Fieldwork

Yell County Decoration Day

I recently began research on the tradition of decorating graves each year throughout the month of May. More on this coming soon.

Rural Heritage Development Initiative - Central Kentucky Cultural Survey

In the spring of 2007 students in Dr. Williams' Cultural Conservation class partnered with Community Scholars in Central Kentucky area to conduct a cultural survey of the eight county region of Washington, Boyle, Mercer, Marion, Taylor, Green, LaRue, and Nelson. Each student worked as part of a team to learn more about the area and conduct fieldwork for the Rural Heritage Development Initiative. To learn more about the Rural Heritage Development Initiative visit the official site.

In addition to conducting fieldwork for the project I also worked as a liaison between the Community Scholars and the students in our Folk Studies program, helped to create the standardized forms used in the documentation process, and worked to facilitate communication between the multiple agencies involved in the cultural survey. For more information about this work please visit the Public and Preservation Work section of this portfolio.

Russellville Black Bottom Historic District

Beginning in 2006 I had the privaldge of working with Michael Morrow, director of the West Kentucky African American Heritage Center and a lifelong resident of Russellville to nominate the historically African American neighborhood, known locally as the Black Bottom, to the National Register of Historic Places. I also worked with Morrow and others to create the film Persistent Story: The Russellville Black Bottom Historic Distirct. To see the film go here.

In working with Michael on this and other projects, I have had the opportunity to learn a great deal about the neighborhood and the center’s goals for utilizing historic preservation and historic research for community activism and education. My dreams for creating a local oral history center here in Arkansas are largely inspired by Morrow’s much of vision. Here is a portion of an interview I did with Michael at the beginning of the Nomination of the neighborhood to the National Register. For more information about the National Register Nomination visit the Public and Preservation Work section of my Portfolio.

Farmers Market Photo Essay

The photos were taken October 28, 2006 and a are part of a larger project documenting the final day of the Kentucky Regional Growers Market in Bowling Green for the 2006 season. To be qualified to sell at this market, farmers must grow all the food they bring to sell and live in Kentucky. Here you will find photos of Mennonite farmers Dorothy and Oliver Hess on their last day of the market. This was their last day to sell at the customer market. They are now retired and only sell their flowers and vegetables to a resellers market outside of Russellville, Kentucky.

 

 

 

Interviews With Forrest Coggan

Coming Soon: To read an excerpt from the interviews, click here.

Coming Soon: To listen to an excerpt from the interviews, click here.

In 2006 as a part of my assistantship work with Dr. Michael Ann Williams, I began interviewing dance chorographer, National Folklife Festival board member, and dance educator Forrest Coggan about his connection to Kentucky native and National Folk Festival Association president Sarah Gertrude Knott. In preparing for the interview and reading through Mr. Coggan's files in the Kentucky Library and Museum I discovered that he had also worked with besmilr brigham, an obscure Arkansas modernist poet whose work I was familiar with as the result of an extensive research project on her life and work in 2002. The first interview with Forrest Coggan led to several more, and over the next year and a half we conducted four interviews covering different segments of his life including the founding of his dance troupe, his work with Native American dance, his time as an educator and his experiences with dance as a form of religious expression. Mr. Coggan lives in Michigan, and all of our interviews were conducted by phone. The interviews and transcriptions are housed at the Kentucky Library in the Sarah Gertrude Knott collection, in Mr. Coggan's personal collection at the Huntington Library in California. If you would like more information about my work with the Coggan collection, please feel free to email me.

For more information about the poet besmilr brigham please visit her entry in the Arkansas Encyclopedia.

For more information about Dr. Michael Ann Williams' research on Sarah Gertrude Knott go here.