Oct. 13, 2006
 
Appalachian Artists Coming Together for Landscape Exhibition; Opening Nov. 11 Will Feature Live Music
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- Two Marshall University student artists, a professor and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition have joined for a group exhibit featuring works concerning landscape issues.
 
“Mountain top removal affects everybody,” explained Chris Worth, Marshall University graduate student.
 
All new visual works from 15 to 30 artists some from as far away as New York, Tennessee and California will be shown at 949 Third Avenue (across from Pullman Square in the former Merrill Lynch offices).
 
“The Appalachian Landscape: Bob Ross Don’t Live Here No More” opens with a party featuring bands, food and wine, beginning at 7 p.m. Nov. 11, 2006.
 
“One Track Minds,” “Plebe” and possibly a bluegrass band will perform.
 
Admission is free. 30% of the proceeds from art sales go to OVEC.
 
Katherine Mohn, a senior Marshall University theatre major, will present a play about mountain top removal based on the collective writing of part time MU English professor Dr. Victor Debta. The English Department has put together books of protest poetry which will be for sale at the Nov. 11 opening.
 
While the show’s overall imagery will be a communal respect for the landscape, works by Dr. Clay McNearney, chairman of religious studies, emphasized the figurative and psychological--- “the landscape of memory, loss, landscape of hard decisions and the consequences of decisions.”
 
“Consequences” depicts the back side of a large figure facing a distant door. “There are consequences of opening the door, not opening the door, doing it now, doing it later,” McNearney explained.
 
Worth added, “We want to see the whole range… the physical, sociological, political.”
 
“It’s not a passive type of viewing,” McNearney explained. “Hopefully, some type of interaction [will occur].”
 
“The space in which an artist decides to create is like a mirror of themselves,” David Cyfers, a senior MU art major explained. “The viewer can see themselves as part of the landscape and the landscape as part of them. They can make decisions and speak out against certain oppressions occurring in the community. We draw from them, they draw from us, and we all draw from the landscape.”
 
Although confined to a wheelchair, one of Worth’s pieces shows feet and the wheels of the chair as an integral prospective of the work. “I’m taking the physical and math energy and translating it into a piece of art. You could say I’m bringing the landscape [the wheels] to it [the art].”
 
Wilma Steele, an art teacher from Mingo County where the valley fill for the King Coal Highway remains a hot issue, will exhibit works from her “unique perspective” as a resident in the center of oppression. Steele and her husband studied with Worth for a month and “deepened my understanding of the struggle of the coal fields.”
 
Another of Worth’s friends will display a work in which coal is a shackle on someone’s legs.
 
Due to the generosity of Dr. Joseph Touma, the exhibit will remain on display for a week following the opening. Tentatively, the hours will be for evening viewing.