In September, of course, many of us return in thought to that infamous day now seared into our memories: the time that would quite literally turn our worlds upside down and is, in fact, still with us every day as recovery continues. It is heartening to read about how far so many have come, but it is a time as well of reflection on people that were lost, places that will not return and how, moving forward, we combat climate change and mitigate its harsh effects.
Gina Malone, Editor
Cotton Mill Studios will celebrate its grand reopening this month, and ArtPlay is among the studios settled gratefully within its renovated walls and back in the River Arts District where it began. Artists and businesses on the Hot Springs Arts Trail are exuberant about the opportunity, at last, to hold this event that was poised to happen two years ago when Hurricane Helene hit.
Bridgette Martin, our cover artist, has created a series called If These Mountains Could Speak, paintings inspired by the stories of Western North Carolinians who weathered the storm. And in Marshall, community voices also complement art in an exhibition of photographs titled Save This Piece. Lauren Rutten captured the abstract images after the storm and during clean-up. “The project gradually became less about Helene alone and more about the questions disasters leave behind,” Rutten says. “What do we want to hold onto? How do we care for one another? How do we carry grief? What stories will we tell a year from now? Ten years from now?”
Several stories this month touch upon reflecting on the past and looking ahead to the future. An exhibition at Mars Hill University gathers photographs from Tim Barnwell’s career spent documenting with painstaking attention and respect the people and places of the Southern Appalachians. The Center for Cultural Preservation celebrates its 15th year with the release of a new documentary that looks back at a time when Indigenous people harvested judicially and treated with respect the abundant rivercane, and ahead to today when restoration efforts are under way for this plant so beneficial, we now recognize, in preventing flooding and erosion along the banks of waterways.
Finally, summer’s end is a perfect time to visit beautiful and fruitful gardens like those of Chuck Hutchison, Judith Canty Graves and Lyric East.
Enjoy the gorgeous days ahead when, writes William Cullen Bryant, “The summer tresses of the trees are gone,/The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,/Have put their glory on.”
