Larry Kezele, owner of Ruth Hunt Candy and the early champion for the soon-to-be installed Freedom Train Monument, and Yvonne Giles, Historian and Researcher also known as The African American History Guru, talk about the lives of the enslaved couple Lewis and Harriet Hayden and how once escaped from Lexington to the north, they became freedom fighters for those looking to escape via the Underground Railway.
Larry talks about how the memorial project initially was conceived by Sherry Maddoc ten years ago. Its bumpy way forward after she returned to Australia, then how it has recently gained traction and funding, and the process and selection of a sculptor as well as where the project stands today.
Yvette talks about the Haydens, their remarkable story of escape, their lives before and after breaking out of bondage, and how incredibly important it is to keep their story alive today and celebrate their quest for freedom as a fundamental human right.
Hayden, when asked why he wanted to be free, simply responded - "Because I am a man."

Jordan Campbell, an award-winning actor and educator originally from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, is a leading figure in the global arts and culture ecosystem. His career spans theatre, education, and policy, utilizing his acting background for diverse creative initiatives. While Jordan has performed worldwide, including on Broadway tours and prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center, and worked at the White House during the Obama administration, he is now back in his hometown.

Jordan is the Executive Director at the Gateway Regional Arts Center in Mt. Sterling, the place where he got his start in the arts.

​The Gateway Regional Arts Center (GRAC) is the premier regional cultural center for the Central and Eastern regions of Kentucky. With a mission of providing excellent arts experiences for the communities along the I-64 corridor between Lexington, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia, GRAC is on the forefront of cultural programming and continues to grow its reach into the Appalachian and Bluegrass regions of Kentucky.

As a young girl growing up in Kentucky, Constance Grayson was drawn to and influenced by traditional handcrafts. She learned traditional quilting techniques from her Appalachian aunts and was fascinated, even as a young child, with the interplay of color, form and texture. Although she no longer utilizes the traditional techniques she learned as a child, she is still fascinated with the process of creating something from bits and pieces of the almost nothings that she comes across. Most of her work utilizes techniques of collage to create a new whole from these bits and pieces. Her work results from the bringing together of handmade paper, commercial paper, and found objects with additions of paint and ink.

​Constance's interest has always been in color, form and texture and the ways in which those three elements interact with one another. She does not strive to have her finished work resemble any object or person in a realistic way. Instead, she wants to see whether she can successfully create energy and mood through the colors, forms and textures she uses in the piece.

Her work has been displayed in U.S. galleries, museums and exhibits in Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, including academic institutions in New York (St. John’s University), Arkansas (Crittenden County Community College) and Tennessee (Christian Brothers University). She has participated in international solo and invitational exhibits in Fabriano, Gubbio, Milan and Foligno, Italy as well as Spa, Belgium. One of her fabric collages was the cover image for, as well as the subject of an article in, the August/September 2014 edition of Quilting Arts magazine. Her art has also been featured in the May/June 2015 edition of Kentucky Home and Gardens magazine and the March 2010 issue of ArteCulture, an Italian monthly magazine. Currently, her art is in the permanent collections of Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee; the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky; Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, Kentucky; LeBonheur Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and the Jessamine County Public Library, Nicholasville, Kentucky as well as in numerous private collections.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION - New Editions Gallery until mid July 2024
This is an interpretive art exhibition based on Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. Listening to each of the 10 movements and the recurring and varied Promenade theme, Constance created 15 energetic abstracts depicting her reaction to Mussorgsky's virtuoso masterpiece.

Shawn Okpebholo was born in Lexington, Kentucky and a graduate of Tates Creek High School. He earned his doctoral degree in composition from the University of Cincinnati's Celloge-Conservatory of Music. Currently he serves as the Jonathan Blanchard Distinguished Professor of Composition at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music and the Saykaly-Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence with the Lexington Philharmonic.

Two Black Churches is a song set in two movements for baritone soloist and orchestra. Originally composed for voice and piano, featuring baritone Will Liverman and pianist Paul Sanche, this orchestration was co-commissioned by the Lexington Philharmonic during Shawn E. Okpebholo's tenure as the Saykaly-Garbulnska Composer-in-Residence.
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Two Black Churches serves as a musical reflection of two significant and tragic events perpetrated at the hands of white supremacists in two Black churches, decades apart;

• The 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing Birmingham, Alabama which took the lives of four girls.
• The 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, taking the lives of nine parishioners.

After receiving his BFA from University of Louisville in 2005, James Robert Southard worked for years as a freelance photojournalist and artist. In 2008 he left for Pittsburgh for graduate school in Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 2011he was invited to international exhibitions such as the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Hel’Pitts’Sinki’Burgh in Finland, Camaguey Cuba’s 5th International Video Art Fest and he has participated in the Internet Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in Venice Italy. After receiving his MFA in 2011, James taught as a photography professor at University of Louisville, Kentucky School of Art and Carnegie Mellon University as a professor of fine arts. In the winter and spring of 2012, James continued his series Tooth and Nail with the collaboration of the city of Seoul, Korea at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon. Soon after he took his project to Maine where he was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, then later at MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, Yaddo Retreat in New York, Jentel in Wyoming, Vermont Studio Center and to the MASS MoCA residency in North Adams, MA.
He has since returned to academia by teaching photography at the University of Kentucky.

Originally from Cynthiana, Kentucky, Wylie Caudill has emerged as a distinguished artist, rooted in the verdant landscape of Lexington. He is presently this year’s official artist for the prestigious 150th Kentucky Derby.
Wylie's artistic narrative is woven with a distinctive imprint—a signature style he affectionately terms as "organic repetition." This unique aesthetic can be easily recognized throughout his portfolio.
His work can be seen not just in Kentucky but across the United States, vitalizing urban landscapes with murals that echo his artistic ethos.
Wylie's artistic journey began when he was quite young. Pokemon, trains, and dragons served as his inspiration and ignited his imagination. However, it was while at college that Wylie found his artistic niche using chalk to draw on the streets and sidewalks of his campus, that earned him the nickname 'the chalk guy’. Murals were a natural transition from there.
Today, Wylie's artistic creativity transcends the confines of concrete walls to work on canvases, bourbon bottles, apparel, and beyond. He likes to think his journey stands as a testament to the transformative power of passion, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to his art.

Kevin Nance is a photographer, arts journalist and poet living in Lexington, Kentucky. His photographs have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, Portland, Danville and Lexington, including at the Lexington Art League, the Lexington Public Library, the University of Kentucky Hospital and Arts Connect’s Mobile Gallery. His two collections of photographs and haiku are Even If (University of Kentucky Arts in HealthCare, 2020) and Midnight (Act of Power Press, 2022). As a journalist, Kevin’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Poets & Writers Magazine, the Lexington Herald-Leader, Ace Magazine, UnderMain and many other publications.
​He’s the host of Out & About in Kentucky with Kevin Nance and a co-host of the Kentucky Writers' Roundtable, both on RadioLex.

​Born in 1942 in Espanola, New Mexico, Arturo Alonzo Sandoval is a fiber artist and educator best known for his weavings and for incorporating unconventional recycled materials – including vinyl and microfilm – into his works.
Arturo taught at several schools around the country before accepting a faculty position in the art department at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, in 1974, where he remained until his retirement. Sandoval has gained wide recognition for his experimental approach to working in fiber, receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973 and 1992) and the 2003 Artist Award from the Kentucky governor. Arturo has had his fiber art exhibited regionally, nationally as well as accepted into numerous international juried exhibitions. His work is represented within numerous collections and museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council.
He is one of five artists whose work will be in the show RADIANCE opening at the Headley Whitney museum mid April thru June.
The others exhibiting work will be glass artists Guy Kemper, Stephen Rolfe Powell and Travis Adams as well as jewelry designer and artist Daria de Koning.