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Pittsburgh Artist’s Appalachian Tarot Deck Delves Into Mountain Mythology

Appalachia is full of haunting stories and folktales. Now, a Pittsburgh artist is channeling some of those stories into a tarot deck.

This story originally aired in the Oct. 1, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Appalachia is full of haunting stories and folktales. Now, a Pittsburgh artist is channeling some of those stories into a tarot deck.

Genevieve Barbee-Turner grew up on the Virginia coast but made a deliberate decision to move to Pittsburgh after high school. She started making tarot decks about Pittsburgh lore and issues in the city, such as harm reduction, homelessness and gentrification. Now, she’s expanded her scope with a new tarot deck, “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck.”

Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Barbee-Turner about how she got started, and what led her to branch out into Appalachia.

Adams: Twenty years ago, you made a move from a coastal city to Pittsburgh. What attracted you to that area?

Barbee-Turner: My mother’s from Pittsburgh, and so I had visited many, many times as a kid. When I was looking at universities, I knew that I did not want to go to a major city. Pittsburgh was familiar to me. I just decided, “I’ll apply to Carnegie Mellon.” Once I moved here, I remember vividly taking the 54C [bus route] into the South Side, and seeing how the hills were just dotted with all of these beautiful lights. And it felt like, I don’t know, like the sky had just descended, in a way that I’d never seen before.

Pittsburgh is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful place to me, and I just fell in love with its crooked weird streets and its iconic neighborhoods. There is no other city that is like Pittsburgh. There was never really a reason to leave here. I graduated college in 2007 with a major in art and had a pretty good idea that I was going to fund my art habit by working in a variety of different jobs. This seems like the best place to do it.

Adams: How did you get started making tarot decks?

Barbee-Turner: I studied painting, drawing and printmaking at CMU and specifically printmaking. Why am I talking about that? Why is that related to cards? Well, I love this idea of the serial image. And it’s sort of what kind of attracted me to printmaking in the first place. And then I really kind of discovered what my art practice was, I started making art every single day. And one of those things was a project called That’s What You’re Good At. And I would ask people, “What is the thing that you’re good at?” And I would draw them doing that thing. And I just had this flash of, like, this would be so cool as a deck of cards.

A mock-up of cards in the tarot deck, “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck.”

*Courtesy Photo*

Tarot is something that just automatically revealed itself to me. If you’re familiar with the tarot, the Major Arcana doesn’t start with one; it starts at zero, which is the fool card. And then the rest of the cards really is evidence of the journey of the fool through all of these major ideas of the Major Arcana. Like the fool meets the magician, and what does the fool learn from the magician? And the fool experiences death and what happens after that? I saw this opportunity to use tarot as a medium to kind of talk about the things that I wanted to talk about, which led me to create Bridge Witches.

Adams: Would you mind walking through the tarot decks you’ve designed so far?

Barbee-Turner: So when I created Bridge Witches, I knew that there was no way that I could put all of the stories that I wanted to put in there. So I actually designed it with the idea that I would constantly be updating it. So the first one, I really put myself through it with that one, because I’d constantly be thinking, is it tarot enough? Is it Pittsburgh enough? Is it this enough? Is it that enough?

I divided each of the suits into the four directions of the city, and I changed the suits a little bit. Instead of Swords, it was Fences. And in the Fences suit, which would be Swords in a traditional tarot deck, it was all the North Side and it was all winter. I would have all these deep cuts for people that grew up here just wandering around Pittsburgh, then the trees, which is East End, which is when I knew the most because I have lived in the East End since I’ve moved to Pittsburgh. And I just put everything in there, like the zombie card, which is not part of that suit, but is Major Arcana, and was about gentrification [and] alcoholism and millionaire’s row and all of these little tiny things. And I really wanted to include the different immigrant populations that came to Pittsburgh — not just the first colonists but also the different waves and including the more recent waves of folks from Southeast Asia.

Then each iteration, each volume, grows and changes. Like, I wanted to talk about the gig economy. Uber came and the world didn’t change for us here. This investment in technology that was supposed to be so great for the city doesn’t really seem to have gotten anywhere. It’s almost like when the robber barons came in. So I wanted to explore this idea of this history that’s constantly recycling and repeating and echoing in this area, but at the same time, you know, try to be a little celebratory and not just negative and critiquing every little thing either.

Adams: I wanted to talk about “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck,” because that’s what made me aware of your work. It’s about Appalachia more than just Pittsburgh. How did you start developing the ideas that are going into Haunted?

Barbee-Turner: Well, I basically kept running into a wall. All I wanted to do is make this deck about Pittsburgh, but there’s all these cool stories that are outside of Pittsburgh. This idea of Pittsburgh living inside of its own universe is just not accurate or real. I guess it was really just this extension of realizing that there’s just so many more stories that I want to make art about that I’m inspired by. And it’s been really hard, honestly, to pare things down.

When I started working on this deck, I talked to Thomas White, who is a folklorist, an archivist, a teacher. He’s written a bunch of books about Pennsylvania folklore. He was like, yeah, when I write these books, I can’t really talk about things in Ohio, can’t really talk about things in West Virginia, because publishers don’t like that. They want everything to be in this nice geographical thing, but that’s not how it works. That’s not how stories work. Especially in this region. There’s all these echoes of stories you hear in other places that have passed through here. They’re from all over the world, right? And then they come through here and spread out and you could actually watch that happen as colonists moved west, which I thought was fascinating. So I wanted to include specifically West Virginia and eastern Ohio. Once I kind of found my footing within that I was like, “Okay, this is perfect.”

Learn more about Barbee-Turner’s art on her website, Killer Pancake Illustration.

Three of Swords (B52 Bomber in the Moon)

Making Faces: Behind A Face Jug’s Grin Lies A Long, Dark History

Folkways Reporter Zack Harold traced the story of Face Jugs. Examples of this type of art turn up everywhere, but some of them are connected to African Face Jugs, an art enslaved people brought with them to America.

This story originally aired in the May 21, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.

The tools of Ed Klimek’s trade look like something you’d find on a dentist’s tray. But that’s not what he uses them for.

“These, I can slice eyeballs in half. This one, I can put in the corner of the eye and mouth. Maybe separate the teeth a little bit,” Klimek said.

I realize that makes him sound like some kind of homespun Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Moreau — but Klimek prefers to work in clay. For over 20 years, his Shinnston, West Virginia pottery studio has been churning out all kinds of creatures. Some look like Santa Claus, or gray man-style aliens. Klimek also has a penchant for making devils.

“Like that guy right there,” Klimek said, gesturing toward a blue jug with horns protruding from its forehead. “He’s smiling, right? But you don’t know why he’s smiling.”

These characters appear on hand-thrown ceramic jugs, about the size of your standard two gallon milk jug. Klimek makes faces on coffee mugs and cookie jars, too. And shot glasses. Though, due to their size, they only have one facial feature apiece — a nose, some lips, or a single, unblinking eye.

“You have a drink with a friend, you say, ‘Here’s lookin’ at ya,’” Klimek said.

Ed Klimek’s shot glasses often feature one facial feature apiece — like this one, with a mouth sticking out its tongue. *Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Klimek’s face jugs, sold under the name Jughead Pottery, are well known in the West Virginia art scene. He’s been featured in galleries all over and was juried into the state-run Tamarack Market, where collectors snatch up his work.

But Klimek’s journey to becoming a successful full-time artist was a long one. Growing up and then as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, he tried his hands at different art forms like painting, silversmithing and woodcarving. Then came the Vietnam War, which derailed his plans for graduate school. He ended up spending eight years in the Air Force, working much of that time as an illustrator.

Once his enlistment was up, art remained a hobby as he worked a series of blue collar jobs as a carpenter, window installer, and finally as a pattern maker at a foundry in Fairmont, West Virginia. About 20 years ago, news came that the foundry was shutting down. Klimek was laid off. But instead of looking for another 9-to-5, his wife encouraged him to try the art thing full-time.

“She told me, ‘You don’t know until you try it. So go for it, dummy,’” Klimek said with a laugh. “So I did. It was a little bit of a struggle in the beginning. It takes time to get a business started.”

Ed Klimek in his basement pottery studio. *Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

At the time, Klimek was working with raku, a traditional Japanese style of pottery. But there wasn’t a whole lot of interest in this work. Then he saw a TV program by interior designer Lynette Jennings.

“I forget what the name of the program was, but it was about home decorating,” Klimek said. “And she had a thing on there about face jugs being very popular and collectible. It was a southern thing.”

Inspired by that program, Klimek started to make face jugs of his own. But as he’d learn, the vessels were more than just “a southern thing.” The art form has its roots in Africa, having crossed the Atlantic in the minds and hands of enslaved people.

In fact, we can pretty much trace the tradition to a single slave ship, as historian Wayne O’Bryant said.

“In 1808, you were not supposed to bring in anymore enslaved Africans from Africa,” O’Bryant said. “In 1858, 50 years later, a gentleman named Charles Lamar decided he wanted to reopen the slave trade. And he said, ‘Catch me if you can.’”

Lamar found himself a racing yacht dubbed, “The Wanderer” and set out for Africa.

“He sailed over to the Congo in West Africa in 1858, took about 400 Africans onboard, and brought them back to the U.S. The authorities did hear about it, but he outran them to the coast,” O’Bryant said.

Lamar landed on Jekyll Island, in Georgia. But even after escaping the authorities, he had a big problem. He was in possession of dozens of people who did not speak English, had never had any contact with the West. It was obvious they had been illegally trafficked. So he needed to disperse these enslaved people, fast.

A cousin took some of them up the Savannah River into South Carolina, eventually ending up in Edgefield County. Then as now, the area was known for its potteries. Many of the people Lamar smuggled ended up making ceramics. And in their off hours, they started making traditional vessels from their homeland.

“Somebody actually recorded these Africans that just landed here making these grotesque face vessels,” O’Bryant said. “Almost all of these face vessels date from after that time, after 1858.”

One prominent feature of these jugs was their stark white eyes and teeth. These were made with kaolin, a white silica clay also used to make fine china. The enslaved potters recognized it, because they had it back home in Africa, too.

“On the African continent, that is the ingredient that gives the vessel power,” O’Bryant said.

No one was selling face jugs at the time. They were meant for personal use in spiritual rituals.

“These practitioners can reach to the spiritual world to get information,” O’Bryant said. “And they would use these objects as a tool.”

Those Kaolin eyes and teeth were essential for those practices.

“The kaolin would be the battery in the phone. So without a battery, you still have the object but it won’t work without the battery,” O’Bryant said.

The power was largely cut off following the Civil War. Pottery is an expensive craft and after the war, many Black potters lost access to the materials they needed to make their art.

White potters, meanwhile, saw the popularity of the face jugs and appropriated the art form. They started making the vessels to sell to tourists who came to see the post-war south.

“You know, they say ‘The sincerest form of flattery is imitation,’” O’Bryant said.

But once the art form was out of Black potters’ hands, the history of face jugs as sacred objects started to be forgotten. Stories still circulate that the vessels were used to scare kids away from the beer or moonshine kept inside — even though enslaved people weren’t usually allowed to have alcohol.

The traditions were not lost completely, though. If Black potters and their face jug traditions could survive the Middle Passage and slavery, they could survive anything. Today, the tradition lives on through a new generation of potters like Jim McDowell of Weaverville, North Carolina. McDowell grew up hearing stories about face jugs.

“My granddaddy was a tombstone maker down in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And he started telling us about face jugs,” he said. “There was an ancestor in our family, and they said she made face jugs. It was family history. Oral history.”

North Carolina potter Jim McDowell is continuing the Black face jug tradition. *Courtesy*

Though he displayed artistic talent from an early age, McDowell did not take up pottery until he joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany, where he started hanging out at a pottery studio in Nuremberg. He continued his study of the art form back in the states.

“I was at this university in Pennsylvania, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There was a white guy making face jugs,” he said. “And I looked at that thing, and I said, ‘No, I think I need to make it myself.’ So I started making them, but I put Black features on them. The scarification, the big noses, exaggerated ears, and used glass for teeth or broken china plates.”

Unlike Klimek’s face jugs, with their realistic, if exaggerated-looking faces, the features of Jim McDowell’s jugs are rougher — more reminiscent of the look of the original Edgefield face jugs. He once told the Smithsonian, “My jugs are ugly, because slavery was ugly.”

“I don’t have any preconceived notions of what I’m going to make. I have an idea, like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King or John Lewis. I think that thought is there, but when I put the nose on, I feel like I get influences from the ancestors,” McDowell said. “And I do certain things that maybe I don’t even realize. I’m versed in pottery as far as aesthetics and how to put it together. But the ideas — they don’t come from me.”

McDowell feels a particular kinship with David Drake, an enslaved Edgefield potter whose work now sells for millions of dollars and was recently featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“His pots are still here because the writings reflect what he was going through,” McDowell said.

In a time where it was illegal to teach enslaved people how to read and write, Drake was making inscriptions on his pottery. And not just inscriptions, but poetry — clever, funny and heartbreaking poetry, inspired by what was happening in his life.

After Drake’s master sold his son and wife to another slave owner in Texas, he inscribed a pot with the couplet: “I wonder where is all my relations / Friendship to all and every nation.”

“He was p****d,” McDowell said.

McDowell expresses his own frustration and anger in his face jugs. Some of his recent works have been inspired by the murders of Emmit Till and George Floyd.

“I do it because if I don’t do it, I feel like this story is going to die,” McDowell said. “Somebody has to tell, even though people may not want to listen.”

“Miss Cissy” is Jim McDowell’s response to the murder of George Floyd by police. On the back, an inscription reads: “I’m coming for you son.” *Courtesy*

For someone with such a deep spiritual connection to this art, we asked McDowell how he felt about the history of white potters co-opting it.

“I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t have a problem with it,” he said.

He says he doesn’t begrudge white potters who make face jugs because everybody’s got to make a living. Plus, there are European traditions of ceramic vessels with faces on them.

But remember what Wayne O’Bryant told us? A traditional face jug without kaolin is like a phone without a charge: no power, just an object.

To McDowell, a modern face jug that isn’t shaped by the Black experience is like that. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s fine to look at. It just doesn’t have the same power.

“They cannot put the spirits and the ideas and the thoughts that I have, because they don’t have that history. Their history is from England or Scotland or over there,” he said. “So I don’t quibble on it, because you can’t copy me.”

——

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.

The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Shepherd University Student Displays Appalachian Art In Traveling Showcase

ARTtrek is set to show paintings, sculptures and other works made by artists local to the region.

It will also be at the parking lot outside Shepherd University’s football stadium April 15 to 16, alongside other student visual art projects.

Senior Abby Bowman came up with the idea of showcasing different kinds of art in a mobile box trailer, dubbed ARTtrek, after talking to one of her professors. ARTtrek is set to show paintings, sculptures and other works made by her and other artists local to the region.

“It’s just all about connecting communities and connecting with our culture overall,” Bowman said. “The box trailer itself will trek through the mountains and connect Appalachian artists together.”

Bowman said she hopes to promote the state’s cultural heritage by introducing more contemporary artists to a wider audience.

“I think our region and our landscapes play a part in that as well, that we’re sheltered in a way from the outside world, which has kept it so rich and so meaningful to each of us,” she said.

The first exhibit on April 7 will showcase paintings of local Shepherdstown monument Shepherd’s Mill, alongside Bowman’s depictions of Appalachian landscapes in quilted sculptures. Works from Shepherd University’s Visual Arts Collection will also be exhibited the following week.

Eventually, Bowman would like to expand the trailer to accommodate emerging student artists across Appalachia.

“I just want it to be an opportunity for any Appalachian artists, whatever their concentration is,” she said. “It’s very hard to get into art galleries and get into shows. You have to pay all this money and it’s very hard especially when you’re a college student already struggling.”

Bowman said she’s trying to organize plans for the trailer to appear at festivals and events throughout the state. Its first appearance is scheduled in Shepherdstown on April 7 and 8 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Localization Event Brings Together Huntington Area Creatives For Art, Culture Show

The city of Huntington — seeking to bring together the creative mojo of local businesses, artists and musicians, celebrated the city’s culture with Localization, a pop-up show.

The event was started by Lilly Dyer and Heath Holley when they were art students at Marshall University.

Dyer said Localization began as a way to create opportunities for local artists. “It’s really hard to be an artist and a creative person in Appalachia,” Dyer said. “Being able to create Localization was a way to bring creatives together just to give people more opportunities to make work.”

Localization took place at CoalField Development’s West Edge Factory. The West Edge Factory is an old repurposed ceramic factory. CoalField Development is a non-profit with the goal of revitalizing Appalachia, largely by providing job training.

To Dyer, CoalField Development’s focus on community revitalization makes the West Edge the perfect place for Localization. “They’re doing great work there with the community and with Appalachia in general,” she said, “I think with their mission and our mission, being able to just ask them if we can have the pop-up show there has just been like a perfect fit.”

The Localization film festival showcased an hour’s worth of films. Four judges were present: filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner who teaches at Marshall; WSAZ Anchor Tim Irr; Director of the Alchemy Theatre Troupe Mike Murdock; and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams. Michael Valentine won first place for his film “Hive Mentality.”

This is the first Localization since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dyer says this Localization gives a glimpse into what artists in the Huntington area have worked on over the past two years. She said it was exciting to “give that space for people to showcase what they’ve been working on while in isolation, and being able to bring everyone together in a safe space to just connect again.”

Along with the vendors, around 20 artists showed their work as part of a curated show. Leah Gore, the curator, said the theme of Rebirth was chosen to evoke a Huntington renaissance. “We wanted to highlight Appalachian grit and our resilience,” she said.

“A room full of creation, art and music. It’s super special walking through that big space,” Holley said, noting the impact of “visual noise.”

“Everywhere you look is somebody just surrounded by what they spent so much time on making. They’re makin’ money doin’ what they doin.”

Gore called the event “a beautiful visual representation of our community and our individuals that are really focusing on their craft.”

She added: “I think it’s important to, as the audience, take a look around and appreciate others’ perspectives of life, how they’re living, and new ideas. It’s a visual representation of the times we live in, whether it be abstract, or physical, or subjective. It can be telling a story.”

As a means of guaranteeing access, Localization has no cover-charge. Dyer said the freedom and fluidity of Localization is key to its success. “They’re using that money towards other artists and being able to fund their work as well. Even if you are kinda broke at the moment, you’re welcome to come in as well. That connection itself of having people in person and having that experience is very exciting to me.”

More than 400 people attended this year’s Localization, and organizers said they expect growth next year.

Collector Brings Works Of Self-Taught Artists Home To Appalachia

When you think of classic fine art, works by Picasso, Monet and Dali may spring to mind. Art from Appalachia doesn’t tend to feature much in the mind’s eye. But that might change if you visit the Art Museum of West Virginia University.

More than 100 works from 25 Appalachian artists are on display at the museum. The exhibit was decades in the making and spans everything from sculpture to paintings and baskets.

Some of the artwork in Ramona Lampell’s collection of Appalachian self-taught artists’ work housed at the Art Museum of West Virginia University.

It is full of color and expression, with a mix of pieces hung on walls and sitting on pedestals. One of those pieces is a sculpture of the steel-driving legend John Henry by an artist who lived and worked in Hinton, W.Va.

“This John Henry piece that’s carved by S.L. Jones is carved from walnut, so it gives it that dark, rich texture. And he’s just painted details of it. So he painted the hair black and the eyes of course white with a black outlines. He has blue eyes and pink lips and you can see how he carved in the teeth. It’s really set back in,” WVU Art Museum curator Robert Bridges said, describing one of the most famous pieces in Ramona Lampell’s collection.

“Ramona Lampell has been collecting Appalachian art since the late seventies and she has a strong interest in this region as well as educating the young children of the state and the region,” he said.

Ramona Lampell

Lampell grew up as a coal miner’s daughter in Hanshew Hollow, near Lewisburg, but left West Virginia four days before her 17th birthday.

“And I went out into the world with my plastic hat box and my new pumps on a Greyhound bus to New York and went to modelling school,” Lampell said.

Barrackville Middle School students tour Ramona Lampell’s collection of Appalachian self-taught artists’ work at the Art Museum of West Virginia University.

Ramona found success as a model in New York and met her husband there – Millard Lampell – an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter and playwright. He studied at WVU and first grew to fame in the 1940s as a founding member of the Alamanac Singers, alongside folk legends Pete Seeger and Woody Gutherie.

Millard and Ramona lived a jet-set life, travelling all over the world. Ramona said she always bristled at how the people she met viewed her home state.

“Nobody out there in the outside world would like to recognize us,” she said. “They thought it was ignorant and barefoot and white lightning and you know, whatever.”

Lampell said she was standing in Tiananmen Square, in China, when she came to a sudden realization. “And I thought, ‘You know something, I have to do something for Appalachia, I have to do something for West Virginia. I have to do something for the people.’”

That something was opening galleries in East Hampton and Beverly Hills, California to showcase the best artwork from Appalachia.

Although those galleries were successful, Ramona became ill and was forced to close them. Instead, she started a travelling exhibit of self-taught Appalachian artists’ work in 1979, with the goal of showing it at museums and galleries around the country. She started at a museum in Huntington, W.Va. Some of her Hollywood friends flew out for the opening and word spread. The collection has since been shown in 26 locations around the country.

Barrackville Middle School students work on their own art projects during a visit to the Art Museum of West Virginia University in April, 2016.

A Permanent Home

When it came time to find a permanent home for her collection, Ramona said she got a lot of interest from around the U.S.

She chose WVU, though – first because she wanted the collection to stay in Appalachia, but mainly because of the university’s commitment to outreach.

“To teach our children art – from the heart. To teach our children and not tell them this is bad or this is good. Teach them that. Teach them what makes them feel,” she said.

Groups of middle and high school students have been touring Ramona’s collection since it opened in April. The exhibit is called “Independent Vision: Self-Taught Artists from Appalachia.”

Heather Harris, the WVU art museum’s education programs manager, spoke to a group of students from Barrackville Middle School earlier this year during their tour toured the collection.

“So, what does it mean to have an independent vision?” she asked.

One student in the group spoke up: “It means you’ve thought of it in your mind yourself and then you created it and it’s, like, all you.”

“Excellent. You’ve thought of it in your mind yourself, you created it and it’s all you. I love that sentence, it’s all you,” Harris said.

Conner Rush checked out the exhibit with the rest of his classmates.

“It reminded me a lot of the Tim Burton-type art style – of simplistic shapes that make very complex figures.”

Heather Harris, the WVU art museum’s education programs manager, speaks to Barrackville Middle School students earlier this year during a hands-on art exercise following a tour of the collection.

Appalachian Artists

Artists represented in the exhibit hail from all over Appalachia – from West Virginia and Kentucky to North Carolina and Alabama. Ramona Lampell developed close friendships with many of them over the years.

Her husband, Millard, died in 1997, but before he did, he helped her produce a table-top book about the artists in the exhibit and later a documentary called “O, Appalachia: Art and Lives of Self-Taught Artists”.

Ramona said those works have made a difference in how other people view Appalachia. It’s helped shed some light on the softer side of the culture and the generosity of the people here.

“They don’t worship things and money. But they worship things from the heart and from the community and from taking care of and loving each other,” she said.

Ramona said she hopes her collection also changes how Appalachians see themselves and the value of their own culture.

Ramona Lampell’s collection will be on display at the Art Museum of WVU until Dec. 15. The documentary “O, Appalachia: Art and Lives of Self-Taught Artists” next airs at 7 p.m. Aug. 30, and again at 9:30 and 2 p.m. Aug. 31, on the West Virginia Channel.