Appalachian Alchemy 

 Jamie Walters Kessler’s series Appalachian Alchemy explores themes of folk culture, social justice, and American identity. Kessler’s interest in the beauty and spirituality of the American landscape and its connection to the controversies, contradictions, and complexities of American history is explored in a series of stain-based paintings created with dyes from materials foraged from the natural landscape. From the series Appalachian Alchemy paintings such as The Dignity of Labor, Tin Can Curls And A Factory Cough, Minor Gods of the Backwoods, and Barefoot on Rattlesnake Mountain Kessler consider the hardships and sublimity of life as it relates to the physical landscape and its connection to the socio-political history of America. 

Drawing from Appalachian heritage, materials such as pokeweed berries, wild mulberry, river water, walnut husk, clay soil, and wildflowers are gathered directly by the artist from the American landscape and then used to create simplistic dyes from which the artist uses to paint. Paintings from the series Appalachian Alchemy represent the change in the social, cultural, and physical landscapes of America through the inevitable changes in the color, hue, and vibrancy of the earthen stain paintings over the duration of time.