Minnie Adkins Day, July 20, 2024, Sandy Hook, Kentucky

 

Roger D. Hicks and Minnie Adkins

My wife Candice and I traveled to Sandy Hook, Kentucky, in nearby Elliott County on Saturday, July 20, 2024, for this year's annual Minnie Adkins Day which is held each year on the third Saturday of July.  Minnie Adkins Day is both a celebration of the life and work of Minnie Adkins and a general, small town Folk Art festival at which numerous folk artists from all around the southeast exhibit and offer for sale their own works. We both really enjoy the brief amounts of time we get to spend with Minnie and have also recently attended an exhibition of her work at the Huntington Art Museum.  Due to the fact that we both love and collect Folk Art, we have come to know several Folk Artists in the Eastern Kentucky area.  Some of them we might see and converse with a few times during the year, and others we only see at this affair.  It is always fun to see the art, talk with artists, other lovers of Folk Art, and a few of our neighbors in the area we might not have seen for some time.  It was also sad to learn at the festival that Lexington collector Thomas "Tom" Clark had died earlier in the year, and I had actually gone there wanting to be able to ask him about someone who might be able to repair a piece I have which has been damaged.  Tom was a great collector and dealer in both Folk Art and general antiques.  For many years, he had operated an antique and Folk Art shop on North Broadway in Lexington which he had closed a few years ago.  I had known Tom in a limited way for several  years since I had outbid him once for a piece at an estate sale.  He was a vast library of information about Folk Art, Folk Artists, and antiques and he will be missed by his many friends and customers.  

Minnie Adkins and Brent Collinsworth

One of the area Folk Artists who has become a genuine friend, and whose work I collect, is Brent Collinsworth who is a wonderful artist, great conversationalist, and a valued source of information also.  We were both able to spend some time with Brent and his wife at this festival and that is always a treat. Brent's work is always interesting, entertaining, and, at times, surprising.  

 

Tim Lewis

I was also able to spend some time talking with Tim Lewis who is a first cousin to Minnie Adkins and also a native of Elliott County.  Tim has worked in both stone and wood and has some of his work in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, as does Minnie.  Tim loves to carve and paint birds and also had a good carved and painted depiction of The Last Supper at the show.  I was remiss in not taking an actual photograph of that piece and some of Tim's other work.  Sadly, he has had some relatively serious health problems this year which resulted in a hospitalization over last Christmas.  As a result, he had probably less work at this show than I have seen him exhibit for sale in the past.  Tim is also a great conversationalist and fun to talk with.  

Minnie Adkins Day is always fun to visit and participate in and has as many as 100 artists exhibiting and selling their work most years.  This year there was a threat of rain all day although it generally only sprinkled but it seemed that this had depressed visitor attendance to a degree.