Appalshop Notes

Because of your important role in Appalshop's work and in light of the tough economic times that we are all facing, we wanted to do something to show our appreciation. For the rest of the year we will be running a special sale where we offer $5 off all of our VHS, DVD and CD items at appalshop.org/store (when purchased for home use only).

This means that you can get our latest CD releases like Uncle Charlie Osborne: The June Appal Recordings or Brett Ratliff: Cold Icy Mountain for only $10. You can also get our classic releases like Lee Sexton: Whoa Mule or George Gibson: Last Possum Up The Tree for the same price. All CDs are on sale!

Our award winning DVD titles like Morristown, The Ralph Stanley Story, and Stranger With A Camera will only be $20 a title. Also, offered for the last time, is the Letcher County Film Festival. The DVD was created for a special screening we held in September and contains seven of our titles that were made in and about our community in eastern Kentucky over the years. With almost 100 titles on DVD and VHS we're sure you can find the perfect gift.

Appalshop and June Appal gifts are a perfect way to share a small piece of the mountains with your loved ones this holiday season. For music lovers, history buffs, film enthusiasts, or anyone else who you are looking to get that unique gift please take this opportunity to look through our catalog and let us pick up some of the bill!

Above: Tom Gish running the press c1960s. Photo by Tom Bethell.

Appalshop mourns the passing of long time Mountain Eagle editor and publisher Tom Gish, who died on November 21 after a long struggle. The Seco native and his wife Pat transformed journalism in eastern Kentucky with their determination to report the news and courage in the face of extraordinary obstacles, including a firebombing in 1974. It would be hard to imagine Appalshop succeeding in Whitesburg if the Gishes had not been soldiering here for the previous decade and a half. Appalshop's WMMT-FM memorialized Tom Gish on the November 28th edition of "Mountain Talk" hosted by Mimi Pickering, producer of Appalshop's forthcoming film about The Mountain Eagle.

Listen to an excerpt from the show:

You can download the complete show from the Mountain Talk page.

We enjoyed an excellent "Friends of Appalshop" visit from November 22 through 24. Attendees were Kathie de Nobriga (independent consultant), Karen Garrett (L.I.N.C.), Hye-Jung Park (Funding Exchange/Media Justice Fund), Adam Natale (Fractured Atlas), Judi Jennings (Kentucky Foundation for Women), Margo Miller (Appalachian Community Fund), Gaye Evans (Appalachian Community Fund), Joy Linscheid (Funding Exchange), Denise Brown (Leeway Foundation), and Julia Lopez (Leeway Foundation, writer, performer, educator). Caron Atlas came with the friends and helped Nick Szuberla, who led the planning for the visit. Mark Kidd, Mia Frederick, and Rebecca O'Doherty were among the staff who went above and beyond in assuring its success. Dr. Bill Turner from Berea College and attorneys from Appalachian Citizens Law Center also participated.

A large contingent of Appalshop media makers and Appalachian Media Institute trainers are currently in Indonesia as part of our ongoing International Exchange Project. This program has brought Indonesian community media artists to Whitesburg each June and sent Appalshop artists on reciprocal residencies for three years.

Appalshop continues to garner a lot of positive press. The New York Times reported on the Mellon grant to Roadside Theater this fall, while Bluegrass Unlimited included an extensive feature on WMMT in its December edition. The UNC Alumni Review ran a feature about Appalshop Director Art Menius in its November-December issue.

With the assistance of former Appalshop intern Janine Criswell of Western Kentucky University, Appalshop films enjoyed a powerful presence at the American Folklore Society's annual conference in Louisville at the end of October. Appalshop films were screened in three different sessions, then Appalshop filmmakers Mimi Pickering, Robert Salyer, Herb E. Smith, and Elizabeth Barret participated in a seminar about our work. We reconnected with many friends and supporters in the folklore field including Bill Ivey, chair of President-elect Obama's arts transition team.

In November we moved to the Bronx for a staging of Betsy at Teatro Pregones. Betsy originated in 2002 during a creative collaboration between Appalshop's Ron Short and Nashville jazz pianist Beegie Adair. Betsy is the story of a Bronx born Puerto Rican jazz singer who brings to life ghosts from the little-known history of her Scotch-Irish ancestry in a play that knits together the musical traditions of both cultures.

With generous support from the Commonwealth Bar in Brooklyn and Maker's Mark Distillery, Appalshop's Roadside Theater and Teatro Pregones brought Appalshop's work to New York for a group of friends and supporters from throughout the metropolitan area. Appalshop director Art Menius and Roadside artistic director Dudley Cocke shared rememberences and an overview of Appalshop's current work, while Anna Richardson, chair of the New York Host Committee, spoke to the way Appalshop has touched her life and the importance of keeping involved with its work.

As noted in the previous article about the American Folklore Society meeting and Betsy, the Appalshop 40th Anniversary celebration is starting to gain momentum. Our actual 40th birthday will occur in October 2009. We plan to continue celebrating the occasion at least through our Seedtime on the Cumberland festival in June of 2010.

Appalshop will present and celebrate our work on a national level, reaching out and engaging our widespread network of supporters like you. We are working on events ranging from academic seminars to film screenings to concerts with a variety of institutional partners. We shall also be building a web presence for 'Appalshop at 40' that will tell the Appalshop story and give us a chance to reflect on our work and mission.

Appalshop's 40th anniversary celebrations, however, must be participatory, local, and grassroots as well. You have a vital role to play in organizing these vital friend and fund raisers for Appalshop. For Appalshop to succeed, our anniversary celebrations have to come from the communities involved, whether the occassion is a house party or a major public event. Please contact Appalshop director Art Menius (art@appalshop.org or 606-633-0108) directly if you are interested in hosting an Appalshop 40th anniversary event in your community. Whether simple or elaborate, these provide a great way to have a lot of fun while building support for our work.

Thirty-nine years ago in October 1969, Appalshop opened its doors in downtown Whitesburg, Kentucky when times were tough here in the Appalachian Mountains. The country was at war, and President Johnson had declared a war at home. Funded by a War on Poverty program, Appalshop's teenage founders began taking pictures of what they saw around them, recording the stories and songs of their neighbors and kin, and imagining solutions to their community's and country's problems.

Support Appalshop

You can donate right now through our secure Groundspring system by clicking the link above or you can send your donation to Appalshop at 91 Madison Ave, Whitesburg, KY 41858.

Today, Appalshop continues to fulfill its mission by giving an authentic voice to the people of central Appalachia and rural America, by building community leadership, by forging partnerships and exchanges with artists from diverse cultures, and by telling the stories that would not otherwise be heard. Listen to the voices of two staff members from eastern Kentucky: Growing old while making Appalshop films has an upside and a downside, writes original Appalshopper Herb E. Smith. The downside includes the need to reinvent what we do since community circumstance, filmmaking technology, distribution, and costs have all changed in the last few years. Us old timers struggle to keep up with the digital revolution. The upside is that we are joined by younger Appalshoppers dedicated to our purpose, who seem to pick up the new stuff with ease. They are great to work with because they tolerate our old-timey ways and even laugh at our jokes.

Younger staff member Derek Mullins says, I tell everyone that I am very lucky to have a job at Appalshop since I get to think about things I already think about and talk about things I would talk about anyways. As a coal miner's son, I care about coal. As a musician, I care about the rich tradition of music we have in this region. As a young community member who was raised here and remains here, I care about the issues and problems that face my community. Appalshop does not define those concerns and passions for me, but, beginning when I was a 16-year-old Appalshop intern, it has provided a vessel for me to explore them in. The rewarding thing for me is to take the privilege that I have of working here and use it to provide the same opportunity for others.

We believe that our regional issues are complex and intertwined with national and international issues, and that our problems will not be solved simply, quickly, or in a vacuum. We value our partnerships with organizations and individuals everywhere, with whom we work to make a difference in the health of our communities. We value your support, because your trust and investment in us gives us heart and helps us keep on keeping on -- addressing the issues shaping our future and sustaining the traditional culture of our home in the mountains.

We hope you will become or continue to be a financial partner to Appalshop in 2008, our 39th year. Your donation is crucial to our effort to tell the stories and to work together to solve problems faced by our communities. I hope, that together, we continue to share our work, our joys, and our concerns for many years to come.

For the last nine years we have been using the power of community radio to reach over prison walls and reconnect families. Our idea is a simple one: bring prisoners and prisoner family members together by putting their voices on the air. Thousand Kites, WMMT-FM, and a national network of grassroots organizations working for criminal justice reform would like to offer you Calls from Home a free one-hour program which brings the voices of hundreds of prisoner families from across the nation to the airwaves. You can visit thousandkites.org to listen to calls from the program as they come in. We want you to call in a message of hope for the 2.4 million people behind bars. Call our toll-free line at 877-518-0606 to record a message on the Calls from Home answering machine.

Appalshop's Thousand Kites project is excited to offer community radio stations, bloggers and individuals a free broadcast-quality download for non-commercial use on December 13th. Visit the download page for more information about how you can share this year's Calls from Home.

GoodSearch offers two ways to support Appalshop's work -- when you register for their service, select Appalshop as your designated charity. Then when you use their search function or, even better, when you click through to Goodshop's "Shop Now" button for your shopping needs, holiday and otherwise, you will generate revenue for Appalshop. It is a great way to do good while doing well.

Download our 2008 annual report, a summary of Appalshop's programs, accomplishments, and financial statements during the last year. (1.7mb Adobe Acrobat file)