Gallery News

Downtown Boone Art Crawl Friday

Compiled by Anna Oakes

Start and end your Downtown Boone Art Crawl with live music this Friday, June 5. Roots performers The Lazybirds and folk-soul musician Crys Matthews perform in the first installment of the Concerts on the Lawn series at the Jones House at 5:00 p.m. Later, funk-hip hop band BPL rounds out the evening at Café Portofino, beginning at 10:00 p.m.

Receptions at several downtown art galleries begin around 6:00 p.m. and continue throughout the evening. The Downtown Boone Development Association sponsors the Art Crawl. For more information, call 828-262-4532.

Nthº Gallery and Studios
683 West King Street
Beginning around 7:00 p.m. on Friday, the Nthº Gallery and Studios will feature an exhibition by Jonathan Ryan called “The Drums Are Like the Lettuce: The Nonportrait Show.” The exhibition will feature more than 100 paintings.

Ryan has lived in Boone since 2003 and graduated from ASU with a BFA in studio art in December 2008. He has been a member of the Nthº gallery since June 2008.

“My upcoming exhibition at the Nthº Gallery is a show of over a hundred small paintings that I have completed since December,” Ryan said. “These small nonobjective paintings each individually represent someone, something, or someplace that has influenced some part of my life. So in a sense, all of these tiny ‘portraits’ make up a sort of larger self portrait.”

Ryan said that the small scale of the paintings draw the viewer in very close to the surface, giving them the chance to experience the details of paint application—“something I find very important to my way of intuitive working.”

“My painting has always been about the paint and act of painting rather than the literal subject matter of the image,” he added. “This exhibition is an attempt to bring those two ends closer together and find a middle ground.”

Snacks and refreshments will be available. The Nthº Gallery is located at 683 West King Street, across from the Post Office and above Loretta’s Vendetta. For more info, email nthdegreegallery@gmail.com or call 828-773-0895.

The pottery of Eric Reichard is on display in the Jones House Open Door Gallery throughout the month of June.

Jones House Community Center
634 West King Street
828-264-1789
Music, dancing, book signings and visual art will all be featured at the Jones House Community Center in downtown Boone on beginning at 5:00 p.m.

The first performance of this season’s Concert on the Lawn will kick off with blues, country, rag and soul music presented by The Lazybirds and Crys Matthews.

Immediately following the concert, Saphira and others of the Three Graces International Dance Company will perform several styles of belly dance, including the Wings of Isis, Sword, Shamadan (Egyptian wedding dance) and fusion belly dance. Saphira now resides, teaches and performs in Watauga County. For more info, click to www.ThreeGracesEntertainment.com or call 336-830-3479.

Also throughout the evening, Sharon Mitchell, songwriter, singer, and musician, will entertain gallery patrons as she plays popular standards and old favorites on the antique upright piano in the parlor.

Orville Hicks will also be on hand in the parlor to sign copies of his newest book Jack Tales and Mountain Yarns as transcribed by Julia Taylor Ebel and illustrated by Sherry Jenkins Jensen.

In the downstairs Mazie Jones Gallery, “Postcards,” a unique traveling art display coordinated by the Western Arts Agencies of North Carolina (WAANC) features the original postcard size works of 70-some artists who created their works specifically for this exhibit. The postcards, framed in elegant black shadow boxes, are on display from April through October in each of the seven art councils. The sale of the art will raise awareness and funds in support of the mission of the councils involved.

In the Open Door Gallery, Eric Reichard is exhibiting “Petite to Powerful: A Plethora of Pottery.” Reichard began teaching as a graduate assistant in 1972 and teaching continues to be a great joy for him. He is currently a full professor at ASU, in the Department of Technology, where he has taught for over 35 years in courses in ceramics, design and construction, furniture making and design, metals, leather, technical illustration and design in drawing.

The Arts Council galleries are sponsored in part by Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff and Grassroots Funds of the North Carolina Arts Council.

ArtWalk features the macramé jewelry of Laura Hampel during this month’s Art Crawl.

ArtWalk
611 West King Street
828-264-9998
The High Country of North Carolina is known for its inspired craft workers who excel in skill and originality. One such artist is Laura Hampel, a jewelry designer who shows her work exclusively at ArtWalk, Boone’s largest art and gift gallery. Hampel pairs her skill in macramé with her love of color and fiber materials to create stunning and unique jewelry.

Laura Hampel was born in Aurora, Colo., and lived in the Napa area of California until 1975. She lived in South Florida for many years. Hampel finally moved to North Carolina in March 2006 after Hurricane Wilma “blew away” her husband’s job—an unfortunate event that she calls a godsend.

Hampel has been using macramé to create jewelry ever since she created a macramé band to protect and accompany her grandfather’s watch that she almost lost when the original band broke. Using all square knots waterproof nylon materials and beads, Hampel has expanded her craft to create bands, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and more.

Hampel will be at ArtWalk on Friday to demonstrate her work process. Hampel, whose work is located on ArtWalk’s main floor, is only one of ArtWalk’s 300 local, regional and national artists represented in the 9,500-square-foot gallery on three floors housed in a completely renovated historic building in the heart of downtown Boone.

Turchin Center for the Visual Arts
423 West King Street
828-262-3017
Friday is your last chance to view three exhibitions at the Turchin Center, open from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Exhibitions closing on Saturday, June 6, are Ray Kass’ Trays and Tondos—Recent Works on Paper, the works of Teresa Cerda and the Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition.

On display in Gallery B of the Center’s West Wing is Faculty Selects 2009, the Furniture Society’s Annual Student Juried Exhibition. Featured in the West Wing’s Mayer Gallery and the grounds of the Turchin Center is Gillian Christy: Inside and Out. Christy’s sculpture focuses on ideas and related images of home.

In the West Wing’s Gallery A is the Halpert Biennial. A national, juried, two-dimensional art competition and exhibition program, the Halpert Biennial is designed to recognize new works by emerging and established artists residing in the United States.

Jeff Martin will paint and sell his ceramics at Wine to Water during the Art Crawl. A portion of sales will benefit Wine to Water.

Wine To Water
703 West King Street
828-406-1955
Stop by the offices of Wine To Water, a nonprofit organization focused on providing clean water to needy people around the world, during the Art Crawl on Friday.

Wine to Water, in conjunction with Jeff Martin Ceramics, will host a live art event starting at 6:00 p.m. The event features free samples of great wines and information about how people can get involved in Wine to Water’s mission. Every eight seconds, a child dies from lack of water or a water-related illness.

Martin will be painting at the event and offering his one-of-a-kind ceramics and oil paintings, and 25 percent of his sales will go to Wine to Water’s cause. The next event will take place at Espresso News on Saturday, June 20. If you are interested in helping out, whether through art or time, contact Martin at jeffmartinceramics@mac.com. For more info, click to www.winetowater.org or www.jeffmartinceramics.com.

Green Mother Goods
116 West King Street
828-262-3525
Green Mother Goods will host a hula hoop workshop at 5:30 p.m. on the night of Art Crawl. Locally handmade decorated hula-hoops will be available. Sample Bald Guy Brew, organic fair-trade locally roasted coffee, and Hold the Heat raw chocolate and chips, also made locally. Take a look at local art and global fair-trade handcrafts, including handmade jewelry.