ASHLAND — Standing in overalls, his hat shielding him from the boiling Alabama sun, the farmer tends to his crop with the instruments that marked his rough hands over the years. His expressionless face is fixated on the dirt below his feet; one patch in Clay County's quilt of rolling farmlands.

The scene is one of many now immortalized in paintings that decorate the walls of Marble Gate Gallery in the courthouse square here, where a number of Clay County artists use their roots to inspire their work.

Judy Jordan, the gallery's owner and painter of the scene with the farmer, said inspiration can come from the simple things in life or the most complex. Fellow artist Patsy Ingram said painting starts with learning and becomes a frame of mind.

What helps them and others is that Clay County is full of natural and cultural inspiration.

"When you can put your expressions on canvas, you can never look at things the same again," Ingram said.

About a dozen artists belong to the gallery, but it's not the only place where local artwork can be found. Restaurants and businesses around the county proudly display local art, and in many cases you can buy it off the wall.

"For a poor area, we've got a lot of talented people," said Mike Coleman, president of the Clay County Arts League.

Coleman and Jordan said the area has become more art conscious in recent years, thanks in part to the opening of the gallery and the league's creation of opportunities for art education and events like the Clay County Music and Arts Festival.

"The artists were always here, we just never had a place to display it," Jordan said.

Some Clay County artists have even become famous for their work, such as Millerville native Donny Finley, whose art is displayed in galleries throughout the United States.

Finley, who now lives near Birmingham, said many of his first paintings were inspired by the people and places he knew in Clay County, and the rural identity found within them worked in his favor.

"It was more than just the normal things you see at art shows," Finley said. "It was something that had more truth to it."

His mother Geneva Finley, 80, who still lives in Millerville, said she began learning the craft five years ago, and has even sold some paintings.

"I'm not one to just look out the window and sit in the rocking chair," Geneva said. "It keeps me busy."

Jordan said 90 percent of the art sold from her gallery goes out of state, even out of the country. She said some of the gallery's most recent patrons hailed from Alaska, England and Sweden.

Jordan said she's proud to know that the fruit of Clay County's artistic inspirations is reaching places outside of these quiet communities tucked away in the Appalachian foothills.

"We like it in Clay County," she said. "If we didn't, we wouldn't stay."