For more information:
• Greenbo Lake State Resort Park, HC 60, Box 562, West KY Hwy. 1711, Greenup, KY 41144, (606) 473-7324, reservations (800) 325-0083

Producer, videographer, editor: Treg Ward

Jesse’s Hills

Greenbo Lake State Resort Park

The writings of Jesse Stuart, one of Kentucky’s most popular and prolific authors, reflect his profound love for the hills of his northeastern Kentucky home. His own property, W Hollow, is now a state nature preserve. And at nearby Greenbo Lake State Resort Park, visitors can relax among those hills and peruse the writer’s works in a library and reading room named for him.

Greenbo Lake itself didn’t exist when Stuart was a boy. It was built as a fishing lake in 1955 in a partnership between the state and a private association. Two state-record largemouth bass have been snagged in Greenbo, which is also open for pontoon boating, canoeing, rowing, and motorboating—but no wakes, please.

Other amenities at the park include a swimming pool for guests of the Jesse Stuart Lodge, another that’s open to the public, camping, and hiking trails winding among some of Greenup County’s extensive hardwood forests. The ruins of Buffalo Furnace, also on park grounds, are a reminder of Kentucky’s 19th-century heyday as a center of iron production, thanks to abundant iron ore, coal for smelting it, and waterways for transporting it.

Greenbo Lake State Resort Park holds a Jesse Stuart weekend each September. Kentucky Life visited the author’s homestead in Program 420. For more links and information, see the December 2002 bookclub@ket program, a discussion of Stuart’s short-story collection Come Back to the Farm.

For more information:
• Brushy Fork Creek Studio and Gallery, 1550 Pleasant Green Hill Road, Crofton, KY 42217, (270) 424-5988

Producers: Cheryl Beckley, David Brinkley
Videographer: David Brinkley
Editor: Cheryl Beckley

Christian County Creativity

artists Paul and Patricia Ferrell

A husband-and-wife pair of visual artists is next on our itinerary. Woodturner Paul and potter Patricia Ferrell, both self-taught artists, turn out extraordinary bowls, vases, and other vessels at their Brushy Fork Creek studio in Crofton. Paul mostly uses wood that he finds himself on treks around the Western Kentucky hills, which he sculpts into exquisite hollow-form shapes. Patricia has developed a line of wood-fired pottery pieces, many finished with her own unique glazes.

Both Ferrells have won awards for their artwork. Together, they also raise blueberries and a variety of herbs as certified organic farmers.

The Brushy Fork Creek gallery, which also spotlights work by several other local artists, is open year-round. Special open house events are held each spring and fall.

For more information:
• Kentucky Artisan Heritage Trails, c/o Center for Economic Development, Entrepreneurship and Technology (CEDET), Coates Building CPO 32A, Eastern Kentucky University, 521 Lancaster Ave., Richmond, KY 40475, (859) 622-2334

Producer, videographer, editor: Ernie Lee Martin

On the Road to Art

Kentucky Artisan Heritage Trails

Our final stop for this edition is actually a starting point: the Kentucky Artisan Heritage Trails project.

Wherever you travel in Kentucky, you’ll find artists and artisans—the state has a broad and deep-rooted tradition celebrating the hand-made. The aim of the KAHT project is to promote cultural tourism by helping visitors find all those studios, shops, and galleries.

Developed and launched at Eastern Kentucky University, KAHT initially focused on Madison, Estill, Jackson, and Rockcastle counties. With the help of funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission, the project has expanded to encompass Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan, Knott, Knox, Letcher, Laurel, Leslie, Owsley, Perry, and Pike counties, too. Artists’ galleries in those counties—along with regional restaurants, historic sites, shops specializing in local agricultural products, bed-and-breakfast inns, and other cultural and recreational sites—are grouped into “trails” that can be covered in a day or a few days. Tourists planning a trip can log on to the project web site for detailed driving directions, descriptions of participating businesses and sites, and contact information. Links to participants’ web sites also allow for “virtual” traveling, as well as a little online shopping.

During our visit to the headquarters of the project itself, at EKU, Director Cheryl Stone explains how the Artisan Heritage Trails concept came about and where it’s headed.