High Country Magazine
& Visitor Guide
Now Available Online!
Click On The Corresponding
Cover To View The Latest Issue
Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05
Sept 4, 2008 issue
Downtown Boone Art Crawl Friday
Compiled by Anna Oakes
Don’t let threats of hurricane leftovers keep you away from downtown Boone this Friday, September 5. The monthly Art Crawl offers hours of enjoyable indoor activity for your Friday evening, so grab your rubber boots, rain jackets and umbrellas for invigorating dashes from gallery to gallery!
Receptions at several downtown art galleries begin around 5:00 p.m. and continue throughout the evening. The Downtown Boone Development Association sponsors the Art Crawl. For more information, call 828-262-4532.
Jones House Community Center
634 West King Street
828-264-1789
Two photographic exhibits are on display in the Watauga Arts Council galleries at the Jones House Community Center in downtown Boone during September. The gallery reception to welcome these exhibits is from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Free food and beverage will be served.
In the downstairs Mazie Jones Gallery, Greg Williams melds his love of travel with a trained eye and finely honed sense of the whimsical to produce photographs that document his journeys, both the literal and the figurative. The result of all this synthesis is presented in a photographic exhibit titled What Is, Was, and Might Be.
Although Williams has been shooting images since he was very young, he has only begun to share his work with the public in the last few years, he said. After a many-year hiatus from the classroom, he decided to finish his degree at Appalachian. There he was fortunate enough to find great mentors such as Jeff Fletcher, Mark Malloy and especially
John Scarlata, all of whom shared their techniques and guiding critiques, helping him to mold a strong visual style.
“Whether the subject is sweeping panoramic sunset vistas, macro studies of desert cactus, or multiple exposure black and white frames of ghostly figures shot in studio or on location, the theme is the same—the potential for beauty exists all around us,” Williams said.
In the upstairs Open Door Gallery, Bea Bumgarner’s exhibit World Travel Photography is on display. Representing 30 years of travel to more than 70 countries, the exhibit features people and places. She began taking photos in earnest in the early 1960s as the company photographer for International Travel Agency. She has presented her pictures of her travels to schools, churches and clubs. Bumgarner is also a painter, having earned numerous accolades for her art. She uses her photographs as inspiration for many of her paintings.
Also featured at this month’s gallery reception will be Maggie Bishop signing copies of Appalachian Adventures, the fourth novel in her romantic suspense series set in the High Country.
The Collective on Depot
125 South Depot Street
thecollectiveondepot@gmail.com
Artists of The Collective on Depot open their studio doors to the public this first Friday, starting around 7:00 p.m., as part of Boone’s Downtown Art Crawl.
Located next to Black Cat Burrito (through those big, nondescript steel doors), The Collective on Depot is a work and studio space for local artists and musicians. Current members are Jamie Carroll, Chris Curtin, Travis Donovan, Dan Kaple, Sean Matthews, Peter Oakley, Uijin Park, Melissa Reaves and Virginia Tocaben.
The Collective seconds as a gallery and performance space for regional and nonregional artists and musicians.
Hands Gallery
543 West King Street
828-262-1970
The Hands Gallery will feature two of its member-artists during the Art Crawl—jewelry maker Debbi Ordan and sgraffito potter Jeff Martin. A reception with refreshments will take place from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Ordan creates sterling silver, copper and bronze jewelry at her studio in Sugar Grove. All of her jewelry is created using hand tools. Ordan has been in the business of jewelry making for 22 years and a member of the Hands Gallery for about 20 years. She currently serves as president of the Hands Gallery.
Ordan’s earrings, bracelets, pins, pendants, barrettes and other items range in price from $8 to $110, with most items in the $30 to $40 range. In addition to being a member of the Hands Gallery and the Main Street Gallery in Blowing Rock, Ordan sells her work at about 17 shows throughout the Southeast each year. For more information about Ordan’s work, click to www.artandsoulwebgallery.com.
Martin is a potter specializing in sgraffito ceramics. He uses a white stoneware clay to create wheel-thrown and hand-altered pieces, paints them and then carves the pieces to expose the natural clay underneath. The functional and sculptural pieces feature detailed imagery in a “blend of folk and fine art combined,” Martin said.
Primarily self-taught, Martin said he has learned a lot from local potters Eric Reichard, Maggie Black and others over the past four years.
Martin’s coffee mugs, tumblers, jars, plates and large sculptural pieces such as bottle forms and busts will be on display at the Hands Gallery, and he will also demonstrate the sgraffito process. His prices range from $25 to $1,400. For more info about his work, click to jeffmartinceramics.blogspot.com or www.jeffmartinceramics.com.
ArtWalk
611 West King Street
828-264-9998
Stephanie Lee of La Mia Designs is just one of the many artists at ArtWalk specializing in textiles. Her work is an inspiring and fanciful look at how art can be a part of everyone’s wardrobe. From earrings to handbags, Lee has designed whimsical items to brighten up any outfit.
Lee was raised in upstate New York and currently resides in Boone. She has always been interested in the arts but became a serious artist in college. Lee graduated from Appalachian State University with a bachelor’s degree in interior design. Lee currently works at Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff in marketing.
Lee gets most of her motivation from her environment, color and flowers. Her studio is also a great place for inspiration with its variety of fabrics. She has always loved creating art and sewing. She was initially drawn to the textile medium because of its textures, colors and patterns. She also includes at least one vintage item in each of her pieces to add an interesting spin and uniqueness to her designs.
Lee will present a Trunk Show of handbags and other fabric works from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served throughout the evening.
Nthº Gallery and Studios
683 West King Street
It's not just how you see yourself, or how you are seen, but the conglomeration of the two that often creates, and sometimes inhibits, our identity.
On Friday, the Nth? Gallery and Studios will feature Invisible, Inc., a clothing and photography collaboration by Kegan Refalo and Will Connelly that explores the theme of identity, class, gender, tattoos and the social expectations of formality. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and light refreshments will be served.
Refalo and Connelly designed this collaborative show utilizing the concepts of tattoos and body adornment to expose elements of social constructs that cause deviant people to be socially minimized. The artists set up three separate photo shoots with models wearing clothing designed by Refalo in settings with realistic formal circumstances turned on their head by adding a surrealistic twist. Connelly used a Hasselblad square-format camera and grainy high-speed film rather than digital to maintain a raw quality in the final images. Both the photographs and the original garments will be on display.
"Each of the photo shoots, along with the individual garments, are trying to critique the individual's mundane process of decorating their body, through the use of clothes and other body adornments. It is something we don't often think about," said Refalo.
The Nth? Gallery and Studios is an underground art venue that exhibits emerging and established artists in the region and features six studio member spaces. The gallery hosts new shows on the first Friday of every month in conjunction with the First Friday Art Crawls. The Nth? is located at 683 West King Street in downtown Boone, across from the post office on the second floor. For more information, call 828-264-7429.
Turchin Center for the Visual Arts
423 West King Street
828-262-3017
New at this month’s Art Crawl at the Turchin Center is Ancient Philosophy/Contemporary Art: Asian Artists from China, Japan, Korea and the United States, on display through November 15. More than 25 artists present their work influenced by traditional calligraphy and three philosophical principles: Yin and Yang, or unity in opposites; wabi sabi, or the art of finding beauty in imperfection, understanding in nature and of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay and death; and stillness/movement, or within stillness, there is movement and within movement, there is stillness.
The Turchin Center will also feature current exhibitions that opened on July 11.
Dancing with the Dragon explores the contemporary work being created in China with 76 works ranging from paintings and drawings to mixed media and sculpture. Gayle Weitz, a professor in ASU’s Department of Art, brings viewers into a dialogue about animal hierarchy with Humanimals, a series of carved and painted wooden cabinets that address the relationship between humans and other animals, particularly the issue of speciesism—the “right” humans have to dominate, oppress and/or exploit other animals.
The Brian Ayers Memorial Exhibition is an annual showing open to international students with learning disabilities, ages 10 to 19.
