"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."---Part Two

This is the second of a two-part series. Read Part One Here.

Now I want to ramp things up a little.

I don’t know Ms. Virginia Lee or that wonderful-looking couple she took photographs of recently, but I do wish that I knew them and lived close by them. There are scores of stories in her photography. Virginia Lee is self-taught---you would not know this from looking at her work---and what comes across most to me as I look at her photography is that there are real people there, that she’s standing at a line between documenting people’s lives and giving them and their families something to hold on to. She’s documenting people’s lives even when they dress up and pose because that’s part of life and there is a story behind that photograph of how they got to that point and what it means to them.

And there is more. In these photographs you see a handsome mine worker after work, a loving couple, and a beautiful woman. You also see a contrast between work and something else---but what is that “something else” that holds your gaze? There is wisdom, hope, and faith in the unknown there. Virginia Lee is showing a kind of contradiction between two forces, but she’s resolving that contradiction by showing abiding love. I friended the woman in the photographs on Facebook and I see that she is a healthcare worker in West Virginia and that she’s full of commonsense, has strong ties to her family and her community, and will stand up for what she thinks is right. So, whatever the story of romance and love that we’re seeing is, we’re also seeing a story of modern-day Appalachia that contradicts every stereotype that is out there.

Where does this self-taught art of creatively bringing forward beauty and stories come from? Ms. Lee wrote me that she lives and works “in the coalfields in SouthWest Virginia.... Tazewell County, Richlands VA......right on the border of WV.” and that she “had many coal miners in my family and I'm originally from McDowell County, WV.”. So here again we have someone creating from what they know and evidently love, treating their place and people with respect and compassion and reminding the world of our shared humanity. You can visit with her at https://www.facebook.com/vleephoto and maybe arrange for her to do some work with you. I hope that you will.

I have a box full of photographs of family members and their friends that were taken 70-110 years ago, mostly all unsmiling people who were weighed down by work and daily struggles or who just weren’t used to having their photographs taken. They’re even wearing long dresses and suits on the beach. My grandmother, her father’s favorite of 7 children, stands with her hand on her father’s shoulder, the family stiff and formal except for the impish look in my great-uncle Max’s eyes in one family photograph. My great-aunt Celeste is almost gaunt, just a slip of a girl who looks hungry and needy. What saves this photograph from being just another slightly-out-of-focus photograph of a coalfield family is that the photograph was taken after a long strike that the mine workers mostly won and that everyone in the photograph except my grandmother would have nearly impossible and difficult lives and die way too young.

A few years back I went to another country knowing that I was stepping into a dangerous political situation. A friend of mine and I went to a professional photographer before I left because I wanted to record something in case I didn’t make it back. When we look at photographs of mine workers and healthcare workers, we need to remember the dangers of their jobs and we need to celebrate the joys they’re capturing on film. I wish that a Virginia Lee had been around 100 years ago. We need the Virginia Lees. They’re a blessing to us.

I want to say a good word before I close about the Reconnecting McDowell organization because we always need people helping people in the Appalachian regions, that area where all of the good people mentioned above live and work and call home. The official description of Reconnecting McDowell is that they are “a comprehensive, long-term effort to make educational improvement in McDowell County the route to a brighter economic future. Partners from business, foundations, government, nonprofit agencies, and labor have committed, in a signed covenant, to seeking solutions to McDowell’s complex problems—poverty, underperforming schools, drug and alcohol abuse, housing shortages, limited medical services, and inadequate access to technology and transportation.” 

They have lots of projects going on: 

·         GoGrowcery—a mobile farmers market that takes local produce to various stops in this 535-square-mile food desert

·         Broader Horizons—a mentorship and experiential learning program for high school juniors that helps them navigate the post-high school world and takes them on trips to Charleston and Washington DC

·         Make it Shine McDowell—our countywide litter cleanup program with a coalition membership including everyone from Wobblies to Mormons

·         Maier Scholarships—presented to selected high school graduates so they can attend higher ed in WV

·         Early reading initiatives—book giveaways, working in schools, working with other groups to provide reading materials, especially during the summer

·         Friends of the Tug Fork River—a watershed group we helped form to improve water and make the river available for recreation and economic development

·         Music programming—hosting events at the Caffrey Arts Center featuring a combination of local and regional talent

·         Wrap-around services in schools—including Smiles, a program for dental care, and work with the Communities in Schools Initiative

·         Renaissance Village—our new building, the first commercial structure in Welch in more than 50 years

I like all of that, and I’m feeling good that I sent Reconnecting McDowell a contribution today, but I also know a guy who works there who I think is just one-half-step this side of the angels. I know that Reconnecting McDowell recently organized a trash pick-up, and I know that that may not sound like a big deal. But try thinking about it this way: people throw trash out of their cars or dump garbage by the roadsides and in the hollers because they no longer feel ownership of their place or responsibility to their people and their environment. We call this “alienation.” So, when people do the opposite and do take responsibility for their communities and environment something good is happening. Something big is taking place. A spirit is moving in the land and in the people.

Think about those folks dumping trash with this in mind:

The history that Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, J.R. Shuck, Ms. Virginia Lee, and that good-looking couple above show us isn’t half-done yet, although it took 300 million years for that beautiful black coal to form. Every day we have a choice to make about going forward or backward, and I believe that Reconnecting McDowell, Appalachian Voices, the Black Lung Association, the United Mine Workers of America, radio station WMMT, the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, The Mountain Eagle, and other similar efforts are blessing us with their work and presence and shining their headlamps in the right direction.