Mountain of Inspiration: KNLT to host art and music show inspired by Pine Mountain

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For Daniel Martin Moore, a Hardin County native and songwriter, seeking artistic inspiration from the environment has always come naturally.

“I can’t help but write about what I’m thinking about – as an artist, as a citizen, it’s really all the same,” said Moore, who has received national attention for his work, including the 2010 album “Dear Companion.” The album, produced with fellow Kentucky musicians Ben Sollee and Jim James, was created to raise awareness about mountaintop removal.

Inviting artists to seek inspiration from the mountains of Kentucky is the cornerstone of a project headed by the Kentucky Natural Land Trust (KNLT) that helped facilitate two artist retreats last year at Pine Mountain. The 125-mile ridgeline, which extends through Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, holds exceptional ecological significance to the region. Moore was one of more than 30 multidisciplinary artists who attended one of the retreats, hosted by KNLT in conjunction with writer Erik Reece and visual artist and writer Zoe Strecker. The trips were designed to immerse the artists in the stunning natural habitat of the mountain, with the hopes that its splendor would inspire them. The creative outpouring that followed will be displayed to the public on April 8.

With a similar format to a 2008 event hosted by KNLT called Tsuga Art and Music, this month’s Wildlands Art and Music Show will highlight those artistic works, including live music from Moore and other musicians, as well as visual art and literary readings from the group of artists who now call themselves the Pine Mountain Collective. The project was inspired, in part, by an effort organized by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) in 2005-2006, during which dozens of Kentucky authors extensively toured parts of eastern Kentucky that had been affected by mountaintop removal.

“It had a real ripple effect – a book ended up being published, and articles,” said KNLT assistant director Greg Abernathy. “We saw that as potential for getting creative people involved and what can happen.”

While KFTC is largely known for having a political bent, the recent Pine Mountain retreats were decidedly apolitical, mostly consisting of hiking and exploring the mountain and encouraging participants to share their observations in loosely structured conversations. Attendees also shared meals and engaged with Pine Mountain naturalists and other locals, and played music around a campfire in the evenings.

While environmental and economic hardships are evident in the region surrounding Pine Mountain, the hosts of the retreats focused on its inspirational aspects.

“The story of KNLT and what we’re doing is all about the positive,” Abernathy said. “We didn’t lecture on the shifting economy and the struggles of the region, but [participants] all bore frontline witness to what’s going on there. There’s so much struggle and negativity – this was an opportunity to spotlight our heritage and our state.”

Since 1995, Kentucky Natural Land Trust has worked with state, federal and nonprofit partners to protect and preserve natural places throughout the state that are rich in biodiversity. The organization made news in recent months when it finalized the purchase of a 2,050-acre tract of Pine Mountain in Bell County to establish the Narrows Preserve – the largest and most expensive investment in KNLT’s 20-year history. Part of a larger KNLT project called the Pine Mountain Wildlands Corridor, the project seeks to connect existing protected areas and ultimately form a continuous corridor of sustainably managed land that expands the entire length of the ridgeline. The establishment of the Narrows Preserve will provide an essential link for the Great Eastern Trail, a primitive hiking trail currently in development that will eventually stretch 1,800 miles from Alabama to New York.

While KNLT does work all over the state, Pine Mountain has always been a primary focus due to its exceptional ecological significance. With just nine roads crossing the ridgeline’s entire 125-mile stretch, the corridor is considered to be one of the last great contiguous stretches of forest in Kentucky. Its relatively untouched status helps provide a refuge to more than 100 rare plant and animal species, including many not found anywhere else. The mountain has been crucial in allowing black bears to recolonize the state and also provides a habitat for newly reintroduced elk in the region and an important migratory path for many species of birds and butterflies.

Perhaps one of Pine Mountain’s most notable features is its lack of merchantable coal.

“When [the ridgeline] thrusted up, the coal layer was exposed and eroded off,” Abernathy said, explaining that that geologic feature has protected the mountain in many ways from the threats and pressure of coal – though the mountain does face other threats, from heavy logging to invasive species.

Nestled in a region that has seen considerable environmental damage due to resource extraction, all of these unique factors – combined with the mountain’s commanding panoramic views, rare mixed mesophytic canopy and rugged sandstone cliffs – lend a compelling sense of natural majesty to Pine Mountain.

To Strecker, a Lexington artist, writer and teacher who has geared much of her work to wilderness-related topics, and Pine Mountain in particular, the physical experience of being at the mountain – and even more specifically, the experience of being there in search of creative inspiration – is beyond compare.

“It is my firm belief that when people go to the mountain, and they let it affect them through their senses and aesthetically, they begin to bond with it in a way that’s really different than having some kind of intellectual or scientific knowledge of it,” Strecker said. “The beginning of getting to fall in love with a mountain is to engage in it that way.”

For more information on the work of Kentucky Natural Land Trust and the April 8 Wildlands Art and Music Show, visit www.knlt.org.

Wild lands Art & Music Show

Friday, April 8, 6-11 p.m.

The Grand Reserve, 903 Manchester St., Ste. 190

knlt.org/event/wildlands-art-music-2016/

This collective art show will highlight the work of more than 30 multidisciplinary artists who embarked on retreats to Pine Mountain in 2015. Featuring visual art, literary readings and live music, all inspired by or related to the artists’ experience with the mountain, the show will benefit Kentucky Natural Land Trust.

Doors will open at 6 p.m. for the gallery exhibit, with literary readings and three sets of live music to follow, and the event will feature specially crafted spirits with direct ties to the Wildlands project. Tickets are available locally at CD Central, 377 S. Limestone.

Readings: Carrie Billet, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Bobbie Ann Mason, Ed McClanahan, Tina Peiffer, Erik Reece, Eric Sutherland and Richard Taylor.

Visual art: Greg Abernathy, Whitney Baker, Carrie Billett, Jeff Chapman-Crane, Mike Frasca, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, John Lackey, Nana Lampton, Mike Goodlett, Guy Mendes,Timothy Polashek, Zoé Strecker, Jeff Short, Diana Sudyka, Melissa Muir Sutherland, Lina Tharsing, Petersen Thomas, Brian and Sara Turner and Jenny Zeller.

Live music: Daniel Martin Moore, Warren Byrom and the Fabled Canelands and Western Movies – Chris Sullivan.

"Forest Portal" by artist Zoé Strecker consists of video animation of imagery from the old growth forests on Pine Mountain, taken in the summer and fall of 2015.

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