A recent documentary profile about my work as an Appalachian photographer by Spencer Thomason, producer/director at Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, Virginia for their Appalachian program, Project Southwest…

Project Southwest Artist Profile:
“On this episode of Southwest Virginia Artist Profile you'll meet Malcolm J. Wilson, a lifelong professional Appalachian photographer and enthusiast for Appalachian culture. We'll talk about his career as a photographer and dive into how he and his late wife, Jennifer, started "Humans of Central Appalachia", a social media project that shares the photos and experiences of Appalachian people. In this video you'll see a bunch of Malcolm's photographs, and we'll break down some of those photos to share some tips for aspiring photographers.”

Malcolm J. Wilson

There is a blurry home movie clip that exists of a towheaded Malcolm J. Wilson toddling around at age three, dwarfed by a camera swinging from his neck.
 
Growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, Malcolm was born with an insatiable quest for knowledge, and would often bring library books home by the Radio Flyer wagon load. Early on, he developed a passion for science, and his Science Fair winning skills was the stuff of legends in Harlan County. Like many boys growing up during the Cold War, he dreamed of building rockets and working for NASA someday.
 
Then, the summer between his junior and senior years in high school, the fates intervened. Something made Malcolm pick up the camera again, and he never looked back. Trying to reconcile his left brain analytical side, with his reawakened right brain creative side, Malcolm accepted a full Engineering scholarship to the University of Kentucky.
 
Then, he had an epiphany in an Advanced Calculus class.  
 
The professor had worn the same tie every day that week. The food spilled on it read like a journal of the man’s week. Mustard on Monday. Chili on Tuesday…formulas and equations gave way to Malcolm’s overwhelming desire to photograph the professor. He gathered his books, walked out of the classroom and away from his scholarship, and went home and hid from his father for two weeks. (The story has a happy ending though. Wilson later returned to college as a non-traditional student).

A photographer for over 40 years, Wilson is also a web designer, writer, journalist, documentarian, artist and jack-of-other-trades now living in the mountains of Blackey, Kentucky.
Originally from Cumberland, Kentucky in Harlan County, he graduated from Cumberland High School in Cumberland, Kentucky. In the early 1980s, Wilson left the mountains to attend Northern Kentucky University majoring in Fine Arts (Photography) and minoring in journalism.

Ironically, Wilson spent eighteen years in Cincinnati documenting the plight of those urban Appalachians who had to leave the mountains to find work. He spent a large part of his career as a journalist, working for small papers in eastern Kentucky and metropolitan papers in the Cincinnati area. He also worked as a stringer for United Press International (UPI) and the Associated Press (AP) during his career.

As a commercial photographer, his client list in Cincinnati included The Cincinnati Post, Kings Island, the Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati Bengals and the Associated Press. Wilson’s photographs have appeared in hundreds of publications and websites around the world including Sports Illustrated, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today.

Wilson is considered by many to be a pioneer in the realm of digital photography and the computer as a digital darkroom. He first began working with digital image manipulation using the computer nearly two decades ago. Using fractal design programs and “Photo Styler” the program that gave birth to the industry standard Photoshop, Wilson was one of the first artists/photographers to exhibit digital imagery in galleries in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In 2000, Wilson moved to Bristol, Tennessee and formed Graphic Bliss Advertising with then partner, and later, wife, Jennifer Molley Wilson. Malcolm’s high-impact photography and unique, cutting-edge design quickly gained regional and national recognition for his clients. After growing Graphic Bliss, Wilson sold the agency to his employees, and began working exclusively with marketing, research and promotion for commercial and residential real estate development. After several years in land development, Wilson was presented with the opportunity to rebrand himself as a highly-sought independent marketing consultant after several previous clients inquired about assistance with their marketing efforts.

“Here I Am,” A recent film by the Behringer Crawford Museum in Covington, Kentucky about my work as an Appalachian documentary photographer…

”BCM in partnership with FotoFocus proudly brings you "Here I Am: Making Photographs with Malcolm Wilson," a documentary that explores the drive, vision, and passion of one mountaineer photographer who strives to give back to a community.”

Humans And A History of Documentary Work

Wilson launched the Humans of Central Appalachia (HOCA) Facebook page in June, 2015, as a documentary project aimed at presenting honest stories from Appalachia in an effort to quell stereotypes perpetuated about the region by mainstream shock culture photographers.

The page struck a chord, not only with Appalachians living within the region, but also with those who were forced to leave the area to find jobs, as well as those with no ties to the region, but with a natural curiosity about its residents. Based on percentages, Humans of Central Appalachia is the fastest-growing “Humans of” page on Facebook, garnering nearly 400 new likes weekly. Now rapidly approaching 31K likes, the page has followers from 45 countries, six continents and reflects 38 different languages.

As an Appalachian telling the story of Appalachia, Wilson is passionate about ensuring the accuracy of that message. With Humans of Central Appalachia, he strives to present a constantly shifting living history repository where the minutia of daily life in Appalachia contributes to a larger story. Wilson sees HOCA as an important continuation of the story he began decades ago with other documentary projects spanning his career.

The Appalachian Archives at Southeast Community and Technical College in Harlan County, Kentucky, houses nearly a quarter of a million of Wilson's negatives from his nearly forty years of documenting our Appalachian story. He has documented the depths of sorrow, the height of jubilation and the routine.

Wilson’s work has been exhibited in the Appalachian region and nationally. His work is included in permanent collections at the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center, Southeast Community College Appalachian Archives and The Kennedy Center Gallery and Archives, the Julia Louis Dreyfuss Collection and in the collections of several local patrons. In 1994, Wilson’s documentary photo project, Women of Coal: A Changing Image won the prestigious Kentucky Humanities Council Humanities Project of the Year award. The project was developed to break the stereotypical views of Appalachian women. Appalachian Realities was shown at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC in conjunction with the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Kentucky Cycle. Wilson was the first photographer allowed to exhibit in the Kennedy Center.

Helping Your Business Grow Through Collaboration

Until the day when altruism is rewarded with earthly gains, as opposed to ethereal ones, Wilson utilizes the same passion-driven work ethic that has exploded recognition of Humans of Central Appalachia to grow and expand brand awareness of business initiatives across the Southeast. Today, Wilson represents a wide cross-section of socially-conscious businesses and industry, all of who benefit from his well-rounded expertise and natural promotional instincts.

As a highly acclaimed fine art and documentary photographer, Wilson is in much demand for high-end corporate portrait, lifestyle and product photography, as well as for his fine art photography which graces the offices of many regional businesses and hangs in several national restaurant chain locations throughout the area. Always on the cusp of emerging digital photography tools, Wilson commands a photographic arsenal rivaled only by the industry’s heavy shooters, including tools for video and action and adventure photography.

It was only natural that Wilson would turn his keen, photographer’s eye to the production of hard-hitting digital design pieces. His design and promotional work has received numerous accolades and national and worldwide. In addition to photography, he specializes in compliant, easy to navigate websites with substance and impact to showcase your product, service or brand.

A life-long learner and natural educator, Wilson teaches photography classes and holds digital photography workshops throughout the Appalachian southeast.

“The best service I offer is collaboration,” says Wilson. “As I often say, ‘It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle.’ Often, we see clients who are so intertwined with their business, and take such ownership in their processes; they need to take a step away to see that they just aren’t working,” he added.

From business consultancy services, to being a soundboard for innovative ideas, Wilson can see your business in a new light, and provide you with the honest assessment and marketing audit you need to get to the next step.
 
Are you prepared to grow? Contact Malcolm today.

The Late Jennifer Molley Wilson
(June 28, 1962-January 17, 2018)

Jennifer Molley Wilson was born in Harlan, Kentucky, a full month earlier than expected, arriving as a gangling slip of a human. The family’s big weekly event was packing her down to Mack’s grocery store where the butchers would place her on the meat scale so everyone could see how much weight she was gaining.

Jennifer grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School, and subsequently spent several years in California where she attended California State University at Hayward majoring in Mass Communications with minors in advertising and photography, got married and had a daughter…not necessarily in that order.

In 1984, she moved to Bristol, Tennessee where she has been until March 2016, making the world a better place through a long career in marketing, advertising and communications in healthcare, tourism and local government. She currently serves as a rural project manager for the University of Kentucky's Office of Rural Health in Hazard, Kentucky. Jennifer currently resides in Blackey, Kentucky.

In 1999, Jennifer and HOCA co-founder, Malcolm J. Wilson met online amidst a series of serendipitous coincidences that can only best be explained over copious amounts of cocktails.

In 2002, the duo married, forming a dynamic team whose combined skills make them a creative force to be reckoned with. Together, the couple has three grown children, three grandchildren, three dogs, two cats, a passion for art and Appalachian culture, and a desire to make a difference in the world. Jennifer passed on January 17, 2018. Rest in peace lovely lady!

A mobile photographer, Wilson draws inspiration from the precision born from randomness. The objects that gather in some forgotten corner. The fading facade of a forlorn past. These are the images she is compelled to preserve, drawn more to the components that comprise an experience, than the experience, itself.

Wilson’s photographs captures objects just as they are found, and just as they have been stepped over, and gone unnoticed for a significant period of time. It belies her artistic message to rearrange objects that have already been posed by serendipity.

Using an iPhone 6 and the Hipstamatic 310 camera app, shooting under the name, "The HipstaChick," she has exhibited her work globally as a featured artist in Hipstamatics’s “Adventures in Hipstaland.” Her portfolio, “Jennifer’s Bristol,” brought international attention to Bristol, TN/VA as being the first US city featured in the installation. Although she is never far from her trusty iPhone and its myriad of accessories, Wilson also shoots with a Pentax Q and an assortment of vintage film cameras.

Hipstamatic is a camera app that allows the iPhone to mimic the plastic lensed, toy cameras popularized by the lomography art movement (i.e. Diana, Holga, etc.) Through the selective pairing of both virtual lenses and film, the photographer remains in complete creative control of the image and the mood conveyed.

Wilson’s photography exploits frequently garner curious stares, polite conversation and the attention of the local authorities.

Wilson has a variety of interests that, for the sake of domestic tranquility, her fully-supportive husband refers to as “jags.” She is a writer, photographer, gypsy, collector of people and rescuer of critters. On occasion, she leaves the confines of her “interest room,” which sadly, does not include a kitchen, to hone her vegan chef skills by making foodstuffs which any normal, rational human would simply purchase from a grocery store. She vehemently believes that one cannot have too many critters, too many pairs of glasses, or too many bottles of nail polish. A true hillbilly hippie chick, Jennifer is also interested in more esoteric pursuits such as crystal healing, aromatherapy and the creation of natural skin care and home cleaning products. She is the creator of a line of clothing made from upcycled t-shirts under the HipstaThreads brand. Inspired by powerful memories of her Papaw, Wilson's New Year's resolution for 2016 is to learn how to smoke a pipe.

My tribute to my late wife Jennifer…

Jennifer Molley Wilson (June 28, 1962-January 17, 2018)

Jennifer never was awarded a ticket from law enforcement, no parking tickets, no speeding tickets, no tickets ever! She never had an automobile accident, unless you count the time she stopped to watch deer in a field and one ran into the side of her parked car.

Jennifer was 37 years old when we met in September, 1999 and we met online. We dated for nearly a year, me in Cincinnati, her in Bristol, before things worked out allowing us to move in together.

Our love for each other was so blissful that we started an advertising and marketing company together and named it “Graphic Bliss Advertising.” We worked collectively like the gears of a fine Swiss watch, both our love and our skill sets in perfect sync. That blissful, undaunting harmony stayed with us for the nearly 19 years we were together.

Jennifer had a multitude of interests. She would pursue a new curiosity until she became very proficient at it then move on to something else new and exciting. She would learn through YouTube, internet research and an occasional workshop until she perfected the art or craft churning in her mind at the time.

Not only did she have interests in vegan cooking, sewing, crocheting, she pushed herself and everything she did to the highest pinnacles imaginable. She wasn’t afraid to make mistakes and used each as a learning tool to perfect her particular pursuit of the day. From designing and manufacturing a whole line of skirts and dresses created from recycled t-shirts to learning the art of crochet so she could make pink “pussy” hats she could wear and share with friends; this girl was unstoppable!

She was an amazing writer and could yank anyone’s emotions to the surface with just a few perfectly chosen words. Her abilities as a graphic designer were second to none and her vision as a photographer is, to this day, as unique and brilliant as she was. During her professional tenure working with clients she received many regional and national awards for her accomplishments and always gave them away to the client she happened to be working for at the time, saying “This is for you. Without you there would be no award.”

Other interests she pursued and perfected include belly dancing, makeup artistry, abstract painting, jewelry making, fabric dyeing, bartending, pipe smoking, animal rescue, boating, modeling, acting, voice over work, aroma therapy, yoga, collecting, music, the cinema, tattoos, body piercings, and travel to name a few.

When one of our first clients, the YWCA of Bristol announced they were going to offer a traditional belly dancing class Jennifer was the first to sign up. When Jennifer signed on to do something, anything for that matter, she was always all in. When I say all in, I mean ALL IN!

With belly dancing that meant costumes, accessories, books, DVDs… ALL IN!

After several weeks passed, a local TV station came to do a story on the class and of course they had to interview the star pupil, Jennifer… ALL IN!

Jennifer became fascinated with my portrait work, as well as the work of videographers filming commercials for our clients and decided she needed to become a skilled makeup artist. That meant books, DVDs, YouTube videos, workshops, and makeup, tons and tons of makeup as well as the best cases to carry it… ALL IN!

When Jennifer said “I want to try my hand at…” I was also, always all in. Early on in our relationship we were traveling, and she spotted some dichroic fused glass jewelry in a gallery in North Carolina. A few days later she said, “I want to try to make fused glass jewelry.”

That meant, kilns, hand tools, goggles, heat resistant gloves, power tools, books, DVDs, workshops, precious metals, studio space and of course glass. We built a studio in the basement and she began the process of creating beautiful jewelry she sold in galleries and festivals all over the region… ALL IN!

Jennifer appreciated a good cocktail and one day decided she could learn to do it better than the local bartenders around Northeast Tennessee. She said one day, “I’m thinking of going to bartending school.”

That meant books, DVDs, YouTube videos, tools, class time and of course liquor, lots and lots of liquor… ALL IN!

During her training she set up a tiki bar at the Wilson Family Reunion held on Norris Lake and spent the weekend creating cocktails while others went boating, tubing, swimming etc. After receiving her bartenders’ licenses in both Tennessee and Virginia she got a call to work as a bartender during the NASCAR August night race at Bristol Motor Speedway; her assignment, tend bar in track owner Bruton Smith’s suite. After she finished what was a long night making cocktails for celebrities, she told me “that’s about as good as it gets, time to move on.”

What you may not understand about this woman was that once she reached a pinnacle, she was off in search of another mountain to climb.

Jennifer did an amazing amount of voiceover work in TV and radio over her career. Many sound engineers called her “One Take Jen” because she seldom if ever had to record her read more than once. She also appeared in print ads as a model as well as some TV commercials. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do within her skillset to make her clients look good. From the poster girl on the very first Bristol Rhythm and Roots music festival poster to being pictured on billboards all over Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia wearing an ugly wig, hair in curlers, wearing an old robe while eating a turkey drumstick standing next to a beautiful young model to driving a 1973 Mercury Comet the wrong way around a speedway while race cars going full speed headed toward her, Jennifer was always ALL IN!

We had rented the use of Kingsport Motor Speedway to fill a segment of a TV commercial for the Bristol company, HVAC. The character in the commercial was lovingly referred to as the duck lady, a character Jennifer created to advertise duct cleaning services the company was offering. The duck lady and the commercials Jennifer scripted are still remembered in the region as the finest to ever cross the TV airwaves. On the day of the shoot, the actress hired as the duck lady became ill and couldn’t make the shoot. Jennifer, a safe yet timid driver, put on the wig, the makeup and the costume complete with horn rimmed glasses, climbed into a car she had never driven and made her way onto the track as the duck lady stand-in or should I say the stunt double. After the filming, Jennifer was a bit shook up and nervous as the racecars were coming at her between 80 and 100 MPH. She said, “That was scary. I’m glad I did it, but I don’t want to do it again” - ALL IN!

As far as collecting, Jennifer acquired one of the largest hand carved coconut monkey collections I am aware of. After her Hungarian grandmother gave her one, she had acquired sixty years earlier, Jennifer was hooked, and the research began resulting new primate acquisitions. She purchased monkeys off eBay, in our travels and through the travels of others. It wasn’t uncommon to come home and find a monkey on the porch someone had dropped off after visiting some tropical port. She collected nearly 100 before moving onto the next scalable mountain… ALL IN!

Other things she collected included incense, body piercing jewelry, sunglasses, essential oils, tobacco pipes, makeup, notebooks, office supplies, fountain pens, arts and crafts supplies, as well as t-shirts and lip balms in addition to all the art we collected during our nearly 19 years together.

Although I knew she collected lip balms and she always joked that she couldn’t stop until she collected every flavor known to exist, I didn’t really grasp the extent of her collection until her passing. Her favorite flavor was pineapple and she always wore pineapple when she was out making photographs. According to her that was the secret that made her photographs the amazingly beautiful and quirky compositions that they were.

When our children were helping me go through her belongings, we found a basket under the bed containing hundreds of them… ALL IN!

As far as body piercings and the jewelry to accompany these piercings, she had about a dozen piercings in each ear, one in her belly button, one in her nose, one above her lip, at one time, one in her hand between her thumb and index finger and one in her tongue. I was with her when she decided that I needed to take her to Johnson City so she could get her tongue pierced. The person doing the piercing told her that her tongue would swell a bit and by the time we got home she could hardly talk because of it. Her father, John Molley wasn’t and isn’t a big fan of piercings and Jennifer wanted to keep this one a secret. Well, that night John called, I answered and handed the phone to Jennifer. She mumbled her way through a short conversation with her father and then set out to kill me for my shameful trick. A few short days later we were all laughing about it.

It wasn’t long until she began her collection of tongue rings, mostly from eBay but from select jewelry counters as well. While on eBay she discovered light up tongue rings. They held small watch batteries that powered LEDs. There were versions that glowed a constant color, others that strobed white light and still others that were full blown multicolored rock concert light shows you could have inside your mouth. She was ALL IN!

Jennifer and I, along with Robert Gipe and his wife at the time, Robin, went to Asheville for the weekend to see the great Chapel Hill, North Carolina band, Southern Culture on the Skids (SCOTS). Of course, Jennifer knew there was no better time than this to try out her new multicolored, light show, tongue ring!

If you know anything about the SCOTS, you know they sing a song about fried chicken titled Eight Piece Box as well as a song titled Camel walk. In concert they usually play these two back to back. The later song talks about captain’s wafers and Little Debbie cakes. When they reach this part of the performance, they invite a select group of younger girls on stage to throw out fried chicken, captain’s wafers and Little Debbie Cakes to the audience. At the time Jennifer was in her mid-forties.

During the first part of the show, the bass guitarist and female vocalist, Mary Huff caught sight of Jennifer’s flashing tongue ring. I must say it was difficult to miss, even with her mouth closed and according to Robert, looked like a lightening storm projecting onto the insides of her cheeks. Of course, when it came time to invite the young girls up on stage to do the throwin’, Mary motioned for Jennifer to come up as well. My embarrassment was quickly suffocated by my pride, when I realized Jennifer was ALL IN!

As far as music was concerned, I thought I was a music freak, but I couldn’t hold a candle to this girl. Jennifer played guitar and ukulele and was, at the time of her passing trying to learn to play an accordion gifted to her by Amy. She got as far as learning to play Mary had A Little Lamb. She loved any kind of music, having attended concerts too numerous to count with her father and mother. She was a living music library when it came to music history and trivia. In addition to her cinema collection that totaled over one thousand films, she also collected music, acquiring nearly 40,000 MP3s… ALL IN!

Jennifer also collected t-shirts as base material to develop and construct her dress and skirt designs. Like the coconut monkeys, it wasn’t uncommon to come home a find a sack of used t-shirts on our front porch. Once she gathered a new batch, she would sort them according to color and design, cut them up using cardboard templates she created for her designs and box them in plastic totes labeling them accordingly. They would be sewn into amazing and colorful designs that her clientele loved. Her space at every festival, gallery show or event that she would offer them up would be buzzing with ladies trying them on and making their selections. And just about every time she would sell out.

We once went to Vegas with a client to assist him with a trade show. When we arrived at the airport the rental car company gave us a free upgrade to a Lincoln Navigator SUV. It was a nine-passenger, monster of a machine. I had to work during the day and Jennifer was free to see the sights and have fun. I left her the key to the Lincoln knowing good and well she probably wouldn’t get out in it, opting to stay around the hotel, casino and shopping districts near the Aria. Boy was I wrong! Jennifer, like me, never was much for gambling and it would take an act of congress to get her to go to a mall.

After I left to work Jennifer began thinking about all the cool t-shirts one might find at thrift stores in Vegas and set out on a mission to find some. That night over dinner she told me about using her iPhone GPS and locating all these great thrift stores, how she traveled to each one and that the most she paid for a t-shirt was fifty cents, most being a quarter. She was so excited, probably more so than about anyone who had a good day at the slots. Her enthusiasm made me enthusiastic and blissful as well!

The next morning we went down to get the car because I didn’t have to work, and we were planning to go to the old part of the city to make photographs. While standing outside the hotel waiting for the valet to bring the Lincoln around, she continued to tell me about the shirts she had acquired, describing many in detail. As the conversation continued, I could see the Lincoln emerging from the parking garage. My ears were tuned to Jennifer and my eyes to the vehicle. As it appeared from the darkness of the garage, I noticed that all I could see in the back from the driver’s seat on was a sea of white. My ears quickly shut down and my eyes bulged from the sight as I realized that sea of white was really a mountain of white plastic thrift store bags most likely filled with t-shirts.

“Jennifer, how much money did you spend buying t-shirts? How many t-shirts did you buy?”

“Honey you would be proud,” she said. “I only spent about $250 on 25 cent t-shirts and about $30 on 50 cent t-shirts.”

I quickly ran some calculations through my head realizing she had purchased well over nine hundred t-shirts. My next question was, “Jennifer, how are we gonna get these home?”

“In our luggage,” she explained. “We might need to run by a discount store and pick up an extra suitcase.”

Before I even got into the car, I knew there wasn’t any way we were going to get all these shirts on our plane back home. Once in the car, I pulled over to the side and started a search on the GPS for the closest UPS store. Not to bust her bubble, I just said “We are gonna find a UPS store and ship them back to Bristol. It will be easier that way.”

Once we arrived at UPS it took three carts to wheel them all in, I’m not talking hand trucks here, I am talking large, 4 wheeled crate carts. After the final tally, shipping them via ground as it was the cheapest method available, the shipping charge was nearly $600. Add to that the $250 and the $30 plus the time and gas to get there, unload them, get them weighed and pay the bill I figure we had over $1,000 invested in over 900 25 cent t-shirts! But, like Jennifer, I was and forever more will always be ALL IN!