A new book highlights a dozen people in southwestern Virginia who are all doing the same thing, but in different ways: they’re keeping Appalachian traditions alive.
The book is called Keepers of the Tradition, Portraits of Contemporary Appalachians. The dozen portraits it contains are literal and figurative; portrait artist Leslie Roberts Gregg painted them and writer, Michael Abraham wrote them
“I think a lot of people think that culture is something other people have but there’s a tremendous sense of who we are and where we came from. And we’re not “puff up your chest kind of people here in Appalachia. We’re proud of ourselves in our own way and this is the type of ethic that Leslie and I have grown up with and come to appreciate.”
Abraham and Gregg grew up in the New River Valley, so they knew the characters and qualities they wanted to capture.
“I grew up riding ponies across the coalmines with children of miners. I have listened to Appalachian music at Floyd country store and Galax Fiddlers Convention and picnics. I received 15 blankets when my son was born from women in the area that knitted them or crocheted them or quilted them, each with their own special patterns. And I probably shouldn’t say this, but I have sipped some of the smoothest moonshine ever,” says Gregg.
The team of two interviewed a moonshiner, a quilter, a farmer, a coal miner, an herbalist, a preacher, a gospel singer, people who make instruments and people who work with wood. But, it’s one thing when a photographer shoots photos while the writer does the interviewer, and something else entirely when a portrait artist is in the room.
“What I would do is, after meeting each of the individuals, I kind of step back and I watch and I observe, and I study and I see their mannerisms and their gestures and I kind of get a feel for that individual as he’s interviewing them,” says Gregg.
The result is that not only the qualities of the people but also their traditions are visible in her paintings.
“This is Jimmy Price. His family is Prices Fork. At one point there was a quarry where stones were cut out of the rock. The company was in operation for 210 years from the mid 1700s to the mid 1900s. This is Jimmy Price. My people cut the stone that ground the flour that fed our region. My people cut the stone that built Virginia Tech. That stone signifies endurance. For education to endure you need an enduring facility on campus and you need enduring traditions. That stone supports the education but also the traditions. Tradition is the glue that adheres cultures and civilizations and the things we care about. When you lose the tradition you lose the glue,” says Abraham.
The twelve portraits by Leslie Roberts Gregg will be unveiled this Sunday during abook signing at the Alexander Black House and Cultural Center in Blacksburg.
Click here for more information about the book.
