FACILITATORS & FRIENDS
the list includes several from past years who, if we remain lucky, will grace our common table again and again.
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________________________________________________________________________ Albert Bauman Albert is a master potter by any definition, with even his earliest work pushing clay, tools, and technical and artistic boundaries to beautiful extremes. He uses the same creative energy and expressive freedom to enable others to shape whatever loads we carry into more useful pieces. Albert has been around Open Ground since before we became that - coming soon after he finished his MFA at UK - and was largely responsible for its inception. When not on the road to state park events Albert considers retirement, walks his farm, plants gardens he trusts will grow themselves, and serves on the board of the Community Farm Alliance, currently as Chair. ________________________________________________________________________ Appalachian Studies Conference - www.appalachianstudies.org/ ___________________________________________________________________ THE 3 B'S: BARBIE (DUNCAN) HARRIS Born in Amarillo, Texas, grew up in Texas, California, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee and the last in Ohio. Graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1969 and attended Gallaudet College (1969-1970), James Madison University with B.S. degree in Arts Education for deaf children in 1974, University of Kentucky with M.S. degree in Arts Education in 1983. She was a substitute teacher for a few years at Virginia School for the Deaf before moving to Kentucky when she and her husband, Archie P. Harris, KSD graduate, were offered KSD teaching positions in 1974. She taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and Special Needs teacher for 16 years, (1974-1990), Art teacher, ASL and Deaf Studies teacher K-12 (1980-1999), also was the Coordinator of Middle School and High School Homework/Literacy Center for 3 years (1999-2002), Sign Language Instructor for the Danville Community Education for 5 years, part-time ASL instructor at EKU for several years, and Sign Language Communication Proficiency Interviewing for several years, She is very active in her volunteerism, tutoring students and serving as teacher/moderator for several student organizations. She is equally active in the wider community, volunteering with Kentucky Association of the Deaf, National Association of the Deaf, American Sign Language Teachers Association, and International Deaf Studies. She is or has been the Miss Deaf Kentucky Pageant Director, the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Deaf Festival Children’s Coordinator, Open Ground Board Member, and a very active Kentucky artist and performer. She and Archie have 4 children- Lisa, Jeff, Chris and Jennifer. Inducted to KSD Hall of Fame in 2003. BETTY TAYLOR I have a BS degree from Gallaudet Univ. I taught art at the Louisiana School for the Deaf for 7 years, and at Kentucky School for the Deaf for 31 years, teaching Deaf children of various ages. I helped at some summer camps for HC kids at KSD, and have held classes for Deaf and hearing adults at KSD. I have attended many art workshops and have had some of my work exhibited at Constitution Square in Danville, and at Dudley Square and Hallocks, in Lexington. Most of my work has been in stained glass. My wares have been shown and sold at festivals for both Deaf and general populations. I organized Deaf adult gatherings to create arts as fundraisers for the establishment of a Deaf Community Center, and those arts included quilts, paper mache rattles, greeting cards, etc. Some of the mediums I would like to share with others are quilting, leaded glass, crocheting, knitting, nature printing, string painting, and making greeting cards. That enough info QQQQ Smile. BEULAH HESTER; Danville, Kentucky Beulah is a gifted glass artist and a behind-the-scene mover-and-shaker in the Danville Deaf community (Danville is home to the Ky School for the Deaf, and has developed a significantly large Deaf population). She has teamed with her husband, James, in theatrical presentations, and despite having lost her sense of taste in an illness, remains one of the finest cooks in hometown Kentucky. She felt insulted at Open Ground's very first board meeting, by someone saying Deaf people have special needs; her response, as fast as anything anyone could say when speaking her heart, was, "We're not handicapped, we know how to sue people!" Besides having such a wonderful sense of humor and a quick wit, Beulah is wise, generous, deeply loving, and a wondrous glass artist. ________________________________________________________________________ Beatriz Arnillas Beatriz was Open Ground's first teacher, providing us purpose and shaping our spirit. She says little about herself, but invites you to visit her website and contact her: ________________________________________________________________________ Black Bear (Stephen LaBoueff) Black Bear is a member of the Blackfeet Nation, a Plains tribe that found pottery too cumbersome for their nomadic ways. He Bear learned the use of clay from the Naranjo family of Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. Gia ("mother" in Tewa languages), otherwise known as Rose Naranjo, the matriarch, taught him the importance of hard work and good form; Jody Folwell was influential in his design; and Roxanne Swentzill taught him much about freedom of expression in her “little people”. Another teacher was master potter Lucho Soler, from Peru. His work has won awards at the Santa Fe (NM) Indian Market, the Heard Museum Indian Market in Phoenix, AZ, Northern Plains Tribal Art in Sioux Falls, SD, and Eiteljorg Indian Market in Indianapolis, IN. He now lives and produces his wares in Appalachian Kentucky, where he has also found time to be active as either Chair or Co-Chair of the Kentucky Center for Native American Arts and Culture, to do suicide prevention work with teens and young adults, and when he can find time, to provide clay workshops for Open Ground. ________________________________________________________________________ Bluegrass Community and Technical College, The Peace and Justice Coalition Founded and directed by Rebecca Glasscock, 859-246-6319. See also www.peace2day.org. ________________________________________________________________ Bruce Mundy Bruce is a life-long resident of Lexington, Ky.; is married and the father of two. He is a community activist of the first order, involved in everything that uplifts the regional African American community: the Youth Counselor at the Bluegrass-Aspendale Teen Center, a Board Member of Lex Linc and the East End Empowerment Program, Board Member and past Chair of the Historical African Cemetery #2, past Chair of the East End Empowerment Program, and past Chair and Co-Chair of Open Ground. He is active with Juneteenth Celebration, East End YMCA, Lyric Theater restoration, Nia Day Camp, and the Mayor’s Training Center. Brother Bruce is also an avid (he says 'amateur') local historian, musician, and student of world cultures. ________________________________________________________________ Chad Ingram Chad was born in Spokane, Washington, graduated from the University of Washington with a BFA in Ceramics in 1999, and moved to Kentucky in 2000. He has since been in multiple solo and group shows in Washington, Kentucky, Indiana and Texas, and participated in an international show in British Columbia, Canada. Chad taught at the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts for 7 years, and at the Oldham County Art Center; and has been a member of Payne Street Pottery, Louisville Clay Association, and Mellwood Art Center. Chad has attended multiple workshops at Open Ground over the past 6 or 7 years, as much for the companionship of excellent potters as for their specific teaching, and has regularly volunteered to help with gardening and anything else needed. He has applied for membership on our Board, and looks forward to that service. Chad is also an avid runner and anticipates completing his first marathon in 2010. He is a world traveler, recently returning from Addis Abba, Ethiopia, and is planning a trip to Naples, Italy. ____________________________________________________________________ Dana Wildsmith Dana is a regular staff member of the Hindman Writers’ Workshop, an active member of the Southern Appalachian Writers’ Cooperative, and a published writer. Dana is a regular contributor to poetry periodicals throughout the Appalachian states, and maintains close correspondence with a close circle of accomplished performing, literary and visual artists. ____________________________________________________________________ Don Boklage Don is a long-time community and social activist, advocate for people who have special needs, ecologist, arts organizer, and artist/teacher working in multiple mediums - storyteller, dancer, potter, painter, and writer. He has a BA in Liberal Studies with minors in Earth Sciences and Philosophy, and wishes he'd filed the paperwork for an MA in Cultural Studies. His work highlights proactive community involvement, diversity / inclusion, ecology, and personal and community expression. He believes his best art is conceptual, and particularly likes designing programs which increase awareness and appreciation. ____________________________________________________________________ Greg Seigel Greg has been making pots for about 31 years. His first were low-fired, bright colored electric kiln pieces, and he had a brief flirtation with Raku, but soon discovered his true love of high-fired stoneware with its strength and subtle charms. Greg learned to build his own kilns, and over the years has built about 12. His first were oil-fired, but currently he uses a propane-fired car kiln or a wood-fired kiln, depending on what the pots demand. You can see Greg's work on www.potbaker.com; contact him at gseigel@bellsouth.net. ____________________________________________________________________ Jane Gentry (Vance) Jane was born in central Kentucky where she grew up on a farm at Athens. She now lives in Versailles. Her new book of poems, Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig, came out in late 2006 from Louisiana State University Press, which also published her previous collection, A Garden in Kentucky, in 1995. In 2005, Press 817 in Lexington, Kentucky, brought out her chapbook, A Year in Kentucky. An English professor at the University of Kentucky, she has won the UK alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award, conducts poetry-writing workshops, teaches in the University Honors Program, and is advisor to Jar, a student-edited literary magazine. She has been awarded two Al Smith Fellowships (1993 and 2003) by the Kentucky Arts Council, and held fellowships at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts at Lynchburg. In 2007 she was appointed Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2007-09. ____________________________________________________________________ Joan Brannon Joan is a Spirit Drummer based in Lexington, Ky. She has been playing African percussion for over 15 years, has performed at numerous cultural and community events and healing ceremonies, and founded the drumming collective, Sisters of the Sacred Drum. Joan respects the drum as a sacred instrument that utilizes rhythms for tribal communication and celebration, and as a conduit for communicating with the Spirit Realm. Currently, Joan teaches several meditation and drumming classes for women, as well as drumming enrichment classes for youth. ___________________________________________________________________ John Begley John is Gallery Director for the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Curatorial Studies. He was a long-term director of the Louisville Visual Art Association, and served in the same capacity at the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art. He is a KPAN Advisor for the KY Arts Council and Arts Kentucky. John was a Museum Management Institute Fellow, the Getty Trust, 1989. He has been a grants panelist/reviewer for Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Ohio, IMLS, and others. John is also an exemplary and quite active visual artist, a member of the well-respected Zephyr Gallery. He received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship in 1978, earned his BFA at the University of New Mexico, and his MFA at Indiana University. John was a strong supporter of Open Ground long before we incorporated, and was a Charter member of our Board. He and another board member, past Kentucky Poet Laureate Richard Taylor, annually co-facilitate our popular Drawing and Writing workshops. ___________________________________________________________________ Juan Lucas Menchú Juan Lucas learned his formidable folk arts skills in what seems the only best way, from countless generations of his family being the community craftsmen. He is a kind, gentle, and wise patriarch who willingly shares his Andes Mountains perspectives of regional and world issues, our government and its conflicted roles in world politics and social and environmental conditions, philosophy, function, and beauty. Not knowing more than a few words of English, Juan Lucas teaches here in the same way he learned there - through patient example. ________________________________________________________________________ Kentucky Native American Heritage Museum - 606-528-6342, sioux80@msn.com ____________________________________________________________________ Kerby Neill T. Kerby Neill, Ph.D., is a consultant to mental health programs and based in Lexington, Kentucky. He is also an avid and experienced gardener. ________________________________________________________________________ Marshall Thompson Marshall Thompson has a degree in English from Hastings College, Nebraska, but ran out of things to say and came to Kentucky following his ear for traditional banjo music. While his self-rebuilt car sports a bumper sticker that reads "Don't believe everything you think", he attributes what he thinks he knows to his five sons. He knows the properties and uses of geological materials and fixes broken things with recycled other things. One day, after gritting a pinch of our dirt in his teeth, he proclaimed that it could be the backbone of a cottage pottery industry. He took hold of a large dirt clod, and four and a half hours later (which included a casual luncheon) he presented us a wheel-turned cup with handle, glazed with home-made slip, slumped from being slightly over-fired. Marshall was a member of the Frankfort School Board for many years, but earned his sons' education as a roofer when not making pottery, building houses, and operating a geographic information system for the Legislative Research Commission. He was OG's first Chair of the Board, and has since served as our Emeritus Spiritual Advisor. He is a frequent facilitator of OG workshops, a regular volunteer, a poet and banjo maker/player, a philosopher from any but public porches (whose bumper sticker says "Don't believe everything you think"), and a fully committed grandfather. He is also a master potter, materials wizard, and garbage picker. ________________________________________________________________________ Michigan State University - www.msu.edu/ ________________________________________________________________________ Msiba Ann Beard Grundy Ann is a serious student. She has 11 years of graduate studies following her BA in Musicology, with a major in World Spirituals, from Kentucky's Berea College - where she also received an HEW Fellowship in Asian Studies. Professionally, she has been a teacher, counselor, "youth director" (her notation), field representative for the Human Rights Commission, Vista Volunteer in three states... and presently serves as program organizer for Lexington's annual King Holiday Program and the Roots and Heritage Festival. She is a member of the National Holistic Society, is a speaker and workshop facilitator, is the founding director of Nia Day Camp, and was a charter member (now Emeritus) of Open Ground's Board. 859-252-4735 ___________________________________________________________________ Nell Fields Nell was born and raised in Letcher County, the Kentucky heart of Appalachia. She has been a Montessori teacher and a volunteer resource for Save the Children Federation in the Cowan Community (20 years). Nell organized and served as the youth coordinator for the Cowan Community Youth Group, recognized as a 'model program' by Kentucky Governor Paul Patton in 2001. Nell served in AmeriCorps VISTA in the Cowan Community from 1999-2001, and worked as Save the Children's AmeriCorps Program Assistant for two years. In VISTA she was instrumental in the Cowan Community Center getting a $60,000 PowerUP Technology Grant. Nell also served as the Letcher County Coordinator for the Eastern Kentucky Leadership Network's Youth Leadership Program. As a teen, her father took her to Neon, Kentucky to see Bobby Kennedy speak at the Senate hearing held at the high school in 1968 - an event she feels changed her life for the better: "It taught the value of HOPE in the face of despair." She faithfully represents Appalachian concerns to Open Ground's Board, and has led or co-led many of our youth leadership development events. ________________________________________________________________________ Nicolasa Menchú Nico was born in Guatemala, and is now an interpreter and teacher of Spanish, English, and Maya-Quiche languages in and around Louisville. A community activist, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Hill Neighborhood Association, and a member of the National Catholic Education Association. Nico is a committed human rights advocate and has served as a program facilitator for several non-profit organizations – events that empower new immigrants, especially women, to become self-sufficient. She has a B.A. in Elementary Education from the University of Louisville and a Masters degree in Education from Spalding University, also in Louisville. ________________________________________________________________________ Oberlin College - new.oberlin.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ Patty Wren Smith Patty Wren Smith is the Group Programs Manager for Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, in Clermont, Kentucky. For over twenty years, Wren has worked as an Environmental Educator, developing programs and curricula pertaining to ecology, art, natural history and creative writing. Prior to joining the Bernheim staff, Wren served as the Manager/Naturalist of Hopscotch House, a rural retreat center sponsored by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Under her leadership, guests of Hopscotch House were immersed in opportunities to connect more intimately with the surrounding woods, fields and gardens. Wren has served as field instructor for Wilderness Southeast, a school of the outdoors near Savannah Ga., where she lead camping programs into the Okeefenokee swamp, focusing on the human and natural history of the region. She served as Director for Coastal Experience, a summer camp program situated on Oatland Island and Sapelo Islands, Georgia. In addition, Wren worked for 11 years as a park Naturalist for Louisville's Otter Creek Park, where she helped develop the park's first Elderhostel programs and worked extensively with program and curriculum development for schools and teacher training. Wren was a consultant working with the Jefferson County School system at Blackacre Nature Preserve where she helped to develop a core of programs and curricula for visiting school groups. In addition, Wren is a storyteller and has performed at the Corn Island Storytelling Festival. ____________________________________________________________________ Richard Taylor Richard draws mental clarity with and through the written word, a prolific and well-published writer of prose and poetry. His best-known work is probably “Girty,” a biography of the Kentucky frontiersman which makes a novel of short-stories, correspondence and poetry. Richard is known for his work in schools, for Kentucky’s Governor’s Scholars Program, for being Kentucky’s Poet Laureate for two years, and for his current work at Kentucky State University in hometown Frankfort, Kentucky’s capitol. He is also co-owner, with his partner Liz, of Poor Richard's Bookstore, and has used it in co-sponsoring Open Ground events that gave thought and poetry a timely soapbox. This is the fifth year he has co-facilitated our annual Drawing and Writing workshops, with John Begley (see above). ________________________________________________________________________ Southeastern Kentucky Association of Native People - (Southeastern Kentucky Cherokee Band) 606-528-6342, sioux80@msn.com ________________________________________________________________________ Southern Appalachian Writers' Cooperative - www.southernappalachianwriters.org ________________________________________________________________________ Vanderbilt University - http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ ________________________________________________________________________ WWOOF – World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - http://www.wwoof.com/ ____________________________________________________________________ Wyman Rice Wyman grew up on a farm in Adair County, Kentucky, and has been drawing since as far back as he can remember. There were no art instructors in his elementary or high schools, so he remained self-taught until college - he majored in art at UofL, and later at UK. Wyman took a special interest in ceramics after seeing contemporary pottery and sculpture, went back to UK for two more years of studio classes, and has now been working in clay for 23 years. ____________________________________________________________________
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Page last updated: 8/15/2009