Wood Carvings | Prisoner Art | Face Jugs | Furniture | Odds & Ends
You look straight into the heart of
Appalachian culture
when you look at its folk
art.
Nothing expresses so
well the spirit, creativity, and values of a people
than its untrained, home-grown, individual
artistry. How can you hope to understand the men
and women who peopled this region without these
articulate glimpses into their characters and their
affections? Here you see what amused them, what
moved them to tears, what they viewed as
satisfying or transcendent, curious or essential. Here tradition informs their work,
but creativity gives it form.
The Museum of
Appalachia's Hall of Fame and Display Barn house one
of the nation's finest collections of Appalachian folk
art, from Cabin Creek Charlie's polka-dot house to a
pair of lovely hand-painted murals of the Tree of
Life. A painting on a tee shirt. A giant,
frightening devil's head formed from a grotesquely
twisted tree root. An intricate carving of a
treed 'coon with coonhounds trapping it out on a
branch. At the Museum, you do more than
just amaze at the diversity of artistic
expression: you begin to understand the creative
heart of our Appalachian ancestors.
