Innovative project funded in 2001 unites women artists with water awareness

By Ellen Birkett Morris,
KFW Communication Specialist

Once sources of nourishment, amusement and spiritual enlightenment, eastern Kentucky's waterways have become a source of sorrow for many residents. Others have forgotten the elemental connection our foremothers had to the waterways that both carve out the land and shape the culture.

Artists Pat Banks, Judy Sizemore, Gabrielle Beasley, and Joanne Guilfoil want to change all that. They developed Shaped by Water, a series of four conferences and ongoing artistic projects to help participants celebrate and reconnect with eastern Kentucky's vital waterways.

"Shaped by Water is a group that is making a promise to the past and to the future of our waterways. Using the arts as a vehicle, we will work to promote awareness of our waterways–their beauty and their fragility–to help people reconnect to their rivers and creeks, to claim them, to become responsible for them, to love them. We will involve schools and communities in gathering oral histories, writing stories and poems, painting pictures, quilting designs, singing, and dancing to celebrate our rivers and our heritage," said the co-directors in a joint statement.

"KFW is proud to be involved in this innovative project bringing together women artists working in different art forms united by their commitment to environmental protection. This project shows that women artists can provide creative solutions to important issues facing Kentucky today," said Judi Jennings, KFW director.

Sizemore said the project will culminate in a River Festival in 2003 that will celebrate water-based projects created throughout eastern Kentucky.