The fourth grade art class at Highland Turner Elementary is enthusiastic about a guest teacher presenting a special project to them. It’s a warm fall day and Rae Goodwin, professor at the University of Kentucky’s School of Art and Visual Studies is presenting at the school for the second time.
Goodwin is brainstorming with the children about drawing images of their grandmothers as superheroes. All of the children including Haley Terry, Maci Miller, Austin Wagers and Tanner Stamper are responding to questions such as, what does grandma like, what annoys you about her, what kinds of things do you do with her, what do you love about her?
Goodwin is one of the artists working with an initiative referred to as "Our Breathitt”. It began in 2017, using arts and culture as a way to create health and well -being. Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the effort is a collaboration with the artist- led programs including things like poetry, writing, music, and gardening.
Highland Turner Elementary’s arts and humanities teacher, Scott Hollan, likes the idea of the students celebrating culture and heritage through art. He said grandmas are important figures in Breathitt County. “Grandma here in Appalachia is doing a whale of a job. She is in fact, the matriarch raising the family, still yet, even the grandchildren. A lot of those responsibilities have fallen onto her and she’s doing a great job,” said Hollan.
Still, Goodwin said Breathitt County is one of the counties at the center of the opioid crisis where economic opportunities are slim and are fading. “It absolutely has been impacted through loss of jobs in the region and the opioid epidemic and other health consequences including food scarcity and generational poverty. So it is a place that is of great need and of great strength, all at the same time,”said Goodwin.
Theo Edmonds, assistant professor at the University of Louisville’s School of Public Health, said his family goes back nine generations in Breathitt County. Edmonds was doing the work of using arts and culture as a way to create and improve well-being in Louisville and Natchez, Mississippi. It made sense to introduce the concept in Breathitt County. He said, “Our Breathitt” at its essence is meant to identify what is working. Edmonds said if you approach community members with a survey, they’re only going to tell you so much.
But, he said, writing poetry and making music together can yield valuable information. “What I have often seen, is that when you start with meaning when you start with culture when you understand what is meaningful to people and you build from there you begin to build capacity. You begin to build things. It’s not going to happen overnight though,” said Edmonds.
Earlier this year writer and poet Pauletta Hansel returned to Breathitt County ,where she grew up. As part of “Our Breathitt” Hansel spent three days writing poetry with students at Breathitt County High School. She asked them to sketch out the important places in their community and write about it. “This is my homeland one person wrote. Another wrote this is the place that made me. This is the place I’ll always come back to,” said Hansel.
Another person involved with and inspired by “Our Breathitt” is third generation quilt artist and Breathitt County native Shaina Naillieux. The 32 –year- old was instrumental in making two quilts for the high schools in the county for graduation. One was 30 feet long with 120 pieces. The large quilts created a panoramic view of the region. “And each student, as they came into graduation, had a piece of the quilt draped over their shoulder and as they walked across the stage they handed that piece of the quilt off to somebody else who then put it up. So as these people were walking across the stage graduating this mosaic of their school was building behind them,” said Naillieux. Naillieux made her first large quilt with her grandma sitting beside her, talking her through. Now her business is booming.
She loves Breathitt County and said she'd like to see the region revitalized. "But it's home. Whenever I come down the Mountain Parkway and see those mountains, your soul just lifts just a little bit because that's where I was born and raised," said Naillieux.
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