The Carnegie Center of Columbia Tusculum Presents Mission in Motion on April 29

The Carnegie Center of Columbia Tusculum’s new Artist in Residence program expands TCCCT’s community enrichment goals by partnering with professional artist educators. Originary Arts Initiative, founded by Dr. Sherry Cook Stanforth, supports this endeavor through creative emphasis on Appalachian migration heritage identity, which historically defines the immediate and surrounding communities.

Programs with Stanforth and other professional artists will take place throughout 2026 including Mission in Motion on April 29 from 6:30-7:45 p.m.

Featured performers for Mission in Motion include:

Dr. Sherry Cook Stanforth, folk band Green Willow, UACC Place Keepers poets Alexandria Montgomery and Diamond Garrett, and storytellers from the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

About Sherry Cook Stanforth

Poet, author, and musician Sherry Cook Stanforth holds Appalachian roots in North Georgia, East Tennessee, and Southwestern Ohio.  She grew up in Clermont County, Ohio, earning a PhD in English from the University of Cincinnati.  An emeritus professor of Thomas More University, she specializes in fiction, poetry, environmental and ethnic literatures, and folklore. Currently, she serves as the managing editor of the regional literary journal Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, a core member of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, and the founder-director of Originary Arts Initiative, collaborating with non-profits to provide arts, culture, and nature-based programs for diverse communities.  Themes reflected in her educational workshops, retreats, public showcases, and creative work emphasize values of cultural curiosity, place-keeping, story-listening, and creative empathy. Stanforth’s poetry collection Drone String (Bottom Dog Press, 2015) reflects the storytelling and music traditions of her Appalachian heritage; she has also produced waterway anthologies, including Riparian: Poems, Short Prose and Photographs Inspired by the Ohio River (Dos Madres Press, 2019), and Tributaria (Dos Madres Press, forthcoming in fall 2025).  She’s spent most of her life playing in an intergenerational family band, and she currently performs folk music with Tangled Roots. Beyond her artistic pursuits, she enjoys hiking, beekeeping, and studying native plants.

The artist in residence will create community-based arts programs and workshops that embrace richly textured artist collaborations and arts content (literature, music, visual art, storytelling) reflective of place-based heritage and culture. For this first residency, Originary Arts Initiative (OAI) will emphasize diverse interpretations of “home places” and “heritage,” using historic and cultural inspirations from Greater Cincinnati’s diverse migration cultures. Additionally, OAI will cultivate affordable, intergenerational, and culturally dynamic arts programming for neighborhood residents and other attendees representing Ohio’s Greater Cincinnati communities. 

Upcoming programs:

4/29 Mission in Motion

5/22 I Remember Story Exchange

6/26 Spirit of Song

7/18 Homeshores Creative Writing Workshop

8/9 Arts Entwined

9/18 Jamboree and Brews

11/1 Appalachian Flow

3738 Eastern Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45226

Carnegiecenter.org

Pictured: Sherry Cook Stanforth. Provided.