Kentucky Folk Art Center

Tucked into a renovated nineteen-twenties grocery building in Morehead, the Kentucky Folk Art Center holds the world's most comprehensive collection of contemporary self-taught art from a single state. Morehead State University began gathering the works in nineteen eighty-five, and by nineteen ninety-seven moved the collection to the old Union Grocery on First Street. Inside are more than fourteen hundred pieces, wood carvings, paintings, textiles, and sculpture, made almost entirely by artists with no formal training, rooted in Appalachian traditions stretching back generations.

Edgar Tolson's biblical wood carvings, Minnie Adkins's whittled animals, and Donny Tolson's carvings represent the range. The center also champions storytelling, traditional music, and dance, treating the visual art as one thread in a living regional culture.