MARSHALL - Coming out of Hurricane Helene, Marshall artist Lauren Rutten aimed to 'beautify disaster' by capturing photos of the town's resilience and spirit amid its vulnerability, applying 24K gold leaf to the shots.
"Save This Piece," on exhibit at Madison County Arts Council, features photographs taken during the town's Helene response, as well as a community writing project in which residents reflected on their experiences.
Rutten used 24-karat gold leaf to outline fractures and cracks in surfaces. This technique has three reference points, she said. The first reference point for the gold leaf technique is the rivers and the creeks, specifically the French Broad River. The gold leaf technique also pays homage to the Japanese pottery tradition
of Kintsugi, which she said is the idea of repairing broken pottery with gold leaf, "where you're not hiding the damage."
"You're actually elevating the damage, recognizing its beauty and its vulnerability," Rutten said.
Rutten also took inspiration from the Hebrew phrase "Tikkun olam," which means "repairing the world," a Jewish concept of social justice and ethical action.
Rutten said the interaction between her work and the community's writings has helped expand her vision of the project, and to think of it as more of a universal experience.
"How do we connect with the larger story of tending to each other and our vulnerabilities and our humanity?" Rutten said. "How do we experience that in a more universal as opposed to the specifics of healing?"
'The river bound us together'
Rutten said she hopes to eventually make a book interspersing the community writing submissions with the photographs.
At the exhibit's Sept. 25 opening, there was also a sound element added to the work, including her recordings of different rivers and creeks, rain, thunderstorms and birds pieced together by local musician Ethan Winograd. Many of the more than 150 written submissions also made their way to the exhibit.
Rutten collected the submissions in her Fall 2025 debut of "Save This Piece" at Marshall High Studios. She said she waited until after Jan. 1, 2026 to read the often very intimate shares.
"We're so used to texts on phones and emails. But to see people's handwriting and to have that sense of connection to an actual individual because you're seeing their hand craft something," Rutten said, adding that when she cut out people's writing submissions, she found more parallels between the content and the storm aftermath.
"When I cut out people's excerpts, the extras were laying on top of each other in the little trash can. It was like everybody's stuff that went through the storm. It felt like, 'Look, we're all entangled with each other.' Our stories are all bound together, the way the river bound us together."
Rutten said her photos in conjunction with the public's writing pieces function to her as a conversation — a giving and receiving, and a back and forth.
She plans to in the future offer a book that brings the two pieces together. The designer she is working with for the book also worked with her to help frame the lettering at the exhibit. The pair were very intentional about the layout, as the text color was meant to remind viewers of the mud, while also at times looking like gold, if seen in the right light. Photos were also hung at the Sept. 28, 2024 water line mark in the Arts Council building, which took in more than 6 feet of water in Helene's floods.
Visitors filled the Arts Council building for the Sept. 25 gallery opening, which took place on the same weekend as Gov. Josh Stein's visit to Marshall to commemorate the two-year anniversary of Helene. When Helene ripped through the region on Sept. 27, 2024, heavy rains caused catastrophic flooding of many rivers, including the French Broad, which devastated Marshall, destroying homes, roads, bridges and businesses. Helene killed more than 100 people and caused nearly $60 billion in damage across the state.
Rutten said she was very encouraged to hear the enthusiasm of people and their excitement for the project.
"I think some of it is because they've contributed to it," she said. "For me, living in Marshall is really being at home, in a place that I feel most at ease and most at home. That element of being able to be a part of something, reflect back and be gifted something through the writing and coming to see and appreciate the work - but also being immersed in the arts and recovery community."
The art helped Rutten in her own personal grieving journey as well, she said. Her husband, Andy Carlson, a Marshall resident and associate minister at Unity Center of the Blue Ridge in Mills River, died of lymphocytic leukemia in December 2021. He was 65.
Before Helene, nearly three years into Carlson's passing, Rutten said she was largely isolating. But being part of the recovery changed her grief.
"It settled things for me because there is a larger thing happening here. I know what it feels like to experience profound loss. I can hold that for other people," she said. "There's an element of my working as a photographer as a practiced witness to the world that gives me a level of distance and a level of immersion that I found in this project made a huge transition in how I am publicly."
"Save This Piece" is on display at Madison County Arts Council, 90 S. Main St. in Marshall, through Nov. 14.
Johnny Casey is the Madison County communities reporter for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or jcasey@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Marshall artist's exhibit fuses 24K gold photos, community writing
