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
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.
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