On The Map: Preserving Appalachia

Photograph by Giles Ashford

By Rachel Beth Rudi, Digital Contributor

In this week’s update from the Rural Arts and Culture Map, we wish to turn your attention toward Preserving Appalachia, a branch of Appalachian Mountain Advocates. Through public law and policy, AMA supports Appalachian communities’ health and well-being, and fights the coal industry that has jeopardized same.

As most of AMA’s work occurs in the policy realm, Preserving Appalachia was developed by Dan Radmacher to celebrate and promote the rich heritage, past and present, of the mountains and reveal the beauty of an oft-misunderstood region. Writes Mr. Radmacher:

Preserving Appalachia probably had its origins in the first donor appeal letter I wrote my second week on the job. In that, I said this:

I’m writing to you today to talk about a new focus for the [AMA]. We will continue our successful legal battles that help stop the worst abuses, but we recognize that the fight for Appalachia cannot be won in the courtroom alone. This is a battle for the hearts and minds of the people of this region, and those outside it who enjoy the benefits of cheap electricity without considering the unseen costs. We need to engage in the court of public opinion as well as courts of law.

As I said in my final column in The Roanoke Times before coming to work for the Center, ‘The debate is about coal, climate change, state and federal regulations, the fragile economies of states like Kentucky and West Virginia, and the mountains, rivers and forests of Appalachia. It involves complex, emotionally powerful issues involving people's jobs, their health, their homes and their children.’

Writing that, I realized that one of my main goals needed to be helping those outside of Appalachia understand what is so special about Appalachia – to see both why it's worth saving and why moving away from it is simply not an option for so many residents. 

The notion [of Preserving Appalachia] is to supplement our work opposing mountaintop removal mining with educational and entertaining videos highlighting Appalachian art and artists as part of an effort to show why Appalachia is so worth preserving.

Mr. Radmacher has added to our videos to the map that feature the old-time music of the Black Twig Pickers and the fiery poetry of Crystal Good. As the project is still in its beginning stages, he also is eager to receive names of others whose work aligns with that of Preserving Appalachia and AMA. Much more is to come, and the artistry Preserving Appalachia is curating is fortifying a strong, and far more understood, Appalachian voice.

On The Map: Folkstreams

By Rachel Beth Rudi, Digital Contributor

In this week’s update from the Rural Arts and Culture Map, we wish to (re)acquaint readers with Folkstreams.net, one of the most valuable resources a folklorist, artist, or curious person can find. Founded by filmmakers Tom and Mimi Davenport in 1999, the site is a sort of “national park” for arts and culture documentaries which arose during the folk revival of the 1960s. Such films didn’t fit into conventional television schedules or immediately entertain average theatre-goers, and thus Folkstreams was created, giving them a new home and providing commentary on films’ processes, subjects, and cultural relevance. Folkstreams’ mission statement describes the need for an online platform and the development of this tremendous learning tool:

Folkstreams.net has two goals. One is to build a national preserve of hard-to-find documentary films about American folk or roots cultures. The other is to give them renewed life by streaming them on the internet. The films were produced by independent filmmakers in a golden age that began in the 1960s and was made possible by the development first of portable cameras and then capacity for synch sound. Their films focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities.

The filmmakers were driven more by sheer engagement with the people and their traditions than by commercial hopes. Their films have unusual subjects, odd lengths, and talkers who do not speak "broadcast English." Although they won prizes at film festivals, were used in college classes, and occasionally were shown on PBS, they found few outlets in venues like theaters, video shops or commercial television. But they have permanent value. They come from the same intellectual movement that gave rise to American studies, regional and ethnic studies, the "new history," "performance theory," and investigation of tenacious cultural styles in phenomena like song, dance, storytelling, visual designs, and ceremonies. They also respond to the intense political and social ferment of the period.

The filmmakers and the researchers they collaborated with explored performances situated in a community's customary work, worship, and play. Beneath their colorful surfaces often lie serious issues of physical, psychic, and social survival under duress. For understanding what they saw the filmmakers relied more heavily on observant and knowledgeable community members than on outside "experts." They conveyed understanding through action and symbol as often as by "talking heads." See Selected Films.

Many of the films, however, are linked to significant published research. Folkstreams draws on this material to accompany and illuminate both the subjects and the filmmaking. And the films themselves add powerful dimensions to print scholarship. They offer a direct experience of unfamiliar worlds. Many of these are now receding into the historical past, but we hope the example of these films may stimulate alternative filmmaking with subjects and approaches still ignored by mainstream corporate media.

The Art of the Rural has featured Folkstreams films several times (see “Open Invitation to a Piedmont Blues Party,” “John Dee Holman,” and “La Charreada: Rodeo a la Mexicana” for a few), as they so well marry various fields of study, media, and experiences to promote a diverse community of folklorists. We relate to Folkstreams’ mission and connect it to that of our own Rural Arts and Culture Map, each anchoring story and tradition to place and deepening our understandings of the history around us. We strongly encourage readers to explore Folkstreams on their own, as well as their blog and YouTube page, and we will continue to share their material on our blog and map. We’ll leave you with selections from Tom Davenport’s 1985 film, “A Singing Stream,” featuring the music of the Landis family of Creedmoor, North Carolina.

Press: Des Moines Register and Createquity

Iowa: Wave The Next Time You Fly Over; t-shirt design by Raygun

We're grateful to start off the week with news of coverage of Art of the Rural in two well-respected publications. Many thanks to these writers for sharing our work!

• For years we've admired the writing of Kyle Munson, a columnist and general Iowa-culture expert for the Des Moines Register. On Sunday, he wrote about a new publication by the design-savvy team at Iowa City's Raygun, a collection entitled The Midwest: God's Gift To Earth.

At the close of Munson's meditations on this region's global presence, he turns to AOTR contributor Kenyon Gradert for the kind of critical perspective found in his Course on Midwest Culture series:

That brings me around to Kenyon Gradert, an English doctoral student at Washington University in St. Louis and a writer for the Art of the Rural — a guy who spends serious time pondering Midwestern identity.

Midwesterners have “that reflection about them,” Gradert said. We’re “hardworking but not too flashy, not too rambunctious or rowdy as some may perceive Southerners to be.”

I like how he characterizes us at theruralsite.blogspot.com as a blank canvas for the rest of the nation: “A Midwesterner is more American than Midwestern, at least in mythic identity.”

Gradert grew up on a northwest Iowa cattle and grain farm outside Ireton. With public input from the blog he’s democratically cultivating a new course on Midwest culture that he hopes to teach within the next few years.

Folks can enjoy Munson's full column here and are encouraged to check out Kyle Munson's Iowa Map.

• We are also honored to have received mention by Ian David Moss in Createquity, "a hub for next-generation ideas on the role of the arts in a creative society" that cultivates an online presence as a "virtual think tank exploring the intersection of the arts with a wide range of topics including politics, economics, philanthropy, leadership, research, and urban planning." Simply put, this is an outstanding resource with a thought-provoking perspective. Folks should add it to their feed and follow along on Facebook and Twitter.

Moss is also the Research Director for Fractured Atlas, an organization that connects artists, arts organizations and cultural practitioners in efforts to create "a more agile and resilient cultural ecosystem." I imagine that many of our readers may already be familiar with the work of Fractured Atlas; if not, I encourage folks to visit their site and learn about the range of programs and opportunities they offer to artists and organizations. Joining the community at Fractured Atlas only takes three minutes. 

Given the interdisciplinary and cross-sector ethos of Moss's work, we're grateful to be included in the conversation on Createquity. Folks can also follow this site on Facebook and Twitter. We'll include below his thoughts on The Rural Arts and Culture Map:

One of the tragic consequences of our field’s fragmented funding infrastructure is that support for the arts tends to be concentrated in large urban metros. While especially apparent in funding for art projects themselves, it applies equally to research about the arts, which means that creative activities in rural areas fly even further under the radar than they would otherwise. A new project called the “Rural Arts and Culture Map” aims to do something about this by crowdsourcing stories, media, and video testimonials about art in the boonies.

On The Map: Server Farms In Rural America

Terry Razey on his farm; Stuart Isett, New York Times

By Rachel Beth Rudi, Digital Contributor

Today we share this story featured on The Rural Arts and Culture Map. Folks can learn more about how to join in this project here.

Surrounded by desert, Quincy, Washington is a fertile town that has sustained a rich farming community for generations. In 2006, Microsoft purchased 75 acres of Quincy bean fields on which to construct a new “server farm,” a massive data hardware facility containing the Internet’s inner organs. Sitting not far from the Columbia River, which is dotted with several hydroelectric dams from source to mouth, Quincy attracted the technology conglomerate with access to a continuous and powerful energy source as well as unusually low electricity costs. Writes James Glanz of The New York Times: 

Over the last few years, Quincy has become an unlikely technology outpost, with five data centers and a sixth under construction. Far from the software meccas of Northern California or Seattle, Quincy has barely 6,900 residents, two hardware stores, two supermarkets, no movie theater and a main drag, State Route 28, whose largest buildings are mostly food packers and processors. Its tallest building is a grain elevator...We thought that Microsoft would bring a certain air of class to our town,” said Danna Dal Porto, a retired teacher. 

But the town and the company almost immediately began having disagreements over Microsoft’s excessive energy use, and the title of Glanz’s article, “Data Barns in a Farm Town, Gobbling Power and Flexing Muscle,” well summarizes its five pages of content as well as the oft-told story of small-town-versus-big-time businesses in rural America.

Introducing The Rural Arts And Culture Map

By Matthew Fluharty and Rachel Rudi

Today we are excited to launch The Rural Arts and Culture Map.

As readers may be familiar, we shared news of the Map this summer as -- with all of your help -- the project won the crowd-source vote for a Rural Digital Advocacy Grant, an opportunity provided by the Rural Policy Action Partnership with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. We are deeply grateful for your support.

Building A Map, Expressing A Movement

Your efforts on behalf of this project speaks to what excites us so much about The Rural Arts and Culture Map: it's a space for collaboration, conversation, a platform where individuals from across the country (and the world) can share their artistic and cultural life. Unlike many other digital mapping projects, there are no gatekeepers here. This Map is generously hosted by PlaceStories, a platform designed by Feral Arts; these artists are led by a mission to create a space for inclusive and boundary-crossing storytelling. Our mission, and its outreach and interdisciplinary collaboration, is further coordinated and advised by Appalshop and the M12 art collective.

This is the first digital map of such a scope and with such a vision of wide public participation. Together, we can break new ground. 

Together we can not only tell our stories, but witness how they connect across disciplines, cultures, and geographies. While artists have a particular (and in some cases, necessary) relationship with isolation, rural artists and communities are intimately connected with this condition. Rural America is often given a marginal place in many national conversations, and this sense of separation can often be compounded by the accumulation of mile markers that represent the gap in these perspectives.

The Rural Arts and Culture Map can bridge those distances and put folks in contact with each other. This Map is both a resource and a metaphor for what we believe is happening across the country -- a new rural arts movement.

How Can We Use PlaceStories?

As collaborators in this mission we have some help: PlaceStories is fun and easy to use. Folks can click on "The Rural Arts and Culture Map" in the embedded box at the top of the page, which will lead you to the project page, where you can click to "Join Us." All the various options for telling your story (video, audio, postcard, documents, etc) are very intuitive, though if you have any questions, the designers offer this page with more information. Folks can also direct questions to ruralartsmap@gmail. We're glad to help in any way we can.

Here's a few ideas on ways to begin contributing:

• We can create picture postcards of landscapes, local objects, and people that help define our experience of place and the arts. On the opposite side of these digital postcards we can provide explanation and links to other sites.

• We can share videos and Soundcloud audio pieces. Have some favorite YouTube and Vimeo clips? Heard a podcast, an interview, a radio piece, or a great new musician on Soundcloud? 

• We can create our own videos and our own audio stories using the Webcam feature.

• Want to share recipes, reflections, quotes, and writing without accompanying video or images? The Notebook storytelling feature is perfect.

• Have a document that adds information and perspective? We can upload pdfs as well to the Map.

All it takes to begin contributing is an account. As PlaceStories members for over a year, we can assure you that your Inbox will be safe from unwanted and unsolicted emails.

Our Weekly Feed posts will highlight contributions to the Map, with additional links and information.

Collaborating With Organizations and Communities:

We are committed to helping communities and organizations tell their story through individual PlaceStories projects within The Rural Arts and Culture Map. This platform offers a fantastic opportunity for organizations to share their work and reach new audiences, while also adding their perspective to the wider dialogue across disciplines and regions. To boot, your website can also present a gorgeous embedded widget (as can your readers) that helps to tell a new facet of your work, and engages your audience in an innovative way. Whether you are working in an established organization, or seeking to gather folks around a common point of interest, PlaceStories can serve as a catalyst.

Please email us at ruralartsmap@gmail; our Digital Contributor Rachel Beth Rudi can provide assistance in setting up a PlaceStories project within the Map community settings.

Stay Tuned, And Thanks Again:

We are excited to begin this project, and we are grateful for your support of the crowd-source campaign that led to this opportunity. Much more soon!

We Did It! The Rural Arts and Culture Map Receives A Rural Digital Advocacy Grant

This morning we are writing to share some wonderful news: The Rural Arts and Culture Map has received a Rural Digital Advocacy grant and, thanks to all of your votes, has won the crowdsourcing competition!

This grant, provided by the Rural Policy Action Partnership with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, will allow Art of the Rural, in collaboration with Appalshop, Feral Arts, and the M12 art collective, to create this rich and engaging multimedia map and to engage a diverse range of communities. Here's more information on this partnership from our previous articles:

With these collaborators’ expertise in media-making, design, and community-engagement, Art of the Rural will utilize this dynamic open source Map to present new perspectives from rural America, with a focus on rural youth, rural-urban exchange, and a sustaining interest in the changing face of rural America: the next generation, and their membership in diverse ethnic and cultural communities.

Most importantly, this project is driven not by any single organization, but by the people themselves. With opportunities to share video, audio, photography, and text, PlaceStories will give full agency to an audience ready to become active participants in a mission to create new rural narratives. Thus, the Map becomes a manifestation of direct, local, experience; a digital tool that transcends itself; a meeting point for conversation and shared ground; and a foundation through which to unite and motivate rural citizens across the country and contribute to the work of the National Rural Assembly.

This project acknowledges that powerful campaigns for equity and social change emerge from cultural imperatives. Artists and arts practitioners are often grassroots innovators and adept partners in media campaigns. With The Rural Arts and Culture Map, this community promises give a compelling voice, and a new avenue of communication, to a wide range of rural issues.

Folks can follow the link above to get a glimpse of this map-in-process; we will formally debut the Map in September, at which time we will share much more information about our immediate and long-term goals. 

Our deepest thanks to the many individuals, artists, musicians, organizations, and websites that helped to spread the word of The Rural Arts and Culture Map and its place in this competition. We are deeply humbled by your enthusiasm and support.

And, in conclusion, many thanks to Rachel Beth Rudi for stewarding this project from our former home on Google Maps to the gorgeous space at PlaceStories! Rachel has spent a summer at the keyboard creating the foundation for the many collaborations and engagements that will occur through this Map.