PROGRAM ARTISTS

One of Kentuck's goals is to nurture and provide opportunities for active appreciation of and participation in the arts and traditional crafts. We take the occasion of the Festival, which draws artists, artisans, and festival-goers from across the state, region, and nation, to highlight the importance of arts and artists in the community.

Kentuck Artists in the Schools.

The Kentuck Artists in the Schools program places 17 professional artists in local classrooms.

Our 2016 Kentuck Artists in the Schools:

Chris Armstrong, fiber. Specifically needle-felting.

Constance Beck, fiber. Specifically spinning.

Jack "Mr. B" Beverland, two-dimensional. Making art with found objects.

Suzan and Chuck Buckner, mixed media.

Terry Gibson, baskets.

Sydney Gruber, mixed media.

Karen Fincannon, clay.

Roger "Ab the Flagman" Ivens, mixed media. Discusses the flag and what each component represents, then each child creates their own flag.

George Jones, natural materials. Broom making, from history to completed broom.

Will MacGavin, music. Talks about the indigenous people of Australia and the didgeridoo, and how he makes his from reclaimed wood.

Scott McQueen, mixed media.

Beth Phillips, natural materials. Kudzu!

Cher Shaffer, mixed media.

Robert "Dr. Bob" Shaffer, two-dimensional.

Debbie "Miz Thang" Garner, mixed media. Birdhouses out of recycled wood scraps and milk cartons.

John Tilley, two-dimensional. Wet on wet technique of watercolor painting; cool and warm colors and perspective.

Jessica Tuggle, fiber.

Demonstrating Artists.

Kentuck began as a community celebration featuring reenactment and demonstration of southern folkways. The Festival has expanded in both size and scope, but continues to value the work of traditional and contemporary artisans. Our Demonstrating Artists bring awareness of these crafts to new generations. Many of our Demonstrating Artists are arts organizations that are active year-round.

Our 2016 Demonstrating Artists:

Book Arts: UA Book Arts, Tuscaloosa, AL. Graduate students in this program study four basic areas: printing/publishing, bookbinding, papermaking, and the history of the book. At the Festival, they provide hands-on experience.

Clay: Crimson Ceramics Society, Tuscaloosa, AL. Ceramics students in the UA College of Arts and Sciences display their pottery and demonstrate their techniques.

Kentuck Clay Co-op, Northport, AL. In a shared studio on the Kentuck Art Center campus, hobby potters at all skill levels work together. At the Festival, members guide curious children in shaping clay on a wheel and off.

Kerry Kennedy, Tuscaloosa, AL. The owner of Firehorse Studio and a Kentuck Studio Artist, Kerry specializes in medieval and renaissance reproductions, produces general ceramics, and teaches. At the Festival, she demonstrates her wheel technique.

Daniel Livingston, Tuscaloosa, AL. A Kentuck Studio Artist, Daniel will demonstrate the rapid fire process of raku.

Miller Pottery, Brent, AL. Miller's Pottery is one of the few remaining traditional potteries in the United States. The Miller family's 150-year history of pottery-making incorporates traditions brought from Europe and cultivated in the American South and uses Alabama clay from Perry County.

Fiber: West Alabama Fiber Guild. The Fiber Guild explores and promotes fiber arts, including hand spinning, weaving, dyeing, knitting, crocheting, lace-making, tatting, and many more skilled crafts.

West Alabama Quilters Guild. A non-profit organization with some sixty quilters of various levels using their craft and artistry to make quilted items and advocating education at all levels about the craft and art of quilting.

Literary Arts: Black Warrior Review, Tuscaloosa, AL. BWR conducts a children’s poetry activity: using magazine cutouts, children are invited to create their own poems with found language.

Metal: Allison Bohorfoush, Birmingham, AL. With 22 years of experience, Allison will demonstrate the chisel and repose' techniques that she uses in the making of her nature-inspired recycled copper jewelry.

Alabama Forge Council, Baileyton, AL. AFC is a nonprofit organization of over 400 smiths promoting the knowledge of blacksmithing skills and the continued re-discovery of the art of blacksmithing.

Sloss Metal Arts, Birmingham, AL. Sloss Metal Arts is a nationally-acclaimed arts program focusing on cast iron and fabricated steel sculpture. Festivalgoers can purchase a sandstone mold and carve their own designs, then Sloss artists will pour molten metal into it, creating a unique sculpture.

Mixed Media: Terrell Taylor, Meridian, MS. A Kentuck Studio Artist, Terrell will demonstrate her art-making techniques including printmaking, collage, and painting.

Music: Alabama Blues Project, Northport, AL. ABP is a non-profit that works to preserve blues music as a traditional and contemporary art form through interactive programs that educate and entertain. At Kentuck, Festival-goers can learn some licks from blues musicians.

Tuscaloosa Symphony Guild, Tuscaloosa, AL. The Symphony Guild sets up an Instrument Petting Zoo, where festival-goers can actually use the instruments.

Natural Materials: Jill and Mickey Miller, Tuscaloosa, AL. The Miller’s demonstrate various types of chair-caning, seat-weaving, and basket-making.

Andrew and Etta McCall, Letohatchee, AL. Wisteria, grape, and kudzu vines are twisted together to make baskets and furniture.

Printmaking: Crossroads Arts Alliance Studio 150 Printers, Gordo, AL. Festival-goers will be able to print a commemorative postcard on an antique Craftsman press, and to try their hand at paper-making.

Green Pea Press, Huntsville, AL. Festival-goers select images to mix-and-match as a design to be screen-printed on site.

Theater and Dance: UA Theater and Dance, Tuscaloosa, AL. University of Alabama theater and dance students demonstrate various set and lighting design and costume design techniques.

Two-Dimensional: Lorrie Lane, Tuscaloosa, AL. A Kentuck Studio Artist, Lorrie will demonstrate her improvisational realist painting techniques using oils on canvas.

Wood: Woodworkers of West Alabama. A guild promoting the art and craft of woodwork and the production of handmade objects of high quality by learning informally from fellow woodworkers and from lectures, demonstrations, and workshops. Members work with children to build birdhouses at Kentuck.

Guest Artists.

These artists wouldn't normally do festivals – whether through economic hardship, inexperience in the art world, or a lack of appreciation for their outsider or visionary art forms – but whose work is traditionally and culturally important. This group also includes folk artists from the other side of the spectrum, who are widely collected by individuals and museums; many of these were first introduced to the art world through the Kentuck Festival of the Arts. Our Guest Artists expose Festival-goers and emerging artists to traditional and contemporary folk art, opening discussions and broadening understanding.

Our 2016 Guest Artists:

Butch Anthony, mixed media. Seale, AL. Artist, picker, and builder of things. “I can weld steel, mix concrete, paint, throw clay, bend wire, sew cloth, and hammer a nail. Mix all these together and you got Intertwangleism.” Les Blank, the documentarian with an appetite for American originals (he has made films about Dizzy Gillespie and Alice Waters has been filming Mr. Anthony for over 12 years, and describes him as “a kind of national treasure.”

Felix Berroa, Marietta, GA. Born in the Dominican Republic, Felix paints to express his passion for life, death, and the dreams of all humans. He started drawing and carving when he was a child, and has been fascinated by the human figure ever since. Though he began making work that was more realistic, his current practice abstracts his figures into dreamlike characters. Vibrant yet subtle hues saturate each image, as does a complex narrative that addresses the many sides of humanity.

Michael Banks, two-dimensional. Guntersville, AL. Michael has won many honors with his work which has been exhibited in New York, Denver, and Atlanta. The Hurn Museum in Savannah, Georgia presented a One-Man exhibition of his work in 2005 and has a number of his works in their permanent collection. Articles have appeared in Southern Living magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. A review of his Hurn exhibition stated: “Ultimately, ‘Michael Banks: Outsider Artist’ offers Savannah’s most rewarding and penetrating solo show in recent memory. As this unforgettable exhibit clearly indicates, Banks is one outsider artist who has certainly earned the right to be on the inside.”

Ned Berry, clay. Columbus, GA. Ned Berry has never regretted the day he begged a local potter to let him have a lump of clay and a chance to sit down at her wheel to have a try at making something. On his third attempt that day, he made a pot. Today Ned Berry’s unique works of art combine both wheel-thrown and hand-built elements from glazed clay. His works are now in the collections of two Presidents and in many distinguished collections coast to coast and abroad. His work has been exhibited in New York as well as in several one-man exhibitions in southern

Booker T Washington Magnet High, photography. Montgomery, AL. BTW is a public, inner-city magnet program recognized by the Washington Post, Newsweek Magazine, U. S. News and World Report, Business Week, and Google, Inc. as one of America's and Alabama's best high schools. Their student community demonstrates how the arts and innovation have the ability to revive education and transform lives. Students set up and sell their original photography, while completing a project about living the life of an artist.

Brenda Davis, two-dimensional. Tuskegee, AL. Brenda heard the voice of God tell her, “Draw to comfort your mind.” She immediately began drawing obsessively and later began painting her drawings. “They won’t let go of me until I get it down on paper.” Brenda draws and paints obsessively. Her works are in many important collections and three works by Brenda have been accepted into Atlanta’s High Museum permanent collection.

Brian Dowdall, two-dimensional. Baltimore, MD. Brian has been creating animal spirit and goddess art for over 30 years. He’s traveled the US and Mexico, using as materials house paint on newspapers, as well as tempura on cardboard. His work is widely collected and internationally distributed.

Sam Ezell, two-dimensional. Hillsborough, NC. Sam uses bold shapes and bright colors to make joyful paintings of happy times. People are dressed up and having fun. Skies are blue, the sun is shining, birds have houses, and chickens come in lots of colors.

Elayne Goodman, mixed media, Columbus, MS. Elayne uses everything from cigar bands to buttons to create her work. She says “The most difficult part is finding a stopping place. I say that I stop when God tells me to. My critics say God is often too slow in speaking to me.” Her work has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine and is in the collections of Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, and the Montgomery Museum of Art.

Butch House (Glenn House, Jr.) is a living legacy in all senses of the word. Growing up with his father and accomplished artist, Glenn House, Sr., Butch learned what it takes to be an artist. Butch is a member of the Crossroads Arts Alliance, an eclectic, multi-generational group of artists and craftspeople that live or work in Gordo, Alabama. "Playing with red hot steel and enough electricity to make your toes wiggle, and dodging (or not) sparks that seem to come and go in every direction is mostly just plain fun," says Butch. Butch's Fire Ant can be found in Kentuck's Courtyard of Wonders.

Chris Hubbard, mixed media. Athens, GA. With no formal art training since grade school, Kentucky native, now Athens, GA resident, Chris Hubbard left a 20 year career as a scientist (microbiologist and environmental consultant) in 1998 to be "BORN AGAIN" as an artist.

William (Willie Willie) Lamendola, mixed media. Gonzalez, LA. Willie Lamendola always was a regular ol’ blue-collar guy, but by no means an artist—at least not by his standards, despite being only six credit hours shy of a college degree in fine arts. Today Lamendola creates 3-D folk art out of twisted old metal and weather-worn wood.

Eric Legge, mixed media. Valdosta, GA. Eric spends his days and nights creating beautiful nuanced work out of paint and found objects, revealing a serene appreciation for the details of his world. Eric describes the genesis of his inspiration. “Well, it starts in the heart,” he says. “The mind perceives it and the hand gives it shape. I think of it as a trinity, you know – Heart, Mind and Hand.”

Missionary Mary & Tyrone Proctor, mixed media. Tallahassee, FL. After a family tragedy, a grief-struck Mary was given a vision. A voice told her to paint one of the many old doors in her junkyard. Mary listened to the voice and soon found herself painting everything she could find.

Mary sees herself as a Missionary, and her goal is to use her art to spread her message. Typical paintings show stories from her life, or members of her family, and usually include a message, or a lesson that she's learned and wants to share.

Sarah Rakes, two-dimensional. Tallulah Falls, GA. Her works exude a concern with growing things and a love for animals in nature. Uniquely mounted in hand-made frames constructed by her husband and painted by Rakes, her works have a rare quality of craftsmanship. These special frames contain her exhilarating combination of colors through which she explores the universal wisdom she wishes to express. Rakes has synthesized her rural experiences into powerful images that speak a primal language.

Ruth Robinson, two-dimensional. South AL. “When I was young, I grew fond of many old people that I got to know by going with my Mother, who was a traveling beautician. I was fond of these elderly folks because they had so many great stories and a lot of knowledge about the world. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to bring them back to life in my paintings. I hope that my art will share the love I have for them because it is straight from my heart.” Her paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago and Atlanta and are included in many important collections.

Jim Shores, mixed media. Rome, GA. Jim is a self-taught artist who creates sculpture, assemblage, and environmental art from found/discarded objects. His work is in the permanent Folk Art collections of the High Museum of Art (Atlanta. Ga) as well as the Polk Museum (Lakeland, Fl) and the House of Blues (Orlando, Fl).

Della Wells, mixed media. Milwaukee, WI. As a child, Della made up stories and characters, many based on her mother’s recollections of growing up in North Carolina during the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s. Wells used these stories to escape the madness of her mother’s mental illness and her father’s rage and eventually used them to inspire the collage art she creates today. In 2010 a play about her life was written for a performance at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D C. Her work was also included as an illustration for a book being published by National Geographic. Wells’ work is exhibited in Europe and throughout the U.S. in folk art and outsider galleries from coast to coast.