Why We Cowee

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with resident artist Kim Keelor. 
Kim Keelor is a fiber and textile artist and painter living in the mountains of far western North Carolina, and a resident artist at the Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center there. She also works and teaches in Charleston and areas in the upstate of South Carolina. Keelor's work has been selected for more than twenty juried exhibitions since she began showing professionally in 2020. She was awarded the Best of Show prize at the Palmetto Hands Fine Craft 2024 Annual Juried Exhibition out of more than 300 entries, also earning Honorable Mention and Traveling Show prizes there in earlier years. Her work has been exhibited or sold at the Bascom and the Fine Arts League of Cary gallery in North Carolina; the Middleton Place Museum Shop, Charleston Artist Guild and Preservation Society of Charleston in South Carolina and locations in Georgia.
Keelor’s most recent work, a mixed fiber installation titled Tawney, Bourgeois, O'Keeffe, and the Hats of the Master Potter, was selected for a juried exhibition at the Bascom in Highlands, North Carolina. It incorporates design elements from artists who influence her practice, including the 85-year-old local master potter who challenged her to make something from a bag of old wool hats he'd worn and stored in his barn for decades..
Keelor is currently leading a collaborative, large-scale, climate crisis art installation being constructed in her studio that began in the fall of 2023; partially funded by a N.C. Arts Council grant, to be exhibited in the Carolinas in late 2025 and 2026.
Keelor intends to compel the mind and enliven the spirit while promoting planet health and positive mindsets. She strives to master the ancient textile process of felt making through sculptural works and teaches felting in the Carolinas. 
For more on Kim and her work list: carolinaartworks.com
 

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Matt Gauck.
Matt is a painter, printmaker (screenprinting for the political stuff, linoleum printing for the artistic stuff) and a vegan. He works in oil paint, from both photos and in real life. ​His work deals with the relationships and interactions we have with the natural world. He paints, in oil, landscapes I am drawn towards; and then, he paints incongruous, often humorous, trompe l'oeil aspects to add a layer of our human, personal alterations of that landscape. For more on his work visit mattgauck.com and his Vegan Patches Etsy page.
 
Eat plants and have fun out there <3

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Jeremy Brooks. 
Jeremy Brooks (a.k.a sketchbrooks) is a cartoonist best known for his sketchy style that can be seen in both his fan art and self-published titles Ruby and Rubbish, Mystic Melon, and Radd Tuffman. He is a native of Dillsboro, NC and currently a resident artist at the Cowee School. Follow him at @sketchbrooks on social media and visit his website to learn more about his work: sketchbooks.com

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Ashlyn Miller. 
Ashlyn Miller is a lover of all things wild, mystical, mythical, creative, and holistic. Her story and offerings traverse the inner and outer landscapes of what it means to be alive, interconnected, and empowered. As a holistic practitioner, she weaves the teachings of yoga, ayurveda, somatics, animism, story, and collective transformation into a felt experience through group and private sessions to nurture awareness, agency, and authenticity. It is her intention to co-create ripples of individual and collective transformation that bring us home to ourselves, each other, nature, and the mystery.
For more on Ashlyn: innerwovenwellness.com

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Cricket Woodward.
A long-time resident of the western US, Cricket Woodward currently lives in North Carolina near her family and just down the road from Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center. "I love how the folks at Cowee hold community rooted in nature and creativity of all types."
Cricket's degrees are in biology and graphic design, and in a way, that sums up the myriad of seemingly disparate jobs she's worked, including skinning birds, fixing computers, guiding by horseback, assisting a veterinarian, framing art, building websites, playing music, designing and proofreading books for independent authors. And, like her father, Doug Woodward of Franklin, NC, she's been a photographer all her life — including work in portraits, events, products, art and photojournalism.
Now that she's nearly retired, Cricket creates more music and art. The band she's part of in NC, Bloodroot, is known for their sweet harmony vocals. And she keeps adding various forms to her multi-media art: handmaking prints and bookforms, weaving, sumi ink, metal, art photography … that's why she calls herself an "ampersand person." 
For her, it's all about exploring and capturing the essence of connection: humans to each other and all beings of our world. She seeks the how and the beauty. The why and the awe.
lynnwoodwardphotography.com
 

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Angela Faye Martin. She is the co-owner of Alarka Expeditions, a musician, and the writer & narrator of the acclaimed film THIS IS SPARKLEHORSE. She lives and works in the Cowee community.
For more about Alarka Expeditions: goalarka.com/
To listen to and support Angela's music: angelafayemartin.bandcamp.com/
To watch and learn more about THIS IS SPARKLEHORSE: sparklehorsefilm.com/

This week we sit down at the Winding Stair Farm Nursery with Amanda Drozd.
Amanda Drozd is a Midwest transplant loving her new chapter in Appalachia. She is a poet, Tarot enthusiast, and manages the Winding Stair Nursery where you can find her singing to plants and texting customers recipes. 

This week we sit down at the Cowee School with Ben Banick.
Ben is naturalist, musician, and craftsperson who grew up exploring and being inspired by the woods in the North Carolina piedmont. He now lives in the Burningtown community and works for the Bartram Trail Conservancy as well as doing freelance historical carpentry and building work. 
For more on the Bartram Trail Conservancy: blueridgebartram.org
Music:
"Julieanne Johnson" - Ben Banick
"Swifts" - Angela Martin

This week we sit down with Brent Martin.
BRENT MARTIN is the executive director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy and the owner of Alarka Expeditions in Franklin, North Carolina. He is the author of several books, including George Masa's Wild Vision and A Hiker's Guide to the Bartram National Recreation Trail in Georgia and North Carolina.