Press Release

October 24, 2006

Contact: Wilma Steele 304-426-4136, Chris Worth 304-417-6430, David Seth Cyfers 304-617-7204

The Appalachian Landscape: Bob Ross Don’t Live Here No More
Mingo County resident’s artwork part of fund- and awareness-raising art show in Huntington

HUNTINGTON, W. VA. – Meador resident Wilma Steele will exhibit her artwork in a Huntington art show titled “The Appalachian Landscape: Bob Ross Don’t Live Here No More.”

The show is a fundraiser for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), a citizens group calling for an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. A free opening reception, with live music and refreshments, is set for 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11. The show will run for a week at 949 3rd Avenue, across from Pullman Square in downtown Huntington.

“My husband and I love West Virginia and our hearts grieve over what is happening here,” said Steele, who teaches art at Gilbert High School. “I do what others have done in the past when their eyes and ears have witnessed the loss of too much -- I use my art to create, I write words to cry out, and I pray that someone hears.”

Bob Ross was an oil painter whose Public Television show The Joy of Painting is the most recognized art show in the history of television. He painted serene landscapes. 

The title of the Huntington exhibit reflects the organizers sentiments, outlined in their call for artists, that “the coal industry in rapacious greed has probed the belly of this land and run off with the wealth thus generated, (and) mountaintop removal is the most blatant, extreme abuse of our people and our land, both of which have suffered a long history of abuse…By abstracting the landscape, speaking in a visual language, we wish to bring socio-political change.”

“We are so excited to have Wilma in the show. She brings a unique perspective that only someone living in the shadow of mountaintop removal can,” said Chris Worth, a Marshall University (MU) graduate student.

“We are hoping more coalfield residents will submit artwork,” Worth added. He helped organize the show, along with MU chairman of religious studies Dr. Clay McNearney and David Cyfers, a senior MU art major.

The group’s invitation to artist reads, “We are asking you to submit one to three works of art that address the broad and contested issues, political, social, psychological and spiritual, affecting the Appalachian landscape in our day. Art is powerful when used to raise individual consciousness and to sensitize entire communities. It allows us to see the actual landscape, something not seen in a Bob Ross inspired painting. We challenge you to become informed, to create with purpose and to join with us in using our art and our talent to resist those powers that today destroy life in our community.”

Artists who want their work considered for inclusion in the show should contact Worth at 304-417-6430 or, via e-mail, worth2@marshall.edu. The deadline for potential entries to be delivered is Nov. 9.

“In the artworks, we want to see the whole range of how mountaintop removal affects us all--the physical, sociological, political,” Worth said.

During the opening reception, Katherine Mohn, a MU senior, will present a play about mountaintop removal based on the collective writing of part time MU English professor Dr. Victor Depta. The English Department has put together books of protest poetry which will be for sale as part of the show.

Artists who sell works during the show will donate at least 30% of the proceeds to OVEC.

“Art is not just pretty pictures -- many of its images are quite disturbing,” Steel said. “But, art has the ability to get others to be still and see. Our writers, singers, movie makers, painters and sculptors have always been important to social change.  Their works are often the consciousness-expanding voice that gets others to hear.”

Steele and the art show’s organizers hope the public will hear the artists’ plea to end mountaintop removal.

For more information, see www.myspace.com/bobrossdontlivehere  and
www.sludgesafety.org/temp/2006_11_11.pdf.

The Artists Prospectus is available at: www.ohvec.org/events_calendar/call_for_artists.pdf.

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A jpeg image of the art show invitation is available upon request to vivian@ohvec.org.  Photos of mountaintop removal also available for publication.