In front of a concrete retaining wall in Whitesburg, Kentucky, amidst piles of broken pottery and glass, Lacy Hale sifted through a plastic bag full of jewelry.  “A woman donated this,” Hale said. “It was a box full of buttons and pendants and little gems and stones and doodads of all sorts.” Hale selected several pieces from the bag. She held each one up to a turtle-shaped outline that had been painted on the wall. She was trying to decide which jewelry parts would work to make the turtle in this new public mosaic come to life.

“It’s like putting a puzzle together all the time,” Hale said. “You gotta find the exact piece that’s broken the right way to fit next to another piece. And then you have to think about the color scheme of the pieces.”

Hale is an artist from Whitesburg. She has been spearheading the creation of this public mosaic that is located behind the old post office downtown. The mosaic is sponsored by the Cowan Community Action Group in Letcher County, where Whitesburg is the county seat. It is part of their annual Growing Home event which honors the anniversary of the flood of 2022.

“They wanted [the mosaic] to commemorate the flood,” Hale said about the new public mosaic. “But also honor the people here—the grit, the strength.”

This month marks the four year anniversary of the 2022 flood that devastated parts of southeast Kentucky. In Letcher County, the memory of the flood still cuts deep. It was one of the hardest hit counties, where residents experienced widespread damage and even loss of life.

In addition to commemorating the flood, the mosaic is a celebration of eastern Kentucky’s streams, along with the flora and fauna that call them home. It features plants like Joe Pye weed, black-eyed Susans, ghost pipe, and morels, and animals such as kingfishers, a heron, and dragonflies.

Read the full article about the new commemorative mosaic in Whitesburg, Kentucky by Teresa Collins, Mimi Pickering, and Nicole Musgrave at The Daily Yonder.