MURRAY, Ky. – The Janice Mason Art Museum in Cadiz, with support from Genesis Express, will host its next ARTalks Series event with special guest Kentucky Poet Laureate Frank X. Walker on Saturday, Aug. 16 at 5:30 p.m. Walker will return to western Kentucky on Thursday, Sept. 4, for a reading and discussion of his literary work at 7:30 p.m. in the Curris Center Ballroom on Murray State’s campus. Both events are free and open to the public.
Walker’s Aug. 16 talk, titled “From Word to Image and Back Again,” will explore his history as a visual artist and the joys and challenges he’s experienced working in both visual and literary art forms.
A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X. Walker is the first African American writer to have been named Kentucky Poet Laureate. He has published 15 collections of poetry, including “Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers,” which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. His most recent work is “Load in Nine Times,” a collection of historical poetry that gives voice to Black Civil War soldiers.
A lover of comics, Walker curated “We Wear the Mask: Black Superheroes through the Ages,” an exhibit of his personal collection of action figures, comics and related memorabilia at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center in Lexington, Kentucky, with subsequent showings at Purdue University and Western Carolina University. He recently returned to the world of visual art with a collection of new and early multimedia works, “Black Star Seed: When Mi Cyaan Find Di Words,” which was on exhibit at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington. Walker currently serves as professor of English and African American and Africana studies at the University of Kentucky.
Walker’s event in the ARTalks Series is co-sponsored by Genesis Express, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing supplemental support in the areas of education, culture, health, social and recreation for Trigg County community members of all generations. More information about Genesis Express can be found at www.genesisexpressinc.org.
Walker’s visit to the region is part of the Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer’s Residency, organized through the Department of English and Philosophy at Murray State University and established with gifts from Shirley Moore Menendez, the late John C. Moore, Tom Moore, Nancy Moore Waldrop and Jayne Moore Waldrop in honor of their late parents and their family’s eastern Kentucky roots. Clinton Elster Moore (1916-2008) and Mary Opal Moore (1922-2015) were born in eastern Kentucky – Pike and Letcher counties, respectively – but left the mountains in the early 1950s when they moved to far western Kentucky. They settled in Paducah, where they remained for the rest of their lives, but they always considered Appalachia their home.
The Moore Residency was created to strengthen literary connections between Appalachia and western Kentucky while enhancing the creative and professional growth of students in the creative writing program at Murray State. It commemorates the Moores’ east-to-west journey in hopes of fostering creativity and understanding between two distinct regions in Kentucky connected by the Cumberland River.
The Janice Mason Art Museum, located at 71 Main Street in Cadiz, is focused on bringing quality art, in all its forms, to the local community. Programming includes eight to 10 exhibits each year by artists from around the local area, region and the world representing a broad variety of media and genre. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1-4 p.m. More information about the ARTalks Series or other museum events can be found at jmam.org, or by contacting the museum at 270-522-9056 or jmam.skit@gmail.com.