Born in Benham, Ky. in 1948, Ron Flanary's family moved to Virginia by 1950, and to Appalachia, Va. in 1952. He is a self-taught artist and photographer. He was drawing trains at age three and took his first photograph (of a train) in 1955. Flanary graduated from Appalachia High School in 1966 and UVA-WISE (then Clinch Valley College) as a member of the first four-year class in 1970. He received the Outstanding Alumnus award from the school in 2001.
Following college, Flanary was first employed by Southern Railway as an engineering department management trainee, but after being drafted into the US Army in 1970, he decided to pursue a different career path after returning to civilian life. He retired in 2008 after 38 years of public service, 33 of which were with the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission in Duffield. He was the agency's executive director for 17 years. LENOWISCO's work in expanding manufacturing and service facilities creating thousands of jobs, extension of public water and sewer, and high-speed fiber broadband throughout Lee, Wise, Scott Counties and the City of Norton during this tenure there was extraordinary. During that time, he was honored at many levels for those accomplishments.
Flanary was a semi-professional musician in the 60s and 70s as well and was (and still is) a participant in the local arts scene singing tenor with the community chorus and acting on stage in many local productions. He is an accomplished jazz trumpeter.
Photography and art have been a byproduct of Flanary's lifelong fascination with railroading. Since his first train photo was published in a national magazine in 1968, he's authored (or co-authored) ten books for six different publishers and had over 300 feature articles in several nationally circulated railroad periodicals. His commissioned painting clients include private individuals and corporate clients like the L&N Railroad Company, Cone Mills, the Kingsport Chamber, CSX and Norfolk Southern. His photos and art have also appeared in many books and articles by other authors.
Flanary's wife since 1971, Wilma, is an MECC alum, and they live in Big Stone Gap. Wilma was born in Appalachia, and, like Ron, grew up there. These days, Flanary stays busy editing a quarterly magazine for the L&N Railroad Historical Society, and occasionally does freelance writing for other magazines. Among the many accolades for both his vocational and avocational achievements, he was the recipient of the prestigious Stindt Photographic Award last year from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. R&LHS's selection emphasized Flanary's lifetime body of photographic work on railroad subjects all over the country, but particularly in his home,. the Appalchia area.
Mountain Empire Community College’s Slemp Gallery is pleased to announce the launch of a rotating exhibit featuring local, hand-stitched quilts for 2023-2024.
The Slemp Gallery, located in MECC’s Wampler Library, is currently soliciting future quilts for exhibit. Quilts will be rotated monthly. The first quilt featured, titled Grandma’s Flower Garden, was hand-stitched by 92-year-old Evelyn Strouth of Clintwood, an MECC graduate.
Ms. Strouth has quilted for 50 years and is a member of the Hamilton Chapel Church quilters in Pound. Grandma’s Flower Garden features a traditional pattern, with the green design representing the path through the garden. The quilt required hundreds of hours of hand stitching. Ms. Strouth has also been a member of the Crooked Road Quilters and Reedy Ridge Quilters guilds.
The exhibit is a collection of aprons on loan from our Southwest Virginia and Kentucky community. The aprons offer a glimpse into the fashion, personality, chores and stories of everyday women. The aprons span from 1860s until present day. The varied styles and designs are indicative of changing times and expectations in a woman’s life. The fabric of their lives pulls at our heart strings, and we are flooded with the idea of home, comfort food, and the women that are no longer with us.
Accompanying the aprons on display is a collection of historic quilts on loan from Travis Kennedy of Wise. Kennedy has one of the largest private collections of important quilts in the Appalachian region. Among the quilts on display is a remarkable example of a postage stamp quilt. The tiny pieces, each the size of a stamp, are hand-stitched into a pleasing pattern. The selected quilts take us through time, from simple calico fabrics of the early 1900s to the mod and vibrant colors of the 1960s.
The totality of this installation (which includes clothesline and pins for display) is a salute to the threads we hold to, and the ties that bind us all.
Teresa Robinette
Curator, Slemp Gallery
Bertha Brock Napier passed this life on April 25, 2023, at the age of 92. She learned at a very young age how to provide for her family. She was only 7 years old when her mother passed away leaving behind 8 children. Bertha grew to love quilting at a young age and has made many quilts for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and friends. She spent many hours using her fingers to sew stitches as her heart and soul sewed prayers and praises into heaven. It brought her much joy to provide a warm quilt for someone and her quilts never came with a price tag, only given with a heart full of love.
Proverbs 31 says: “Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. She brings good all the days of her life. She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work. She is energetic, strong, and a hard worker. Her hands stay busy spinning thread, she extends her hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. She makes her own bedspreads. When she speaks, her words are wise. Her children stand and bless her”. There will never be someone to tread this earth that has carried those attributes as closely as my mother, Bertha Brock Napier. She was revered by all as a very loving, kind, and Godly woman with a servant’s heart, always putting others above herself.
Students from Jenkins Middle High School in Jenkins KY, together with their teacher Luann Vermillion, created origami stars in their high school Art classes. They studied about the Japanese art of paper folding and tried out a variety of paper types as they practiced folding different shapes. They settled on 20lb white bond paper for the origami stars because of its ability to hold a crisp fold. A light coating of spray-on glitter was added to finish off their origami creations and to help preserve them for display.
– Luann Vermillion and students from Jenkins (KY) Middle High School
I machine pieced and hand quilted this quilt as a gift for my husband of 50 years, Jim Branham. He served as commander of three Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal Units, one in New Jersey and two in Vietnam. We both come from families with a history of army service in every conflict from the French and Indian War to Vietnam. My husband has made me proud and served his country well in a War whose warriors were not welcomed back as heroes, to this nation’s everlasting discredit. This quilt is to say that I think he is a Hero.
Jeff Chapman-Crane is a full-time professional artist from the southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, where he has lived and practiced his art for the last 27 years. His art focuses on the culture of Appalachia, with an emphasis on portraits of mountain people.
He has been painting for over 35 years since being challenged and inspired by his high school art teacher, Don Hilton. Following the tenets of the American Society of Classical Realism, Jeff’s work encompasses the highest principles of traditional representational art – fine drawing, balanced design, harmonious color, and skillful craftsmanship. While not in the stylized realism of American Regionalism, his work shares a strong identification with a particular region – conveying geographic features of the land and unique human, cultural and social characteristics.
Among the artists who have greatly influenced Chapman-Crane’s work are Rembrandt for the shear power of composition, mastery of brushstrokes, and the profound depth of human understanding revealed in his portraits; Vermeer in his use of light and portrayals of everyday, domestic life; the French Impressionists for their revelation of the color of light; and Edward Hopper’s ability to stop time and capture a moment. Jeff gives much credit to Vincent Van Gogh, his favorite artist, whose emotional intensity, and absolute devotion to his work move and inspire him. His realistic work follows well-established traditions in American art, in the vein of Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Andrew Wyeth for their portrayals of ordinary life. Social commentary photographers Dorothy Lange, Ken Murray of Tennessee, and “Picture Man” Mullins of Jenkins, Kentucky have also influenced the content of Jeff’s work.
His work has been featured in American Artist magazine, and he is a four-time finalist in the Artists Magazine’s annual portrait competition. He was the illustrator for the children’s book “Ragsale”, which won Best in Show at the 1995 New England Bookfair. In 2020 he was one of 125 artists worldwide to receive the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.
Together with his wife, Sharman, Jeff operates the Valley of the Winds Art Gallery in Eolia, Kentucky, where their works can be seen. They are open by appointment 606-633-8652 or chance. Jeff’s website is www.jeffchapmancrane.com
While researching my book on coalfield baseball, I visited many coal camps in southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky and in southern West Virginia. They ranged in levels of dereliction, from the bare skeletons of previous communities to some still filled with life although a little worse for wear. So many empty houses and company stores, offices and small businesses.
I saw the remains of a few New Mexico coal towns as well. Just as in Appalachia, it seemed like the spirits of the long gone idled on front porches and tapped on the remaining glass in windows. These images of abandoned spaces haunted me until I began recreating them.
They still do.
This show is a testament to what is now lost to the coalfields, wherever they may be in this country. The camps are mostly deserted and the communities that lived and breathed baseball are gone. My books and my art are in tribute to them.
L.M. Sutter (Lynn)
By Evelyn Hoskins
I finished this quilt in August 2022. It was made, except for the white sections, from a precut package. It came from the big red Bargain Barn in the Ramsey section of Norton, owned by Gene and Faye Huff. When they began to close the store they told my good friend, Lottie Robinette, who was a former part-time employee and family friend, to pick out some things she would like, gratis.
She hand sewed all her quilt tops. This kit had so many pieces she put off getting started on it. In spring cleaning, she ran across it and offered it to me. I started on it by machine but couldn’t seem to get my head wrapped around the angles and dog ears. So I put it aside and made about 5 more quilts. Finally, I unearthed the kit and stuck with it. It is far from perfect, but I loved the bright colors and it is a great reminder of my friend, Lottie, and the many enjoyable things we shared as two old widows.
I was taught to sew on a treadle machine, sewing quilt pieces together for many of my mothers’ quilts. Then on to making clothing for myself and my daughter. I have made quilts for all my children, grandchildren and great grands. I wish I had written down and made pictures from the beginning!
