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HINDMAN, Ky. (AP) — Jane Chu, the nation's leading art official, strummed a dulcimer Tuesday morning at the Appalachian Artisan Center, then sang along to an old country tune.
"Every time I go to town the boys start kicking my dog around," she giggled, singing along with a beginners' music class in the Dulcimer Project's workshop at the artisan center, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Chu, chairman of the NEA, toured Hindman and other small eastern Kentucky cities that are trying to rebrand themselves as destinations for folk art and traditional music as the local coal economy collapses.
"This is all we have left," Tracy Neice, mayor of this once-thriving coal community in Knott County, told her. "We're trying to bring our little town back. But sometimes it seems like we've got a toothpick picking away at a boulder."
The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, has invested $300,000 in the effort. The agency's grants have funded the dulcimer workshop, a multimedia walking tour of coal heritage in Jenkins, filmmaking training for high school students, a national theater production and training in traditional Appalachian music.
At the Dulcimer Project, Chu, a classically trained pianist originally from Arkansas, got a brief tutorial on how to play the instrument. Randy Wilson, a folk arts teacher, led the class in the song "Wildwood Flower," which he described as the "anthem of eastern Kentucky."
Chu's tour, with Lori Meadows, executive director of the Kentucky Arts Council, went on to Appalshop, an Appalachian arts and film center in Whitesburg. There, local arts activists presented their pleas for why their communities are worth saving through art and cultural investments.
"I want my community to be a place where I want to live and where my children want to live, where people I like want to live," said Jenny Williams, chair of Pathfinders of Perry County, a community organization aiming to revitalize the county and its seat, Hazard.
Eastern Kentucky has for decades battled soaring unemployment rates, population declines and emptying cities as the promise of coal dwindled and little else replaced it.
Williams showed Chu a photo of 11 kids who have worked with her organization that has built community gardens and a basketball court downtown.
"I don't want these kids to leave because they have to, because there's nothing for them," she said. "If they want to leave, then I want to give them the wings to do that. But if they want to stay, then I want to be able to give them a reason to."
Chu said she chose to travel to the mountains to see for herself the rewards of investing in art and culture. She was the first NEA chairman to visit in more than two decades.
"It's great to be in the beauty of this place, and see how the arts have been able to celebrate these long-established traditions," she said. "That brings hope. That brings energy."
Chu decided to buy a Kentucky souvenir. She ordered two instruments to be crafted by hand at the Appalachian Artisan Center: a $375 dulcimer and a $650 ukulele.
Doug Naselroad, master luthier at the Dulcimer Project, said they salvaged wood from a historic building and they've been saving it for an important instrument.
"Wood should always have a story," he said. "And if there's ever a mandate to not screw one up, this is probably it. She'll get one a little extra special."
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