True Blue was proud to present Brent Martin as our January Local Artist of the Month. Brent lives in the Cowee community of western North Carolina, in what is known locally as the “Doc Clark house”. He paints Mason jars and related esoterica on pressed tin that he is removing from the ceilings of this old farm house. Brent also writes poetry and essays, and has published three chapbook collections - Poems from Snow Hill Road; A Shout in the Woods; and Every Breath Sings Mountains, with writers Thomas Rain Crowe and Barbara Duncan.
Brent’s essays and columns have been published in Wildbranch: An Anthology of Environmental and Place Based Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, New Southerner, Mountain Express, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere. Brent first got hooked on blue ball Mason jars while watching his grandmother can Brunswick Stew each summer, after their annual July 4th family reunion. He also spent a lot of his childhood digging through trash piles behind old abandoned houses looking for them and other interesting glassware. Brent currently serves as the Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society in Sylva, NC.
