What is it about abandoned industrial spaces that make them so compelling to the inquiring eye? Maybe it's the forlorn, yet intriguing glimpse of past workaday lives — the lunches, the labors, the left-behind tools and flotsam of work — in a place now emptied of human activity.
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ARTSHOW: ‘How Do You Serve the Ice?’
How do you properly shoot, process, and filter photographs of an ice storm for the ages? How about artifying them? But how much is too much? Here are some humble attempts to portray the Great Winter Ice Storm of 2021.
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MUSICVIDEO: “Winter Walking,” when it’s not such a wonderland
A long winter grips the land. Add in cabin-fever weariness from a year-long COVID quarantine—and you can be forgiven if it seems like we are living through "a winter that never dies." Here's a music video about that.
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VIDEO: Other ways of looking at a Mail Pouch barn
Mail Pouch barn signs became such an iconic, familiar image, showcased in tens of thousands of similarly framed snapshots, postcards, and saturated photographs that they are almost impossible to see afresh. We give it a go in "Chew This Way."
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ONE WORK: “Misconceptions” and Angry Black Mothers
Lady D: "I decided on “Misconceptions” because that’s how most black women are viewed. It is a misconception that seems to have been perpetrated by a society that not only de-values us, but also fears our male children."
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PHOTOPOEM: “When Hay Bales Speak to You”
Let’s talk hay bales. I have, perhaps like you, been spying hay bales most all my life. Yet, in all that time haven’t met a hay bale. Up close. The other day, I had my chance.
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VIDEO: “Chasing Birds in Snow”
Take a 2-minute excursion into the heart of the heart of Nature, as a bunch of birds play leapfrog in the midst of a West Virginia snow squall.
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VIDEO: “The Edge of Day”
Thoughts on high while at the edge of day. An original short video production featuring imagery and music by Bobby Lee Messer and words by Kim Wilkinson.
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Subscribe to our free, twice-monthly newsletter to learn of our gloriously variegated content (and the fact we use words like 'variegated'). Subscribe at: westvirginiaville.substack.com.
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THE FEMALE GAZE: How a West Virginia Artist Captured 100 Badass Women
Overwhelmed by the headlines, by Donald Trump, a pandemic and winter coming, West Virginia artist Sassa Wilkes couldn't get herself to her easel. Then, RBG died and Sassa found she wished to get to know the legal legend by painting her portrait. She kept on going with 99 more portraits of badass women.
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VIDEO: A Sky-high View of the New River Gorge Bridge
The New River Gorge Bridge is one of West Virginia's most iconic landmarks. But have you ever seen it from an eagle's eye view—or maybe an Olympian god's?
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NATUREGRAM: January Stroll Under an Azure Sky
The dried out, frosty marshlands are not really absent of life and color. You just have to hang out and look and listen more closely as you stroll the woods and walkways beside the Ohio in western West Virginia.
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COVID FAMILY PROJECT 1: Remain Vigilant, Plus a Recovery Tale
We launch WestVirginiaVille's year-long COVID Family Project 2021, featuring articles, videos, and audio stories from the pandemic frontlines—stories of family loss and recovery, plus people working hard to stop the rising tide of infections and death.
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BREAKING: We Interrupt this Insurrection for David Bowie News
WestVirginiaVille marks David Bowie's 74th birthday today with news from our "Play That Funky Music" News Department. Wait—what does Bowie have to do with West Virginia?! Read and watch on.
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ARCHIVES: Revisiting West Virginia’s Connection to “Gilligan’s Island”
The death from COVID of the actress who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" is another sad pandemic casualty. Her passing is an occasion to recall the connection West Virginia has to the iconic television show from the 1960s.
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VIDEO: 9 Ways of Looking at ‘Hallelujah”
We dip into the archives of West Virginia cultural multimedia with a 2010 video appreciation of Albert Paley's striking 198,000 monumental sculpture, "Hallelujah," in Charleston WV. Get up close-and personal with a great work of art.
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VIDEO: When Snow Day is Christmas Day & the Day After
It's rare for Huntington, W.Va. to get snow on Christmas, much less the perfect snow for sledding. The Christmas Eve snowstorm at the end of the long, hard year of 2020 will likely remain for a long while in people's memories, as Christmas unfolded with snow, sunshine and the holiday all wrapped into one day.
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VIDEO: The debut of “Animals in Appalachia” with “Deer Me”
In the start of a new short video series, "Animals in Appalachia" by WestVirginiaVille.com, a mother deer puts her foot down as she momentarily loses track of her two fawns.
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VIDEO: The Artist’s Work Considered As a Moving Picture Show
Sharon Lyn Stackpole's art considered as a video: "I always had a female character in my drawings either in illustration form or comic and I'd have her acting out whatever I was also living in my drawings. For some reason, this was reassuring and helped me to feel less alone."
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PHOTO|ESSAY: 10 ways of coping with a dreary West Virginia winter’s day
On a winter day of all-day rain and bone-chilling cold, I give up trying to Figure It All Out. Instead, I sift through my photos, crop and lightly filter them. Maybe I can find order and meaning there. Or an aesthetic distraction, which may be just as good.
