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Types & Shadows is the quarterly journal of the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. (FQA) It first appeared in 1996, and has been produced ever since by dedicated and creative volunteers.

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were strongly against the arts for their first two centuries, regarding them as “vain” and hazardous distractions from plainness and more serious and “spiritual” things.

Their evolution away from this prohibition is traced in an FQA Booklet, Beyond Uneasy Tolerance, which is also available free on the FQA website.

In this issue, nature, climate change and cultural turmoil elbow their way into our awareness, as they have in other areas of life. In different ways they bring much of the substance to our two main articles:

First, we take a look on the impact of Hurricane Helene, which struck western North Carolina in September 2024, and among its vast swath of flooding and wind damage, devastated a Friends Meeting in Black Mountain, near Asheville.

The meetinghouse of Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting there was flooded and severely damaged. In nearby Asheville, a thriving arts district was also devastated (the cover image was a defiant artistic response). Recovery efforts are ongoing, and far from finished six months later.  Political wrangling has taken its toll as well. As our correspondent, Dawn Beasom Purdom, reported:

[Since 2003], the Swannanoa Valley Friends Meetinghouse [has been] tucked into a quiet neighborhood in the heart of Black Mountain, North Carolina.

On September 27, 2024 all that changed when Hurricane Helene brought 30 inches of rain and strong winds. The resulting 1000-year flood ravaged Western North Carolina and severely damaged the meetinghouse.

The raging rivers ate away at the bank, leaving the small building within a few feet of its edge. The flood waters rose several feet inside the building, spreading thick toxic mud and ruining most everything that was within. The property and surrounding properties were also littered with debris and fallen trees from farther upriver . . . .

Hurricane Helene was but one kind of record-busting natural disaster that struck in North America in the past year: southern California wildfires, tornadoes, punishing heat waves and droughts afflicted other regions.

Alongside these physical torments, there were plenty of social, cultural and political disturbances. Friend Jennifer Elam, now of Berea, Kentucky, has for years been struggling with these cultural upheavals, outward and inward.

One outcome, begun in 2017, came to fruition this past summer: a book, Hillbilly Rising. It’s part memoir, part polemic, part a mix of art, healing and prayer, and a deeply felt  cri de coeur in the face
of often terrifying times. An active visual artist, Jennifer’s book is generously illustrated.

Excerpt:
Home has been an elusive concept for me…. Although I have always felt a deep sense of belonging in the universe and a deep faith in my standing and place with God, I have lived in many physical spaces on this earth and traveled the world widely.

More than place, “home” has come in moments: as a child in Sunday School, early life with family, in school, times of growing and learning, times with friends and lovers, sitting in silence among Quakers, but less so in a place…. Although home was elusive, most of my life, I have been grounded in family, then in Quakers.

I have spent my whole life dealing with hillbilly stereotypes, especially in trying to get educated and have a career despite them. Somehow, I knew that embracing my Appalachian heritage was oxymoronic with my deep desire for college and career that had been calling me from a deep place since I was about six years old and knew I wanted to be a teacher. I focused on my goals.

In doing that, I unconsciously concealed my Appalachian heritage. I heard my daddy encouraging my dreams of college….

Returning “home” to Kentucky after decades away, Jennifer was unexpected caught up in swirling tides of change and conflict, inner and outer.

 

These features are powerful signs that art and growth, like life, can be dogged, stubborn and – despite being temporarily bogged down in rubble, splattered with toxic mud and roiled by cultural and political conflict – indomitable.

The same goes for Quakers and creativity.

If you’re new to T&S and FQA, there is information about the group, including how to join (it’s not hard) at the website.