By Stephen Smoot
Over the past few years, towns throughout the Potomac Highlands have seen blank walls develop into vibrant and dynamic works of art. Images that reflect the best of the individual communities – and small town West Virginia itself – have popped up in many locations.
Earlier this summer, Kelson Thorne once again showcased his talents to Franklin. A bright, beautiful, and vivid image took shape on the bright white wall of the new innovation hub. This joined previous works of Thorne’s that grace the halls of Pendleton County Middle/High School.
Thorne gives praise and credit to his grandfather, Bruce Cosner, who served as pastor of Brushy Run Church of God in Upper Tract for approximately five decades.
“He raised me, for the most part,” Thorne shared, also stating that “the values he instilled in me created my work ethic.” Furthermore, he learned that “if I can believe in something, I can pursue it wholeheartedly.”
One of the earliest influences on Thorne’s work came from Mark Kistner. Kistner is to children and drawing what Bob Ross was to adults and painting. Thorne remembers that in his childhood, he and his family enjoyed “The Price Is Right.” Prior to that midday program, however, his mind and hands were inspired by watching reruns of Kistner’s public television broadcast “Imagination Station.”
“As a kid I was just doing it for fun,” Thorne said of his drawing. He said that from Kistner he learned “the building blocks” of drawing and said, “I use them today.”
Thorne also drew inspiration from the long waits students experience during standardized test days. Like most children, he doodled. Thorne imagined people he knew in and around Petersburg and drew them as Simpsons-style characters, as on the television program.
For Thorne, this showed him the next step towards a style with which the region has grown familiar. He calls it “drawing from your mind and imagination,” but it means that he takes real world images and infuses them with his own imagination. He combines themes, ideas, and imagery to create both powerful and meaningful representations of the towns and regions that sport his work.
Laura Brown noted Thorne’s work while serving as regional economic development director. As she explains, “After we received the USDA grant for the Franklin Innovation Hub, we knew that we wanted to add to downtown Franklin’s restoration with the addition of a mural.”
Painting murals spoke to Thorne’s sense of artistic purpose. Like many who grow up in West Virginia, sometimes young people hear so much of the derision from outside that it, for a time, drowns out the wonders of the people and the landscape. Ronald Lewis, professor emeritus of history at West Virginia University, in his writings often called it “the hillbilly stereotype.”
“As I’ve grown older,” he shared, “I’ve grown a lot of pride in being Appalachian.”
That pride has enabled Thorne to see aspects of the region as an adult that he missed as a child, mainly the tapestry of small town and countryside life where the details often make the story.
His storytelling through murals attracted the attention of Brown, who said “we wanted to utilize a local artist . . . and Kelson Thorne’s talent speaks for itself.”
That talent showed itself early on at Pendleton County Middle/High School. Thorne remembers former athletic director Jackee Hedrick reaching out to him to add color and life to some of the walls and entrances inside the school. His work there includes hallway murals, representations of the mascot and Seneca Rocks, and a “Welcome to the Den” mural that greets all entering the gym. He has also brought his style of art to the residents of Pendleton Manor.
Thorne’s recent work illuminating the U.S. Route 220 side of the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department, he says is meant to “embody what our community represents.” The left side of the work portrays the wildfires that plagued the region recently, showing a forest consumed as in the words of Dante “descending solid flames, that to the ground came down.” He morphed the reds and oranges of the flames into the feathers of a defiant cardinal, seemingly symbolizing the spirit and resilience of a town and people that nothing, not even nature, can break.
Thorne, like most in the area, took pride in “volunteers coming together to save acres of land,” as well as homes and lives. He shared “our community comes together like no other.”
When considering what to do with the plain white wall of the Franklin Innovation Hub, Brown said that “we saw something that Kelson shared on social media – a creation using an older photo with vibrant artwork.” This served as the inspiration for what Thorne brought to downtown Franklin.
He teamed up with the Pendleton County Historical Society, who provided old black and white photographs of the town. Another expert joined the team to help to envision the image. Thorne shared that, until he dove into the project, that he did not know of the Franklin fire that consumed large parts of downtown a century ago. This, of course, plays into those themes of Appalachian resilience in the face of adversity that Thorne likes to highlight.
Thorne’s talent is rare for the region, if not unique. That will soon change. One of his next projects will hopefully start a legion of artists whose work will grace and beautify Mountain State streetscapes.
He helped to bring together a team to establish South Side Studios in Petersburg. Along with Jenny Nielsen and Robb Shobe, the team has put together a space that will feature a gallery, classrooms, and gatherings to promote and celebrate art.
As part of this project, in August Thorne will start an apprenticeship program to train mentees how to create murals as he does. Six area teens will learn the process of taking a digital sketch and creating a digital illustration, then transferring the image to a large-scale mural. Work from the students will grace four six by six cinder block walls.
“It’s a really great opportunity,” he said.
In this fashion Thorne weaves himself into the Appalachian traditions that he celebrates, by taking art and handicraft lessons learned with difficulty and experience and developed in painstaking fashion, then teaching them to the next generation who, hopefully, will carry them forward and perhaps even eventually excel the master.
