Social Impact Story: Making Sound and Space

Making Sound and Space:

How The Mountain Grrl Experience Is Building a Bigger Stage for Appalachian Women

 

For more than a decade, Kris Bailey Preston has been doing the kind of work that changes a community. A musician, organizer, and proud Appalachian woman, Preston is the co-organizer of The Mountain Grrl Experience alongside co-organizer Bek Smallwood. The Mountain Grrl Experience is a growing year-round organization in Pikeville, Kentucky that centers women’s voices through music, art, workshops, and community resources.

Preston said she didn’t begin with a full organization in mind. She began with a desire to create more opportunities for herself, for her band, and for other women musicians who weren’t being given the same chances to take the stage. After years of performing in a male-dominated genre, she understood those gaps firsthand.

Receiving her first Kentucky Foundation for Women (KFW) Artist Enrichment grant, along with Coaltown Dixie bandmates Stephanie Rose, Melanie Turner, and Kalyn Bradford, marked a turning point.

“Getting that first grant really legitimized what we were doing,” she said. “It made it feel real… like this wasn’t just a small idea. It was recognized as important.”

That recognition, and the KFW grant application process, helped her vision as a feminist artist grow. Since then, Preston has received two Art Meets Activism grants and a Radical, Timely, Urgent grant to fund The Mountain Grrl Experience. 

She jokingly calls The Mountain Grrl Experience her “Covid baby.” Like many artists, she watched opportunities disappear during the pandemic. But she kept returning to the idea of more opportunities for women musicians, especially at home in Appalachia.

Inspired in part by an all-female show she’d seen years earlier, Preston imagined one single night event featuring only women performers. In the first two years, The Mountain Grrl Experience found a home at the Appalachian Center for the Arts. Then it outgrew the space, spreading across downtown Pikeville and expanding into a three-day event.

“It’s crazy how it has grown,” Preston said.

From the beginning, Preston and Smallwood wanted the event to give something back to the community. Each year, the festival partners with organizations supporting women and families, including emergency shelters, food initiatives, and domestic violence services, even inviting the local health department to bring its mobile support van used for breastfeeding and baby care. They have also donated thousands of dollars to charitable efforts over the years, another impact that continues to grow alongside the event itself.

Just as importantly, the event is free and open to all, with funding and sponsorships helping ensure community members can attend regardless of income.

The organization continues to evolve. The Mountain Grrl Experience has moved from being fiscally sponsored by the city to partnering with the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky as its fiscal sponsor, supporting the festival’s shift toward a more independent nonprofit model.

And it’s not just about music. Free workshops invite people to try new forms of artmaking such as songwriting, dance, quilting, and more. These endeavors continue in the community throughout the year, like some recent ukulele workshops where local schoolchildren received music lessons and a ukulele of their own to keep.

Through her work and with support from multiple KFW grants, Preston has examined gender representation in festival lineups across Kentucky, working to show what’s possible when women are centered.

“I hope promoters may see that we can be successful… that they can actually put back-to-back female musicians on their roster, and people will come and support that,” she said.

And she’s started to see that shift happen. When a major Kentucky festival lineup recently sparked public conversation because of its lack of women performers, Preston recognized something familiar in the response: women artists speaking up together and pushing for fairness and representation.

“I would like to hope that opportunities like Mountain Grrl Experience… have helped [women] feel more empowered,” she said.

The Mountain Grrl Experience has also grown its art component into a juried art exhibition, where some women, who have been making art all their lives but who may never have entered an exhibition before, are finally recognized publicly for the first time.

It’s also created space for conversations that don’t always happen. Last year, high school students, college students, and community members—particularly younger women—took part in a panel discussion to discuss identity, pride, and belonging. As Preston shared, Appalachian women are often misunderstood because they are women and dismissed because they are Appalachian. She said the room was full of truth-telling, relief, and support. 

What started as a way to create opportunities has grown into something much bigger. This year, The Mountain Grrl Experience takes place October 16–17 and will be hosted at Coal Run Park, a new location just a few miles from the prior downtown location, with space to welcome even more community members.  The event will kick off on October 15 with the Front Porch Panel discussion featuring stories from inspiring Appalachian women, to be held at the University of Pikeville, a key supporter of the event.   

Preston and Smallwood are quick to state that they could not continue to produce an event of this magnitude without the help of a dedicated team of women who work tirelessly behind the scenes year-round. As well, partnerships with leading community entities including UPike, Mountain Top Media, Pikeville Community Foundation, Hope in the Hills/Healing Appalachia and Pike County Tourism help ensure the continued success of Mountain Grrl Experience.  

Preston’s vision to support women like her has expanded to include women all over Appalachia and all over Kentucky. Preston and Smallwood have created and contributed to a community proving that when women’s voices are centered, everyone benefits.

To learn more about The Mountain Grrl Experience, visit their website, Facebook page, Instagram, and TikTok.

Contact The Mountain Grrl Experience at: mountaingrrlexperience@gmail.com