Mountain Muses
by Marge Fulton
Updates:
Recently I had a showing of my watercolors and sketches at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg. This show lasted for the entire month of Sept. 2009. In October eight of my pieces were in Whitesburg's ArtWalk during which time I sold two original paintings. I was back at ArtWalk on Dec. 11, 2009 where I sold another original painting. I am now a member of the Kentucky Watercolor Society.
October was a busy month for me. I was accepted into the studio program at the Appalachian Artisan Center. Over in Hindman, I devote about two days a week to painting and have given workshops to children. I'm experimenting with many new techniques. Come see!
My new book, The Holler, will be out in Spring 2010 from Blackwyrm Press. Can't wait for that! Regional horror rocks! I expect to receive my review copy any day now.
Bio:
Like my famous ancestor, Sarah Boone (Daniel's sister), I have traveled far and wide. The Boones weren't afraid to leave society behind and tame the wilderness. With a father in the Navy who later worked for Bell Telephone and then sold communication towers and computers, we moved often as well.
Kentucky is the tenth state I can call home. After living in almost a dozen places that seem to have barely anything in common, I am here in Hazard. My husband and I moved here almost twenty years ago from the heart of Memphis. I never got over the news there one day that a young girl was shot in line at a grocery store around the corner from our house. Her mother had sent her in to buy a bar of soap. Her death was so senseless and it haunts me still.
We had a daughter too by then, who was born in Mississippi when we lived close to my father and stepmother down there. In Memphis, we had two sons and my mother lived just down the street in some high rise apartments converted from old dormitories at Memphis State. Memphis with its marriage of music and bar-b-que was great fun for all of us. But thoughts of that little girl and that bar of soap creep into your blissful existence. Therefore when my husband was offered a transfer to the hills of east Kentucky, it looked inviting. After awhile, my mother went to live close to my sister and her family near Pensacola.
Other cities figured into the equation. Washington D.C., Cincinnati, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Framingham/Massachusetts and Garden City/New York are but a few. There I graduated from high school and could get on the Long Island Railroad to go to the Museum of Modern Art or Central Park. I got to see the Beatles, Elton John, James Taylor, Dionne Warwick, The Byrds, Edgar Winter, and even Jimi Hendrix. That one was so bad we walked out!
When I attended Florida State University an ill wind blew through the lively town. You may have heard of him, Ted Bundy. Rumor has it that he stalked some friends of mine at a meditation center. They were the lucky ones. He committed unspeakable crimes just a block away.
In Hazard, I found what I had not experienced anywhere before. Here I am safe. I think of that when I buy soap. In Hazard and nearby communities, people don't push you out of the way to be first in line. Folks take care of their own and extend that hand to you as well. They respect your privacy and respect their elders.
Sarah Boone (Wilcoxson) lived at Fort Boonesborough and is said to be buried near Winchester. I feel her blood in me. She had no choice when she left Quaker society in Pennsylvania but chose to come to Kentucky from the fertile hills of North Carolina. Kentucky is like a powerful magnet. Feel its pull. Attach yourself to this place of goodness.
From the Hazard Herald article written by Tonya Amburgey/ dated October 8, 2008.
The book, Fulton's first, is a collection of 20 fictional short stories with several different topics ranging from more serious themes such as alcoholism to more light-hearted ones such as bad driving...ALL ROADS LEAD TO HAZARD hopefully offers something for everyone...I wanted to give Hazard a good image and show the better part of, not just Hazard, but the people. Tonya said she loves my book! Thanks Tonya! She took these pictures of me. 
