Credo: Signs Following Believers with Dr. Rick Cary

Name: Credo: Signs Following Believers with Dr. Rick Cary
Start: 2025-10-06T10:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-06T11:50:00-04:00
Location: 363 Stout Dr, Johnson City, TN, United States, Tennessee 37614

Schedule

Mon Oct 06 2025 at 10:30 am to 11:50 am

UTC-04:00

Location

363 Stout Dr, Johnson City, TN, United States, Tennessee 37614 | Johnson City, TN

Join us Monday, October 6, 10:30 - 11:50 am for a gallery talk with Dr. Rick Cary on the art of the Rev. Jimmy Morrow. This lecture is part of a series of events presented in conjunction with the current exhibition, The Place Speaks: Sacred & Artistic Genealogies of Appalachia. An exploration of how sacred histories are presented through visual art in Appalachia, The Place Speaks honors and respects the fusion of deeply personal, regional, and universal philosophies and beliefs as they relate to Appalachian landscapes.
Credo, which is Latin for "I believe," presents a survey of the beliefs, practices, history and documentary photographs of religious groups known as "Signs-Followers," "Jesus Only" or more popularly, "Serpent Handlers." Derived from practices described in Mark 16:17-18 of the Bible, “And these signs shall follow them that believe” (KJV). Signs Following churches continue to practice serpent handling in parts of Appalachia, despite legal challenges, social notoriety, and the deaths of a number of its congregants.
Rick Cary of Asheville, North Carolina, is Professor Emeritus of Art and former Dean of Fine Arts at Mars Hill University. He is continuing a career that balances teaching, scholarship, and art production in photography and ceramics. His photographs have been exhibited in many galleries including the Abrons Gallery, Hunter College in New York City, and Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville.
Dr. Cary has published on topics related to art, aesthetics, critical theory, and art education including Critical Art Pedagogy: Foundations for Postmodern Art Education (1998, Garland) and the entry on art in The Encyclopedia of Critical Theory and Critical Thinking. Weil, D. (Ed.) New York: Oryx. He co-authored Measured Lies, the winner of the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights. He holds graduate studio art degrees in photography and ceramics and a Ph.D. in aesthetics and the psychology of art. Cary also studied at Stanford University and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The photographs exhibited in The Place Speaks are selections from Dr. Cary's “Credo,” a twenty-year photographic documentary of Appalachian serpent-handling religious groups. He donated his archive of over 300 photographs to the ETSU Archives of Appalachia. These are available for viewing and further study in Sherrod Library.
This talk will be presented in conjunction with The Place Speaks, the Reece Museum’s anchor gallery exhibition exploring the material and lived dimensions of religion in Appalachia. This event is free admission and open to the public.