For Immediate Release
Hollow Bone Initiative · Press
A Docuseries
The Deer Trail Opens STAY CURIOUS: Ten Stories of Belonging, Inheritance and Human Connection
What if every stranger is a mirror?
Directed by Jackson Averett, the opening episode introduces a docuseries born at Camp Mary, connecting music, families and unlikely encounters to Hollow Bone’s vision of a regenerative commons and living experiment.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Hollow Bone Initiative announces the developing vision for STAY CURIOUS, a planned ten-part documentary series directed by Jackson Averett. Its opening film, The Deer Trail, follows musician Kenny McCormick IV and former nuclear-threat analyst Dale Sanders into questions of identity, inheritance and belonging.
The story began with two gatherings called Camp Mary on 131 acres at Shope Creek Wilderness outside Asheville. Stephen and Mary Sedmak opened their home. Craig Rose brought people whose lives and beliefs looked nothing alike. Jackson Averett brought the cameras. What emerged was not a script or a shared doctrine, but people beginning to recognize themselves in one another.
The expanded series connects those encounters to the larger Hollow Bone vision: a regenerative commons where land, stories and human connection create room for the next person. The project is in development, with release dates to be announced.
The Deer Trail: the first door into Stay Curious
Kenny McCormick IV has performed as Kenny Holland, Jimmy Flinders and My Name Is Nobody. The Deer Trail follows his search for belonging as inherited faith, family expectations and musical identities give way to the work he wants to share under his birth name.
A song rooted in a childhood memory brings Kenny to Shope Creek. There, his story meets Dale Sanders, a former nuclear-threat analyst accustomed to evaluating evidence, risk and consequence. An artist and a skeptic become the audience’s first entrance into a world where agreement is not a condition of belonging.
The film asks what we give up to fit in, and what becomes possible when the trail we inherited no longer leads where we need to go. Episode One remains in development; its release date and final runtime have not been announced.
One unfolding story. Ten planned episodes.
The Deer Trail opens a planned season that moves through invitation, perception, creativity, care, inheritance and the consequences of an experience after everyone goes home. The series does not ask viewers to accept a shared belief system. It invites them to stay with the questions.
The current season outline is: 01. The Deer Trail; 02. The Grove; 03. The Field Between; 04. The Doorman; 05. The Anti-Artist; 06. Daughters / Wives; 07. Fathers / Sons; 08. The Medicine Jacket; 09. Pollination; 10. They Call Me Trinity. Titles and order remain in development.
Fathers / Sons brings Kenny, Dale, David and Sean Dame, and Dave and Solomon Duffin into the intergenerational story. Pollination includes David Dame and Dave Duffin alongside Dale Sanders, Stephen Sedmak, Joda Williams and returning guests, asking what actually followed people home. The season returns to Kenny in They Call Me Trinity, as he prepares to release an album under his birth name.
The people, the music and the filmmaking
Jackson Averett directs the documentary. Craig Rose, previously Craig Gross, serves as producer and connector. Stephen and Mary Sedmak opened their home to Camp Mary; Mary is the gathering’s namesake, and Stephen’s background includes co-founding audio-technology company SRS Labs.
The wider ensemble includes artists, families, practitioners and skeptics, among them Patricc Reed and the women whose experiences come into focus in Daughters / Wives. Their stories stand in their own right, rather than serving as footnotes to someone else’s transformation.
Kenny’s music-project development team includes Dr. Holly Carter and Walter Millsap III as executive producers, with Neff-U / Theron Feemster and Brett Nolan credited as producers of They Call Me Trinity. These are music-project roles, separate from the documentary’s production credits. Music is part of Kenny’s story, not simply a soundtrack.
The team is preparing for sound, screening and distribution conversations. Dolby and Netflix are outreach targets, not announced partners; no Dolby-format deliverable or distribution commitment has been announced.
Beyond the film: a regenerative commons
Hollow Bone Initiative is a regenerative commons and living experiment connecting land, creativity, intergenerational learning and human connection. Shope Creek is a home and a gathering place, not a film set or a commercial retreat-center concept.
Stephen Sedmak hired Craig Rose to begin the Hollow Bone Initiative, with initial funding through Shope Creek Wilderness. The hope is that the STAY CURIOUS docuseries will help bring together a Founding Council to shape the vision. Some people involved in the project have already been invited, and several have expressed interest. There are no formal council members yet.
The goal is for STAY CURIOUS to generate money to seed the Reservoir, a shared pool of funds for the next person, project or possibility. Revenue is not guaranteed. As funds are raised, the council will decide together whether the work remains an initiative, becomes an organization with a board, or involves one or more nonprofits. The structure and outcome remain open.
The film carries one part of this work beyond the people who were there. It does not require audiences to share the participants’ spiritual views or treat personal experiences as medical evidence.
Carrying the story toward release
Hollow Bone is seeking people who believe in the initiative to form a Founding Council, create the vision and plan initial funds to get started. There is no fixed fundraising target or separate goal to finish the docuseries.
Hollow Bone has not established its own nonprofit, and whether to do so remains undecided. The council will explore the structure and an appropriate way to receive support. No tax-deductibility is being promised.
Beyond the screen: The First Mirror / The Father Code
The questions running through the series continue into a planned 2027 gathering at a larger venue elsewhere in Asheville, not at Shope Creek. With Seraphina Solis and Craig Rose, The First Mirror explores family, faith, approval and expectation; The Father Code considers authority, protection, achievement and what people choose to carry forward.
Writing, creative practice, guided conversations and time in the woods connect the screen’s questions to a lived invitation. Gatherings are planned for men and women. Dates and full details are forthcoming; screening venues and series release dates will also be announced separately.
Explore the 2027 retreat →