| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
July Issue 2009
Appalachian
State University in Boone, NC, Offers Numerous Exhibitions for
An Appalachian Summer Festival
Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, is offering numerous exhibitions as part of the University's An Appalachian Summer Festival, running through July 25, 2009. Most exhibits will take place at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, while an outdoor sculpture exhibit is being presented throughout the University's campus and Boone, NC.
Appalachian State University's
renowned summer arts festival and premier visual arts museum partner
together to present the much-anticipated Summer Exhibition Celebration,
featuring five exhibits of two and three-dimensional works that
explore everything from evolutionary biology to the evolution
of furniture and one outdoor sculpture exhibit.
The Turchin Center has, since its inaugural exhibition in 2003,
programmed the Visual Arts offerings for An Appalachian Summer
Festival. Hank Foreman, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Cultural
Affairs and Director and Chief Curator for the Turchin Center,
has selected exhibitions that offer the community and visitors
to the High Country a quality interaction with paintings and sculpture,
while also presenting students and faculty with alternative avenues
for use in exploring classroom lessons. "The Turchin Center
is pleased to join our fellow High Country art presenters as sought-out
attractions, but we are also proud to actively participate in
the education of Appalachian's students," says Foreman. "Whether
we are assisting students to be practitioners, enhancing classroom
learning, or presenting exhibitions, lectures and tours, we are
pleased to be a part of the High Country's rich array of visual
arts presenters."
The exhibit, Steven
Siegel: Wonderful Life, will be on view in the Center's Main
& Mezzanine Galleries, East Wing, from July 3 through Oct.
3, 2009.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of An Appalachian Summer Festival,
The Turchin Center is proud to premiere this new body of work
by artist Steven Siegel. Beginning in October, the exhibition
will travel nationally through 2010. Siegel will return to campus
for a residency in September to work with students from the departments
of Art and Biology.
Siegel lives and works in upstate New York. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute, and an MA and BA from Hampshire College in Amherst. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, he has completed sculptures and installations in the US and abroad. In 1998, Siegel won the award at the 12th Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and Exhibition for his site-specific work Squeeze 2.
Siegel spent six years creating this series of 52 pieces, which he describes as having "accidental inception". He named the body of work Wonderful Life, the title of a 1989 publication by evolutionary biologist Steven Jay Gould, who studied fossil records in British Columbia and determined that chance played a large part in survival of species. Siegel says, "Evolutionary biology has rich parallels to the creative process and the development of craft. This series... is about the simple, cumulative changes that generate form, from generation to generation."
The exhibit, Gillian
Christy: Inside and Out, is on view in the Center's Mayer
Gallery, West Wing, and the Turchin Center Grounds, on view through
Aug. 29, 2009.
Sculptor Gillian Christy holds a BFA from the University of Northern
Iowa. She has created commercial graphics for the NFL on CBS,
as well as works for NBC's The Apprentice, NBC Sports'
Gravity Games and HBO. Christy has exhibited her work in numerous
outdoor collections, museums and galleries.
Christy's sculpture focuses on ideas and related images of home. Her work is influenced by the surrounding environment. The artist states, "Images of home first appeared in my early work in which I was taken by the architecture of mid-western Iowa. Presently, I am living in an urban neighborhood filled with architecture and industrial elements such as mills, vents, and rooftops that are new and different." By combining these forms in her sculpture, Christy continues to find new and refreshing images of home, incorporating details into her work that tell a highly illustrative story.
The exhibit, Harlan
Toole: Recent Work, will be on view in the Center's Catwalk
Community Gallery, East Wing, on view from July 3 through Oct.
3, 2009.
An alumna of Appalachian State University's Department of Art,
Toole received her BFA in 2007. The artist's childhood in Alabama
and her relationship with water shape her work. Her paintings
are representational, inspired by her memories of - and her emotional
connection to - water. Her work considers the scientific relationships
among water, color and sound, and further explores connections
between humans and the ocean.
The artist states, "The
human body is composed mostly of water and our blood's saline
content is nearly identical to that of the ocean. The body also
contains DNA identical to the very first living organism - blue-green
algae - which is found in the ocean. Water interests me because
of the qualities it possesses. It clarifies sound and refracts
and distorts objects and color with light and
depth. This instills in me a profound tranquility."
The exhibit, Faculty Selects - 2009: The Furniture Society's Annual Student Juried Exhibition, will be on view in the Center's Gallery B, West Wing, through Aug, 29, 2009.
Faculty Selects is an annual exhibition of student work sponsored by The Furniture Society, an international, non-profit organization based in nearby Asheville, NC, and presented in conjunction with The Furniture Society's 2009 annual conference. Jurors for the 2009 exhibition are Tom Loeser, who heads the Furniture Design program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; student and Furniture Society board member Chris Schwab and Alan Harp, Director of Georgia Tech's Advanced Wood Products Laboratory.
Western North Carolina's High Country is home to the furniture industry and the traditional craft of furniture making. The area supports well over 100 manufacturing plants in the region, numerous national furniture brands and many schools and organizations dedicated to the art and craft of furniture making, including the Furniture Society, which holds as its mission to advance the art of furniture making by inspiring creativity, promoting excellence and fostering an understanding of the art and its place in society.
Appalachian State University has taught Furniture Studies for over 100 years. Originally established to help provide a labor force, the newly formed Furniture Design concentration has adapted to the many changes that have affected the furniture industry. In hosting The Furniture Society's conference, Appalachian bridges the craft and the industry of North Carolina's rich furniture history and celebrates a new future.
The exhibit, Halpert Biennial 2009 Competition & Exhibition, will be on view in the Center's Gallery A, from July 3 through Aug. 29, 2009.
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. An integral part of An Appalachian Summer Festival, the exhibition is made possible through a generous endowment from the late Buddy and Charlotte Halpert, and is dedicated to the couple's memory.
Serving as this year's juror is Jeffrey Grove, the Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA.
The exhibit, 23rd Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition, will be on view throughout outdoor locations on the university's campus and in the Town of Boone, through Feb. 2010.
Made possible by the generosity of longtime arts supporters Martin and Doris Rosen, the exhibition became the first visual arts exhibition presented by An Appalachian Summer Festival in 1987. Each year, ten sculptures are selected for exhibition. A cash prize and weeklong residency is awarded to the artist whose work is chosen as the year's Martin & Doris Rosen Award winner. The 2009 competition received 93 entries from 42 artists representing 18 states. Serving as this year's competition juror is Daniel E. Stetson, Executive Director of the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, FL.
An Appalachian Summer
Festival's success
is due in large part to generous support from loyal private donors,
as well as a dedicated group of corporate and media sponsors,
many of whom have supported the festival for over a decade. Festival
sponsors include: Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation,
Westglow Resort and Spa, SkyBest Communications, Inc., McDonald's
of Boone, Mast General Store, Best Western - Blue Ridge Plaza,
Allen Wealth Management, Footsloggers Outdoor & Travel Outfitters,
Peabody's Wine & Beer Merchants, Chetola Resort, the Broyhill
Inn and Conference Center, WBTV, WCYB, Charter Media, the Mountain
Times, All About Women magazine, the Winston-Salem
Journal, the High Country Press, Mac 100.7FM, Mix 102.3FM,
WHKY AM 1290 Talk Radio and WHKY-TVDT, Mountain Television Network,
WDAV 89.9FM, WFDD 88.5FM, WETS 89.5FM, WNCW 88.8FM,WASU 90.5FM
and WNC magazine.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call the Center at 828/262-3017 or visit (www.tcva.org).
For information and tickets for An Appalachian Summer Festival,
call 800-841-2787 or visit (www.appsummer.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.