Kentucky Arts and Culture

The hidden is unveiled this weekend in Lexington.  A sound sculpture, sponsored by Lexarts, resurrects a buried river.  And, an exhibit at the University of Kentucky lifts the veil on veils.  Arts and cultural reporter Rich Copley of the Lexington Herald Leader newspaper offers a preview of both artworks.

Forty years ago today, Charley Pride and his longtime producer Cowboy Jack Clement walked into a recording studio after lunch and emerged before dinner with three new tracks. Pride says he had no idea that one of them—“Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’”—would become a country colossus. But to really appreciate the magnitude of Pride’s more than thirty year-long hit-making heyday, it’s best to go to the beginning.

The National Quartet Convention will host former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft at its annual event in Louisville later this year. Ashcroft served as attorney general under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.  He is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at the Kentucky Exposition Center on Sept. 15 and will also sing several gospel songs he has written, according to a convention spokesperson.

Early next month, a panel of preservationists will select a house in Louisville to be rehabilitated under a new project called Preservation S.O.S.—Save Our Shotguns. It’s a style of house that symbolizes many of Louisville’s older neighborhoods. There are many variations, but shotgun houses typically have a long, rectangular floor plan: one room wide, three to five rooms in a row with doorways often on the same side of the house.

Most people would never know the Town Branch of Elkhorn Creek runs under downtown Lexington if they were not told. There has long been no visual or audible evidence of the rushing water that runs just below the high-rise buildings and busy streets of the city — until this week.

Trimble County will be in the national spotlight on Saturday, July 30, when the Outdoor Channel’s “Keepin’ It Real Tour” rolls in. The program will be filming on location that Saturday at the Dirty Turtle Off-road Park in Trimble County.

Kentucky is hoping to add another thread to the increasingly colorful tapestry of the history of the state's horse industry. The state has applied to have a house at 547 Breckenridge Street in Lexington added to the National Register of Historic Places because of its link to a largely forgotten African-American horse trainer named Courtney Mathews.

Robert Bohrn knows a little about the two men behind the bronze busts in his foyer. One thing he’s sure of is that this year’s Civil War sesquicentennial adds to their historical worth. He knows they served in the Union’s all black 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. That they built roads and fortifications, often under Confederate fire, in Folly Beach, S.C., from 1863-1864 and that they died from typhoid, dysentery and other ailments common in military encampments then. Bohrn, a 54-year-old Charleston, S.C.-born hunter of Civil War relics who now lives in Franklin County, helped unearth 19 skeletons of the men in the 55th.

The oldest Christian music festival in the nation may not come back for a 43rd year. The Ichthus Festival draws tens of thousands of people to a large field in Wilmore, Kentucky, but the event is struggling financially. CEO Mark Vermillion says Ichthus can no longer rely on just ticket sales.

Two musicals for two very different audiences this weekend in central Kentucky.  The Lexington Children’s Theater offers a production of “Annie” that includes whole families in its cast.  Summerfest stages “The Rocky Horror Show” for people with more adult tastes.  Plus, in response to audience demand, “Three Viewings” will have more viewings.  Arts reporter Rich Copley of the Lexington Herald Leader offers these previews.

Ann-Blair Thornton, a 21-year-old from Bowling Green, was nearly speechless Saturday night after being crowned Miss Kentucky 2011. "I don't know if this is real," she said. "Looking back on all the years I've put into this, I never dreamed it would be real." Shortly after the glittering crown was placed atop her head at the University of Kentucky Singletary Center for the Arts, Thornton said the first thing she planned to do as Miss Kentucky was "give my parents a hug. This is all their doing," she said.

Adrian Vergot grew up playing with Hot Wheels and watching the television show “Speed Racer.” He was constantly disappointed that few cars actually resembled his childhood icons, so last year he purchased the ultimate hot wheels. Vergot, of Pittsburgh, brought his 1968 titanic Corvette to the 30th annual National Corvette Homecoming, which wrapped up Saturday at Bowling Green's Sloan Convention Center. Vergot was one of hundreds of Corvette enthusiasts who flocked to the three-day event, showing off their cars that ranged from the newest Corvettes to cars that were manufactured decades ago.

Scott Smith, 87, is a retired newspaperman. He's also had a lifelong fascination with the Old West. Now, the Danville resident has combined his two long held interests and published his first novel - The Bronco Man. Naturally, it's a western.

Tickets in one hand, wands in the other - both at the ready. Roughly 1,500 fans attended the midnight screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2,” the last in the movie series, at the Great Escape Theaters’ Bowling Green 12 today. The theater showed “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1” at 9 p.m., followed by the sold-out midnight showing of “Part 2” on every screen in the theater.

A crime drama based in Appalachia continues to earn praise from critics.  This week, “Justified” netted four Emmy nominations.  Rich Copley, who’s an arts and culture reporter for the Lexington Herald offers an explanation.  He also says the final installment in the “Harry Potter” series can pose competition to events take place in Kentucky.  Among those events is a dramedy based in Danville at the end of World War Two.

A television drama set mainly in Harlan and Lexington, Kentucky is in the running for a number of Emmy awards. The nominations were revealed early Thursday morning. Timothy Olyphant, who stars as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givins in the critically acclaimed FX series Justified, has received a best lead actor nomination. Margo Martindale, who last season portrayed the criminal matriarch Mags Bennett, got a best supporting actress nod, and Walton Goggins, who plays Givins' frenemy Boyd Crowder, is up for a supporting actor award.