Since the 1870s, a torrent of coal has flowed from the coalfields of Virginia, across the Piedmont, and to the ports of the Tidewater to the rest of the world. Two regions, Appalachia and Tidewater, have been linked by the extractive and productive economies of coal.
A second river of earth has flowed to the Tidewater in the form of a new exhibition of self-taught and folk art at the Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Taking its title from a 1937 poem by the Kentucky writer James Still, River of Earth: Meaning and Material in Self-Taught Art from Appalachia connects the two regions by exploring folk traditions, art materials, and meaning broadcast by artists from the Appalachian region.
Focusing on the materiality of the pieces, River of Earth demonstrates how life experience, spiritual encounters, and folkloric traditions are bound the specific qualities and sources of artistic materials and media. Western North Carolina soapstone pulled from pastureland, Virginia red clay dug from creek banks, and wooden scraps salvaged from a furniture factory in Eastern Tennessee all form part of the expressive current of folk and self-taught art.
The exhibition is organized by the foundational materials used in the pieces, gradually descending through the gallery like layers of the mountain landscape. Beginning with materials like thread and paint and becoming more elemental through wood, clay, and finally stone, the gallery peels back the layers of the landscape before gesturing toward the Norfolk Southern coal terminal and the very physical connections between the two places.
Though the exhibition features work by well-known artists like Minnie Adkins, Bessie Harvey, Howard Finster, and Thornton Dial, Virginia artists also take prominent roles.
Woodworker Oscar Lipscomb “O.L.” Spencer used his familiarity with wood to mimic the movement of flat-footing dancers in his dancing men puppets and twisting, coiling forms of snakes made from bent sticks and twigs.
Ceramicist Georgia Blizzard (Glade Springs, Virginia) is exemplary of the intersection of material and meaning. Blizzard used clay dug from a creek bank by her house to create vessels made to hold spirit, experience, and trauma. Having the “feel of the clay,” Blizzard used her craft to “get rid of the taunting, unknowing things by bringing them out where I can see them.”[1]
The exhibition features quotes from artists, like Blizzard’s above, discussing their materials, as part inspiration, part teacher, and always connected to the landscape. Two titans of Appalachian folk art, Bessie Harvey and Minnie Adkins are juxtaposed with two very different messages on the animacy of wood materials — Harvey connecting with the wood as kin and fellow animate beings and Adkins relating to it as a media for her own artistic vision.
Whether animate or inert, materials sourced from the mountain landscape communicate prophetic visions, everyday habits, and counter-narratives of the region — such as the understated contributions of Black Appalachian artists, such as Harvey, Leroy Almon, Thornton Dial, and Charles Simmons.
They challenge our definition of everyday expressive practice, blurring the lines between functional and visual art. They are charged with spirituality, history, tradition, and folklore yet also belong totally unto themselves.
River of Earth is on view at the Gordon Art Galleries at Old Dominion University through December 13, 2025.
The objects on display are part of the Gordon Art Galleries permanent collection of self-taught and folk art donated by avid collectors Baron and Ellin Gordon in the late 20th century. The Gordons connected with artists widely across the Mountain South, giving the Galleries a bounty of choices for this exhibition to demonstrate how materials are an integral part of the meaning broadcast by folk artists.
This exhibition builds upon the legacy of promoting folk art, self-taught, and outsider art in an art museum setting at the Gordon Art Galleries, joining recent exhibition of work by Mary Elizabeth “MAMA-Girl” Onley, Jake McCord, Matt Sesow, and many others.
River of Earth: Meaning and Material in Self-Taught Art from Appalachia runs until December 13, 2025. Visitor info.
Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth, curator of River of Earth, will give a talk on November 20 at 12:30 PM entitled “A Stranger on Familiar Slopes.” More info.
Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth is Director and Curator of the Gordon Art Galleries at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Kentucky, a BA in Anthropology and History from the University of Virginia and is the author of Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia’s Mountain Forests.
Works Cited
[1] Williams, Jonathan. “Seven Outsiders.” Conjunctions, vol. 21., 1993, pp. 213-248
