were inspired by the national settlement movement to both teach and learn. Some of the treasures they found in the local community were Appalachian crafts, music and dance, and they infused arts into the curriculum from the beginning.
The school’s Folk Arts Education Program continues that emphasis by helping fill the gap in arts education at the Knott and Floyd county schools. Education Director Sarah Kate Morgan leads in-school music and movement programs to expose students to their traditions with games, dancing and singing. Through the Pick and Bow after-school program, 75 children annually learn to play the banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin with six local teaching artists. Interest continues even as the pandemic has shifted the lessons to a virtual platform.
In her programs, Morgan gives the students permission to create their own folkways. She likes to lead square dances where students are invited to create their own moves. It might look like a dab interspersed with the more traditional do-si-dos and swings. “It is important that kids feel ownership of their traditions and connected to the place where they live,” Morgan said. “It helps them understand their place in the world.”
The school also has a long history of encouraging literary arts. The bedrock of the program is the weeklong Appalachian Writers Workshop, now in its 43rd year. Many Appalachian writing luminaries have been on staff, including James Still, Harriet Arnow, Harry Caudill, George Ella Lyon and Gurney Norman.
Kentucky writer Silas House first attended the workshop in 1996 and has returned every year, either as a student or a teacher. “I would not have become a writer without the Appalachian Writers Workshop,” House said. “There, I found the encouragement and support that I needed to sustain me. It’s one of those special places in the world—like a thin place—in that there is some unexplainable power about it.” To House, the workshop plays a central role in the literature of the region.
One of the unique aspects of the Appalachian Writers Workshop is the mixing of students and staff in an integrated and supportive way. A simple practice that enforces that egalitarian spirit is washing dishes together, which everyone is expected to do sometime during the week.
Jayne Moore Waldrop of Lexington has attended the workshop since 2016. For her first published fiction manuscript, she is excited to be working with the Settlement School’s most recent literary endeavor: Fireside Industries, a publishing imprint of the University Press of Kentucky. With House as editor, Waldrop said, “I am fortunate to be working with my literary dream team.”
The intent of Fireside Industries is to publish new and re-released books that diversify the Appalachian voice and provide new insight into the region. The newest release is Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle. It is the first published novel by a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Appalachian Artisan Center
The musical and literary work of the Hindman Settlement School is complemented by the creative work of the Appalachian Artisan Center. In its three studios, which teach luthiery, ceramics and blacksmithing, the center introduces people to the satisfaction of creating and, in some participants, developing a deeper passion for the craft.
One of the programs, called Culture of Recovery, serves people in recovery from substance abuse through the Knott County Drug Court and Hickory Hills Recovery Center. Each week, COR participants immerse themselves in one of the studio arts and experience the therapeutic benefits of making something with their hands. It can be transformative. Luthier Paul Williams recalled the statement of one COR crafter: “I have never finished anything in my life before. Now, I have a piece of functional art that I made.”
The blacksmith studio is reaching out to another underserved population. The second session of “Metal Works for the Modern Muse” will start when school reopens; its mission is to introduce teenage girls to blacksmithing. Dan Estep, the center’s blacksmith, will be assisted by teenage apprentice Nerissa Sparkman. Estep and Sparkman will guide students in creating jewelry and—a class favorite—fashioning a marshmallow roasting stick.
Estep pointed out that, 100 years ago, metalworking was a self-reliant skill that almost everyone had, to repair plows and shoe horses. “Blacksmithing should be accessible to all,” Estep said. “I find girls have a little bit of a knack for it. They can see their way through it, because they tend to be more intuitive.”
The Artisan Center hopes some of the people they introduce to studio work find a passion for one of these hands-on arts. By nurturing local artists, the center is developing successful entrepreneurs with viable businesses and building a creative economy in eastern Kentucky.
Artist Kim Patton of Saving Grace Pottery is one of the center’s success stories. She first came to the Artisan Center as a COR participant and fell in love with pottery. After completing her recovery plan, she rented one of the incubator studios in the center and began teaching the COR pottery classes. She has found a niche teaching ceramics in the center classroom, such as the October tile ornament class she led.
Patton is also one of the hundreds of Appalachian artists who are juried into the center’s gallery, a multi-room exhibition and sales space. Artists and craftspeople from all 52 Appalachian counties are eligible to apply to exhibit at the gallery, which provides crucial exposure and market access for many rural artists. The gallery receives visitors from all over the country and has an online store for remote shopping.
Those who develop an interest in luthiery can pursue a different kind of job opportunity. Troublesome Creek Instrument Company is the first factory ever opened in Knott County, where skilled artisans combine traditional handwork with modern precision equipment to craft high-end guitars, dulcimers and mandolins.
Jeremy Haney has worked at Troublesome Creek for a year. He first learned luthiery skills as a COR participant. “It’s been a blessing,” he said. “This is what God is calling me to do. It helps me keep looking forward instead of backward.”
Along with graduates of the COR program, Troublesome Creek provides employment for displaced coal workers.
Aspiring craftspeople for Troublesome Creek begin their training at the center’s luthiery studio. On any given day, master luthier Paul Williams guides beginners and apprentices working at their own pace. Woodworker Jedediah Radosevich was meticulously making his first guitar in September. He was enjoying learning new skills in his hobby and discerning whether he might want to join the crew at Troublesome Creek.
The Hindman Settlement School and Appalachian Artisan Center are creating something special—a community where traditional folk arts are celebrated, shared and made new, an expanding notion of who has access to the traditions and what they can create with them, a rural place where art is a viable way to make a livelihood. Whether dancing, writing, forging or woodworking, community members are crafting pride and opportunities in the region.
For more information on the Hindman Settlement School or Appalachian Artisan Center, visit hindman.org or artisancenter.net, respectively.