In this episode of State of Art, host Bree Pappan sits down with Pueblo artist and storyteller Kennedy Pugh to explore the personal journey behind Mirror Image, a performance rooted in family history, identity and the Black experience in Southern Colorado.

Pugh discusses how his genealogy research became more than a search for names and dates. As he traced his family history, he uncovered stories that helped him better understand his own identity and the generations that came before him. That journey helped inspire Mirror Image, which blends spoken word, jazz, blues, gospel, storytelling and personal narrative to explore Black life and cultural heritage in Pueblo and Southern Colorado.

The project recently received a $3,000 Folk and Traditional Arts Project Grant from Colorado Creative Industries, part of a statewide program supporting projects that preserve, celebrate and document Colorado's cultural traditions. CCI describes Mirror Image as a work that tells the layered story of Black life in Southern Colorado through traditions and personal narratives passed from one generation to the next.

Bree and Kennedy talk about genealogy, family, memory and the power of art to preserve stories that might otherwise disappear. It is a conversation about looking into the past and discovering that what we find there can change the way we see ourselves today.