Originally presented at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and now on a 20-city national tour, "Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia" chronicles the lives of everyday women through forty telling portraits by acclaimed documentary photographer Barbara Beirne. The portraits, together with ten landscape photographs and excerpts of Beirne's interviews with her subjects, convey these women's struggles and accomplishments against the backdrop of coalmines and company towns.

Since 1992, Beirne has traveled the small towns and valleys of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, photographing and interviewing many of the women who call this region home as they struggle to keep their families, communities, and cultures intact. Beirne's work draws on two generations of Appalachian women, ranging in age from 50 to 100, to capture the rhythm of life in places such as Cherokee, NC, Pippa Passes, KY, Ravenswood, WV, and Ivanhoe, VA. Among those photographed are a union activist, a daughter of a slave, a pediatrician, a miner, a police captain, a musician, and a published writer. Despite enduring the hardships of unemployment, illness and natural disaster, many of the women featured in "Serving Home and Community" take a positive view of their experience in this isolated region. Verna Mae Slone, of Pippa Passes, KY.(see bottom photo), wrote in her memoirs, "Many lies and half-truths have been written about the mountain people, but we know God sent his strongest men and women here who could search out the few pleasures contained in a life of hard work." Slone said she wrote her book, "What My Heart Wants to Tell," "because I wanted my grandchildren to be proud of their heritage."

"Serving Home and Community" was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and the National Museum of American History. The exhibition's curator, David Haberstich, head of photographic collections at the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History remarked, "These faces and voices of Appalachian women describe battles which are being won daily and are a testament to the indomitable human spirit, recorded by a woman of uncommon perception and depth of feeling."

Photographer Barbara Beirne has a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from Pratt Institute and has worked as a documentary photographer for fifteen years. Her works have been widely exhibited and are included in the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History. Beirne currently does commissioned work for nonprofit organizations and magazines and has illustrated several children's books, including three she authored. One of the Smithsonian's four national programs, SITES shares the wealth of the Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside of Washington, DC. Each year, SITES makes available a wide range of exhibits about art, science, and history, which are shown not only in museums, but also in libraries, community centers, schools, and shopping malls. In 2002, SITES will celebrate fifty years of connecting Americans to their shared cultural heritage.

Smith-McDowell House Museum is a restored circa 1840 house and history museum located at 283 Victoria Road on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in Asheville, NC. The Museum is open 10 AM to 4 PM Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, $3 for children ages 5 to 18, and free for children under 5. For additional information, call the Museum at 828-253-9231 or visit www.wnchistory.org.

EXHIBIT PHOTO CREDITS

Top Photograph - Etta Baker, Morganton, North Carolina, 1998, by Barbara T. Beirne "I started my guitar before I was three years old. My husband was a pianist and we stayed home and made music for our nine children. After he passed away, I quit my job at the textile mill and started traveling and playing. If the price is right, I'm gone, and if it ain't, I'm in the garden

Middle Photograph - Amy Walker, Cherokee, North Carolina, 1996, by Barbara T. Beirne "As I learned about myself and reconnected with my own identity and culture, I recognized the need to know myself spiritually. The Native American culture is built on its spiritual beliefs. We believe we are all one--part of Mother Earth. She provides us with everything we need to sustain life."

Bottom Photograph - Verna Mae Slone, Pippa Passes, Kentucky, 1993, by Barbara T. Beirne "Many lies and half-truths have been written about the mountain people, but we know God sent his very strongest men and women here who could enjoy life and search out the few pleasures contained in a life of hard work. I wrote my book, What My Heart Wants to Tell, because I wanted my grandchildren to be proud of their heritage. Now, surprisingly, my book is in its fifth printing."

Ashburn to Speak on "A Confluence of Remarkable Women"

Gwen Ashburn, literature professor at UNC-Asheville, will be speaking on "A Confluence of Remarkable Women" on Sunday, February 16, 2003 at 2:00 pm in Ferguson Auditorium (formerly Laurel on the campus of A-B Tech Community College. "From the earliest settlers in Western North Carolina and the founding of Asheville, women have been instrumental in this area�s history, but there are few records of their achievements," Ashburn notes. Women "helped form Asheville into a distinctive Southern highlands community by establishing medical clinics, caring for the poor, founding community centers, raising money for churches and schools, marching for equal rights, and integrating schools and hospitals." This program, sponsored by Smith-McDowell House Museum, is made possible through a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council�s Humanities Forum, a Speaker�s Bureau of the NCHC. Admission is free.

"A Confluence of Remarkable Women" is part of a speaker series in conjunction with Smithsonian exhibit "Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia," on display at Smith-McDowell House Museum from February 8 to April 6, 2003. Other speakers include Charlotte Ross of Western Carolina University on March 9 and Tammy Hopkins of the Cradle of Forestry on April 1. The speaker series is co-sponsored by the Western Carolina Women�s Coalition.

all contents copyright © 1999, Asheville.com. contact: [email protected] or 828.253.2880
For listing and advertising information...