*Now booking exhibitions for 2026 & 2027. Contact [email protected]
"Cat. 6? Possibilities and Consequences"

Cat. 6? Possibilities and Consequences examines the impacts of the global climate crisis on natural resources in North and South Carolina and underscores humankind as the cause. It is a 30-foot long, in-the-round, installation created from salvaged, foraged, and industrial waste materials. The project is led by me, Kim Keelor, a resident artist at the Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center, and includes contributions from local community members including Sarah Johnson, a naturalist-poet; Nancy Pheasant, an indigenous engraver; George Taylor, a potter; Jesse Shafer and Fisher Wilson, professional musicians from South Carolina; Dallas Shelp, a woodworker and other community artists and volunteers.

WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

It is 30-feet long, 9-feet high and 10-feet deep. It consists of five phases: River Nest, Dream State, Unwalled, Hard Lessons, and Seething Planet. Together, the phases devolve from the healthy environmental condition of a river nest to a hopeful, though transformed, verdant landscape, to worst-case scenarios.

Visitors can begin by entering River Nest, a structure woven from foraged grape, willow, and kudzu vines. Inside they can peek into Seething Planet before exiting to wind around the verdant Dream State mountainside and fiber waterfall. The waterfall transitions into a textile stream, and then into Unwalled, which is a 7-foot tall felt-sculpted splash representing the previously unprecedented climate-driven floods. After Unwalled, visitors move to the Hard Lessons nook with textile information bubbles about the positive and negative conditions in our current natural world. They will conclude by fully facing Seething Planet, an examination of humanity's contributions to the crisis and the existing consequences, depicted using Louise Nevelson-style relic boxes leading to a blazing forest fire. Each phase of Cat. 6? has an accompanying sound experience, created by Shafer and Wilson, who commissioned for the project.

WHEN DID IT BEGIN AND WHY?

The installation started with the collection of materials in late 2023. It was finished in the fall of 2025 and will exhibited in 2026 - 2027.

Cat. 6? supports a greater understanding of and belief in the need for climate action immediately, and by all. It expresses the possibilities and consequences of climate-related decisions being in the Carolinas and around the world by industry, government, communities, and individuals during what scientists consider the final decade when improvements can still have a substantial impact on reversing the building calamity.

The project stems from my observations working and living in a coastal area, and now in a national forest where my new well went dry after moving in due to drought. In western North Carolina raging waterfalls can dwindle to trickles and wild fires are common. It is a region devastated by Hurricane Helene’s flooding, during a season when hurricanes were almost upgraded to Category 6 velocity for the first time in history.  Before Helene, North Carolina spent more on recovery from natural disasters than 47 other states in a ten-year period according to a 2022 federal Environmental Impact Statement. Additionally, the Commissioner for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services told the legislature in early 2025 that the state was No. 1 in the nation for wildfire risk. While I was living Charleston, South Carolina, my family evacuated eight times due to hurricanes. I helped launch a center for climate studies for a college while working on a coastal campus that was frequently made inaccessible by sunny-day flooding caused by sea-level rise. Additionally, a sizable portion of the undergraduate population there, polled informally by professors in 2018, stated that they either did not believe in climate change or did not think it would affect them within their lifetimes.

MATERIALS AND PROCESSES?

The processes and materials are listed, phase by phase, below on this page. Examples include felt making, textile deconstruction, hand building clay, hand stitching and lashing, machine sewing, collage, paper pulp making, sculpture and weaving. Approximately 85 percent of the materials were foraged, found, salvaged or donated. Examples include big box store plastic plant trays; industrial waste merino wool from a South Carolina textile mill; donated non-recyclable eyeglass blanks; expired NCDOT road maps;  and post-consumer plastic. 

WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?

Work in progress videos, micro-view photographs and related resources can be found on the project-specific Instagram profile, @getitright_planet.  Additional photos are below. Contact us by emailing [email protected] for more information. 

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDING SUPPORT OR MATERIALS:

North Carolina Arts Council - grant 1,000 
Kentwool (wool waste products) 
North Carolina Department of Transportation (expired road maps)
Asheville Eye - Sylva and Franklin  (non-recyclable eyeglass lenses)
Franklin Press (leftover blank newspaper print)
Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy (packing materials)

THANK YOU TO COMMUNITY ARTISTS AND VOLUNTEERS

Top volunteer contributors of time and talent: 

Sarah Johnson - naturalist, poet, mother, farmer Coweeta pioneer descendant
Nancy Pheasant - indigenous multi-media artist; Cherokee syllabary adviser and potter                      A partial view of the Dream State phase of Cat. 6
Bill Richardson - Cowee community volunteer, kudzu guru
Dallas Shelp - wood worker and construction adviser 
George Taylor - potter/instructor, Cowee Pottery School

Serial volunteers:

Carol Conti (artist/adviser)
Barbara Gaglliardo
Stacy Keelor 
Darlene Keelor
Lee McMillan (local artist) 

Artists and volunteers helping for an hour or more during two community days:

Highlands Biological Station Students/Western Carolina University
Wendy Antonio (artist) 
Ben Banick (luthier, musician, wood worker, naturalist)
Teresa Bouchenet (Artist in Residence/rock weaver)
Laura Brooks (Ex. Dir. Cowee Arts & Heritage Center)
Jean Hunnicutt (artist)
Jennifer Hock (artist)
Angela Martin (Artist in Residence/naturalist/singer-songwriter/owner Alarka Expeditions)
Brent Martin (Artist in Residence/naturalist/writer/Exec. Dir. Blue Ridge Bartram Train Conservancy)
Ashlyn Miller (Artist in Residence/holistic practitioner/ owner Inner_Woven
Amanda Panda (naturalist/writer) 
Chloe Powlass (chef)
Lois Selfon (artist)
Miriam Stipling 
Madison Travis
Jenn Tuft 

An assemblage and collage element within the Seething Planet phase,
demonstrating the causes and consequences of the climate emergency