New River Conservancy (NRC) and the Center for Appalachian Studies (CAS) invite you to Water Cycle – a free, family-friendly event on Sunday, June 2 from 3:00 – 8:00 PM in Creston, NC at Riverview Community Center that will showcase area artists and offer hands-on workshops for the public. The goal of the event is to amplify the need and increase awareness of the importance of a clean and healthy watershed. Workshops begin at 3:00 PM and will feature water monitoring, weaving, poetry, and photography.
Performances featuring live music, poetry, and film will start at 6:30 to 8:00 PM. Performers include Trevor McKenzie and Julie Shepherd Powell, Scot Pope and Brenda Miller and Annie Woodford. A special screening of the Trash Trout Motion Picture Show will close the show. The Trash Trout Motion Picture show utilizes trash as art on the big screen. Trash is easy to miss when it is alongside the road, it’s just a small piece of paper or plastic we drive by at 60 MPH. When it is blown up on a huge movie screen we can’t miss it, and perhaps will pay closer attention to it in our environment in the future.
As our communities continue to change, the arts play an incomparable role in addressing many of our communal and individual challenges and strengths. Water Cycle will engage artists and water quality monitors to protect freshwater resources along the New River in western North Carolina. Artists and community members will engage in river clean ups, participate in workshops to create art from the river trash, and produce live performance events that feature stories, songs, and art from the New River.
Event Sponsors include New River Conservancy, the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University, Riverview Community Center and is funded in part by a Cross Sector grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.
Water Cycle is a multi-phased project that will engage artists and water quality monitors to protect freshwater resources along the New River in western North Carolina. Artists and community members will engage in river clean ups, participate in workshops to create art from the river trash, and produce live performance events that feature stories, songs, and art from the river.
At these events, the NRC will offer free training for new citizen water quality monitors. For the second phase of the project, Tom Hansell will collaborate with the new water monitors to visually represent the data they collect. After a year of monitoring, a water quality report and related artwork will be presented during Ashe County’s monthly gallery crawl and made accessible in an online format. This project highlights the deep connections between freshwater ecosystems and the health of our region.
For more information please contact Tom Hansell at hansellts@appstate.edu
Performer Bios:
Tom Hansell is a filmmaker, author and artist who creates work that explores relationships between energy, community, and nature. His documentaries have screened at the Museum of Modern Art and have been included in the Southern Circuit tour of independent filmmakers.
Trevor McKenzie is a traditional Appalachian musician who lives in Lansing, NC. He received an emerging traditional artist fellowship from South Arts in 2021 and is the director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University.
Scot Pope is a poet, musician, and photographer who lives in Creston. His poems have been published in the Iodine Poetry Journal and in the book Reflections on the New River. He is a founding member of the Ashe County writers’ group Wordkeepers. He often performs music with Brenda Smith.
Julie Shepherd-Powell is an environmental anthropologist, an old-time banjo player and award-winning flatfoot dancer who lives in Boone, NC. She has taught dance workshops in Ashe County and around the world.
Brenda Smith is a retired English teacher who has been foraging for wild foods for forty years and studying herbalism for the past seven years. Her herbal tea products are available at the Ashe County Farmers Market. She is a Water Watcher for the New River Conservancy, serves on the board of the Florence Thomas Art School in Ashe County and performs music with Scot Pope.
Annie Woodford is a poet who lives in Deep Gap, North Carolina. Her book Where You Come From is Gone won the Weatherford Award for best Appalachian Poetry in 2022. She is the author of Bootleg, a collection of poems that are inspired by Charlie Poole, a famous banjo player and lead of his band the North Carolina Ramblers.