I am an artist who enjoys working in acrylics, ink and pen, colored pencils, and mixed mediums. Some paintings take 30 to 40 hours to complete, others — painted in an Uber-Expressionistic style — less than an hour. The subject and mood dictate the speed, emotion, color palette, and layers.Continue Reading

One rarely comes across an artist whose remarkable talents flow across a wide swath of multiple medias. Such is true of Mary Ruden – painter, sculptor, textile artist, illustrator, renovator, etc. She is a tireless champion of history and uses her artistic talents to promote and preserve antiquity. She masterfullyContinue Reading

The Suffrage Coalition of Knoxville, Tennessee, has organized several parades to honor the history of women’s right to vote. The organization is headed by Wanda Sobieski, and is keeping that history alive. The parades are mainly held in downtown Knoxville. Women in white dresses with sashes wear hats and holdContinue Reading

Mary McKeehan Patton was a gunpowder maker for the American Revolutionary War, in particular, the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Several monuments exist in East Tennessee that honor the Battle of Kings Mountain. A Veterans Monument in Elizabethton, Tennessee, mentions Mary Patton on a side of its obelisk-shaped tower.Continue Reading

A few years ago, I visited the Coal Creek Miners Museum in Rocky Top (formerly Lake City, formerly Coal Creek), Anderson County, Tennessee. The facility provides a historical glimpse into the lives of coal miners in the Fraterville and Briceville mines, particularly from the late 1800s to the 1930s. TheContinue Reading

Welcome to Part 2 of our three-part series about the Extraordinary Tanners. Today’s post centers on Henry and Carlton Tanner, sons of Benjamin and Sarah Tanner. We’ll meet younger son, Carlton, first. Though he wasn’t technically born in Appalachia, his parents were, and his story is significant to present theContinue Reading

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), Appalachia “is a 205,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania,Continue Reading

Trent Eades is a journalist, photographer, and educator based in Knoxville, Tennessee. His interests include Greek Philosophy, Medieval and Renaissance Literature, and Science Fiction. He’s never enjoyed long walks in the rain but is adept at short sprints through heavy downpours. When he’s not teaching writing and literature to students,Continue Reading