Coming up on Kentucky Life... We'll check out River Lotus Lion Dance in Louisville as they showcase the traditional Asian dance where performers mimic a lion's movements.

Learn about the history, color and patterns of Kentucky's state rock.

Meet folk artists, Lonnie and Twyla Money, widely known for their whimsical and colorful wood carvings.

And Lexingtonians can bring their art to the streets through Art on the Town and the use of free art carts.

All that's next on Kentucky Life.

[music playing] Hey, everybody, and welcome to Kentucky Life.

áI'm your host, Chip Polston.

áNow, in this week's show, áwe're going to introduce you to some Kentuckians who are creating art in a variety of ways from dance to visual arts and beyond.

And what better place to do so than here at the Kentucky Folk Art Center á at Morehead State University.

á Located in the historic Union Grocery here in Morehead, á the center offers much more than a typical museum experience.

They house a permanent collection of nearly 1,500 pieces of art capturing the spirit of our state.

All of which comes from artists who are self taught with no formal training.

It really is a fun and vibrant facility that we'll be sharing with you throughout our show and can't wait for you to see everything here.

áBut first, Kentucky has a lot of traditions, ásome of them originated here áwhile others come from different cultures around the world.

In our first story, we'll introduce you to a group showcasing their cultural heritage around Louisville.

River Lotus Lion Dance performs a traditional dance that involves dynamic movements and fun interactions.

This art form dates back thousands of years to Eastern Asia and has found a home in the Bluegrass.

Lion dance symbolizes good luck and prosperity.

River Lotus Lion Dance has been spreading good luck around Louisville since 2019.

The drums and the cymbals help to ward off bad luck and evil spirits.

The beginnings of lion dance date back to over 2,000 years ago when lions were believed to be mythical creatures.

The art has spread across the world and has been adapted by various countries and cultures displaying different styles and designs of their lion.

Today, lion dance is prominently featured during Lunar New Year celebrations.

Christina Tran: There's two parts of being a lion dancer.

First is the act of lion dancing and the second is the mentality of lion dancing.

áWhen you first get into a lion and you don't know anything, áit's hard to have the spirit of a lion dancer, you're just in it for fun.

Alan Tran: When I hopped into the lion for the first time back in 2006, áI was in the tail, so I didn't know what was going on.

áI was just like, is this how you lion dance?

I was kind of lost in the wonder of it.

áI was feeling like I was going to mess up a lot.

áI had no idea what I was doing.

I think what's really important is that I was free to express how I wanted to express myself.

Christina Tran: But now that I've cultivated this mentality of a lion dancer, I'm learning more about why it's so important to me.

And now when I get into a lion, I feel like I have a intention, I have a purpose when I get in there that I'm going to dance to show my culture to these people.

Alan Tran: There's a freestyle element to it and there's also a choreographed element to it.

The choreographed element tells more of the story or it extracts a meaning from the lion dance.

Whereas the freestyle element is more of it extracts like a spirit out of lion dance.

áAnd that's when we do like crowd play.

áCrowd play is when we just interact with the audience.

áBut the reward is just watching people's reactions.

Christina Tran: So in the head, there are different challenges that you face.

Stamina is the biggest challenge.

Alan Tran: But it's also very dynamic because there's a lot of strength that you have to use with your arms and how you use the head and move it around.

Your arms are like this.

So, you hold the mouth with one hand and then you hold the bar with the other hand and you rest the lion on your shoulders or like your elbows.

Alan Tran: The tail, it's basically like a curtain.

It's a curtain over your head.

You're always like bending down, you can't see anything.

The only thing you can see is like your feet.

Alan Tran: But you actually use your hand to hold the person's belt in front of you to try to, to gauge where they're going and where they're moving.

At some point you synchronize together and you are able to do tricks or do routines together like that.

To initiate the trick, usually they'll grab the belt and they shake the belt and then those two will do what is called a sync jump and they'll jump together and then they'll land in through the trick.

The team building for lion dance is actually really essential to make lion dance work.

The lion dance depends on every single member, from the drummer to the cymbal players, to the gong player, to the people in the lion.

The reason why lion dance has survived over 2,000 years is because it was integrated into, one, religious institutions and, two, martial artists or Sifus.

They would integrate lion dance into their martial arts schools.

Let's try one more sequence with this.

Half stack, down, explosion, lift up, then a Hong Kong shake.

As a coach I'm usually watching like 10 different things.

I'm trying to make sure that people are getting the right switch outs at the right time, making sure like the cymbal players are playing the right beats.

And those beats have been passed down from generation to generation through various lion dance teams and culture.

[Alan singing] In the early days I trained them pretty hard, but these days I'm kind of relaxed a little bit.

Christina Tran: Lion dancing is extremely physically challenging.

Alan Tran: It takes a lot of skill and coordination.

Similar to cheerleading in a way.

It's a lot of physical conditioning.

So we focus on our tricks.

So we have something called half stacks, full stacks, crane stacks, head stacks.

Good.

Nice.

That's when we get the most reactions, with the head stack.

Christina Tran: The head jumps onto the tail's head.

I actually performed that trick a lot with my partner Katelan and she is probably the strongest girl on our team.

As a girl it can be hard to push those physical boundaries and she's so strong that she lifts me up on her head.

It makes me feel like empowered.

It makes me feel proud of both of us.

It's a lot more meaningful when you've built this camaraderie with this person and you've practiced with them and you know their limitations, they know yours.

Alan Tran: Lion dance is a good way to bring the community together.

[cheers and applause] But it's also a way to connect with your cultural roots to build a sense of cultural identity.

You're passing on a tradition and you're helping these people find their place in the modern age.

And that's really important to me.

So, back in 2019, that's when my sister Christina Tran, she was really interested in lion dance and decided to pick up the art and gathered a bunch of friends.

And River Lotus is what it is today because of that.

Back when I was younger, I actually grew up going to temples.

So I did involve myself in the Asian community and Buddhist community a lot.

And I used to do traditional dances like fan dances.

But as I got older, I turned my cultural expression through lion dance.

It was a good fit for me as a teenage girl who is just trying to make friends and push herself to be stronger.

Alan Tran: I feel like lion dances actually plays a really big role in this Asian community, especially for people who don't have access to Asian culture.

Christina Tran: I would say at first, we started initially just for fun and we didn't know how far it would get.

I think as time went on, our impact on the community has grown exponentially, like as we're ambassadors for our culture.

Seeing people embrace it is really cool, especially it's like keeping it alive as our generations move on.

So it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

[cheers and applause] Kentucky is home to many natural resources, such as more than 90,000 miles of rivers.

But did you know that in some eastern parts of the state there's often something hidden in the streams?

Take a closer look as we learn about Kentucky's state rock, the Kentucky agate.

áKentucky agate became my signature stone áwhen I saw the variety of colors and patterns that exist in Kentucky agate.

One name and like endless possibilities of the presentation, the manifestation.

So I'm ever content to see more, use more, and it definitely consumes the majority of space in my shop.

I have always been a maker is how I figured out to succinctly define me.

Roland McIntosh: My favorite thing is the variety of it.

My collection has been geared toward that.

I have a lot of pieces of that collection áthat most people would think it's just pure junk.

áBut I have to know that there's a particular áinteresting thing about the piece, a different form, a different shape, a different color, than normal.

Rachel Savane: My favorite qualities about Kentucky agate are the variety of colors, the variety of patterns and the hardness for extreme durability.

Roland McIntosh: Well, the most prevalent color is gray, then yellow, then the reds and the oranges, and then there's some lavender but not very much.

But we have a pretty good range of colors as far as the rest of the world goes, I mean, in relation to the rest of the world.

Each point on the globe that an agate comes from, you could describe the agates of Montana in a few sentences.

Kentucky agate, you just need volumes to describe how many different patterns and how many different colors.

And I've had agates that have colors that I'm like, I don't think we have a name for that.

Kentucky agate is composed mostly of mineral, which is the SiO2, silicon dioxide.

This is our official state rock.

Still a lot of people that don't know we have the same rock.

But here in Kentucky, it's sedimentary and they were formed somewhere between 250 and 300 million years ago when Kentucky was below the equator.

So Kentucky agate is not the product of mining.

It's found in the eastern part of the state.

Roland McIntosh: Well, three counties primarily, Powell, Estill and Jackson Counties, and they occur in the creeks and rivers in all three of those counties.

Now there are agates in other counties in Kentucky, but they're very rare and they usually don't have very, vintage colors.

Rachel Savane: It's found in creeks.

And why?

Because creeks are at the bottom of hills.

So it pops out of a hillside in the normal movement of the earth and rolls, because it's a self-contained rock, a big rain is going to bring it down to the creek and then in the creek, it's going to tumble around a little bit.

Roland McIntosh: And the smaller they are, the harder they are to find because, you know, if you go out there and everything is rocks that it's hard to pick out a little piece that big out of all the other different varieties of colors and things that are laying there.

Basically, you're looking for rounded shapes as a general rule.

There are few exceptions to that.

But you got to learn textures because a lot of them have different textures and they range in size from the size of a pea or less up to this bigger one.

So there's quite a variety of things you have to look for when you hunt.

When I'm choosing which gemstones to use in my designs, they attract me for one reason or another.

Personally, I like a lot of translucent gemstones, quartz and others.

But the Kentucky agate has these patterns and colors and juxtapositions.

It's a whole world of, in my mind, design that exists in each gemstone.

So Kentucky agate as a gemstone for jewelry purposes is so practical.

On the Mohs scale of hardness where diamond is a 10 and something like talc is a 1, super hard, super soft.

Most of the gemstones that I use in my jewelry come in around a 5, 6.

That's practical.

You can make a diamond in a lab, you can make all the precious gems in a lab, but you can't make an agate in the lab.

Lonnie and Twyla Money are two of Kentucky's preeminent folk artists.

Tucked away in their small workshop in East Bernstadt, they are now celebrating 50 years of creating art together.

Now, I got to spend some time with them recently learning how they create and how these two could be both husband and wife and artistic collaborators for half a century.

á For Lonnie Money, á wood carving was literally in his blood.

His great grandfather came to Kentucky in the 1880s from Switzerland where he was a master carver.

The realities of life led Lonnie to a variety of jobs, including running a dairy farm.

After exhibiting at some art shows in the 1970s, he slowly began to build the business as the artwork he and Twyla were creating started to take off.

áI was taking money from this and keeping the farm up.

And I thought, "Well, you know, it's kind of crazy I'm doing all this work out here running these cattle around.

Why don't I just sell the cattle and go in, just do this?"

And that's what we did.

Chip Polston: Where some would say Lonnie was born an artist, Twyla was not.

But she reached a point where she knew she needed something, anything in her life to fill what she saw as a void.

We didn't have children, couldn't have children.

And, like I said, I love children.

áI needed something to occupy my mind áand I was making the bed one morning and I said, Lord, you've got to give me something áor I'm going to go crazy.

And this is when it started.

Chip Polston: When Lonnie first asked her to paint some pieces, she didn't think she had the skills for it.

Twyla Money: My mom, I had helped her, she would go around paint older folks' houses and things and I helped her some, and that's all the paint I had ever done.

I had no interest in art in school.

When he said that, "I'll try anything."

So I just got the paintbrush and the paint on the kitchen table and started painting.

Chip Polston: And that started a collaboration, celebrated in a new book, Lonnie & Twyla Money, 50 Years of Kentucky Appalachian Folk Art.

Now, like many in the genre, the Moneys created things they knew, namely animals.

Many of the whimsical pieces they produce come from real-life experiences they've had on their farm, including one time when a neighbor told Lonnie that his chickens were suddenly disappearing.

I've seen this fox go up through there and he had this big chicken by the neck and throw it over his shoulder.

And I went back here in the back and there's white feathers all over that place where the fox, they go get a chicken every day, I guess, and they run out of chickens, you know how the foxes are?

So I put the chicken in the fox's mouth.

Chip Polston: The Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead State University is one of many museums that have the Moneys' work as part of their folk art collections.

Staff there say younger people are now collecting folk art, like what the Moneys do, in large part due to the fact that it's, well, fun.

áI really think a lot of it is just the whimsy áthat they have with their work.

áI mean, you take a look at the works that they do with the gourds and things, it's just, it's really quite fun.

The Moneys are known really throughout the United States.

I mean, if you were to tap into any of the museums around the country that have any kind of folk art collection, the Moneys are probably going to be part of that collection.

Chip Polston: While the end result is fun, getting there takes work.

Lonnie is not only a brilliant woodworker, he's a good businessman.

He knew he and Twyla would have to produce large numbers of items to make ends meet if they were going to be full-time artists.

Some people say, I don't see where you could stand to do that all in Christmas ornaments you do?

But see, each one of them to me, that's what I get out of is making it.

It's not really that I've got a piece, you know, when I get it done, it's in the making of it.

The creative part's what I love.

Twyla Money: I used to count how many pieces we did a year.

I would count how many Christmas ornaments in one year.

I counted we've done 2,400 and I said, forget it, I'm not counting no more.

áChip Polston: We first met Lonnie and Twyla á some 20 years ago here on Kentucky Life.

á They said then that they had a hard time á keeping up with demand for their work, á and that demand has definitely not slowed down.

Twyla Studio is in a converted building there in East Bernstadt that also serves as their gallery.

While Lonnie works next door in a barn he's converted into a three story workshop.

The barn is a testament to his ability to make and create things.

It's filled with tools he's modified and pieces waiting to become art.

Twigs he finds are hung on a long string so he can look at them until, as he said, one speaks to me.

Syrup bottles from many meals they shared at their favorite breakfast spot decorate a staircase.

And hundreds, if not thousands, of patterns are stored in an organized system that Lonnie built where he converted pants bought at a flea market into big bags with wooden handles.

Now, I gotta ask you, Lonnie, most people would probably just go get some bags.

Well, you know, we are people that, I just grew up hard.

I don't like to say poor.

No, we're not poor, we just don't have any money.

So, I mean, we're that type of people that was and, you know, bags cost a lot more than pants.

Chip Polston: The Moneys' ability to work together is so refreshing in this day and age.

But beyond that, Lonnie and Twyla's love for one another is evident and has resulted in a marriage filled with laughter, creativity, and some amazing art.

He's a special person, I'll just tell you.

Don't tell him I said that though, but he's very special.

I have a pretty good feeling he'd say the same thing about you, Twyla.

Well, probably, maybe.

But we have a lot of fun together.

How in the world do you stay together for half a century and be able to do an artistic thing like this together?

Lonnie Money: I mean, I couldn't do this without her.

I mean, I could do the work, make the pieces, but I couldn't paint it and be like, you know, well, it wouldn't be like her.

So it makes both of us make a whole and that's kind of what a marriage is, you know.

When folks in Lexington want to see some art, conventional wisdom says they should visit a gallery or go to a museum.

But a new city program that offers free-to-use art carts to local artists says otherwise, bringing art to the streets and connecting downtown visitors with artisans who add fun and flair to main street and beyond.

[music playing] Heather Lyons: I think it's really indisputable that arts make everything better.

áAnd so anytime we can put arts and artists áin the midst of the community, everyone benefits.

Art on the Town provides mobile art carts to artists to use in downtown Lexington.

These are metal carts and the artists can really set them up any way they want.

They have shelves, they have ways to hang art, display art.

If you're a jeweler, there's a way you can set up your cart to, to display that.

If you're an artist with paintings, you can use the cart for that.

And they really go where the people are, in downtown Lexington, and I think just bring a wonderful dynamic and surprise people sometimes who hadn't been used to seeing art in those kinds of events.

[music playing] Gloria Arteaga: It's amazing this opportunity that Lexington given to us.

Coming from the country that I am from áis the opportunities for a lot of people áand especially for artists are really, almost nothing.

This is gold for me.

I appreciate it a lot.

This opportunity for me opened many doors.

I was able to meet another artist in Lexington, and not just talk and just meet, it's create friendship.

We interacting, we help each other, we are supporting each other, we give to each other ideas.

We all come sparkling like a sparkling lights together.

Hope Soch: What happened was I was an artist in college and then I got into a teaching job and then all of a sudden 30 years later, áand I was lucky enough áto have some friends who do the Art on the Town and they encouraged me to go ahead and start doing my own artwork again after 20 years.

And I just started painting like crazy.

I have found that I get so much inspiration from the kids all day.

They do a lot of painting after school here in my room.

So the Art on the Town is great because we can show our work.

And ultimately, artists want to share their work, they want to display their work, they want their work seen.

Heather Lyons: So much of art, you have to go out of your way to find it.

You have to seek it out.

You have to go into the gallery, you have to go into the movie theater, you have to buy the ticket.

And so when we can bring any kind of art to the community and they just happen upon it, they just are walking by, then that's a really great, great thing.

Gloria Arteaga: It's bringing happiness.

When I pass on Saturday, the apartment market, the cars, it's like a festival every weekend.

áArts are part of who we are.

áWe feed off each other, the energy from the people.

Sometimes they give me great ideas for painting.

So it's really cool.

Lexington is really rich in the variety of artists that are here.

So we want everybody to get to experience that diversity in all forms.

Gloria Arteaga: This bring me, to me, a lot of good things.

I'm not alone in one booth.

I'm around and surrounded to nice people.

So it's really good to be part of the Art of the Town.

Now, I've had calls and questions from probably 10 different cities around the country.

They know that artists bring value to the community and it's beautiful to see.

You know, just at its very basic level, it's just a beautiful thing to see when the artists are out on the street.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Well, we've had a great time here today at the Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead State University.

Now, you just can't be around these bright colors and fun creations without finding something that makes you smile.

So be sure you check it out sometime.

We know you'll really enjoy it.

Now, if you'd like to learn more about the museum, ábe sure to like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more Kentucky Life Extras where you'll learn more about this terrific facility and have access to lots of other great videos.

For now though, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky life.