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Appalachian Painter, Poet and Novelist
Appalachian Painter, Poet and Novelist
About
Darlene Franklin-Campbell is an American painter and poet based in the Appalachian Foothills. Trained in traditional Appalachian Arts, writing and painting (at Campbellsville Univeristy, Lindsey Wilson College, Appalachian Writers Workshops and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts), she merges her ancestral Celtic, Melungeon and Native American heritage, ideologies and images into her paintings and poems. She specializes in painting the "nature of beauty and the beauty of nature." In her works she seeks to explore and expose the line between sacred and ordinary.
Darlene is a member of the Elizabeth Maddox Roberts Poetry Society, the Adair County Genealogical Society, the Mysterium Society, the Green County Genealogical Society and the New River Band of the Catawba Nation.
From the inside out, not the outside in
Often the people and cultures of Appalachia have been incorrectly portrayed. So many times the "mountain people" are depicted by those from outside the cultures in such a way as to perpetuate an out-dated and misunderstood stereo-type.
Darlene's writing and paintings blend her heritage and talent to show the world a different Appalachia, the Appalachia where mist rises over the Cumberland Falls or a sunset paints the Smokey Mountains pink and gold, where light dances on the glass surface of Green River Lake, sparkling like pixie dust. Darlene portrays Appalachia alive, like a "woman," beautiful, strong, sexy, earthy and elegant. She paints with oils and with words.
"This is a poet with a deep sense of not only nature but spirit. She brings rich native tradition into play...in language that is strict and pure....This poet understand the relationship...between word and thing." Jay Parini
Appalachian Elegance
Darlene's art offers buyers a taste of exotic simplicity and a journey into ethereal reality . Each painting is infused with esoteric depth and cultural meaning. Every poem is a word painting and every painting is a visual poem. Darlene is obsessed with painting what she calls "ethereal reality," showing the extraordinary spiritual simplicity in the natural world. She paints the "beauty of nature and the nature of beauty."
