August 2011

NC Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, NC, Features Works by Michele Cruz and Brian Fleming

NC Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, NC, will present the exhibit, In Plain Sight, featuring works by photographers Michele Cruz and Brian Fleming, on view in the Mims Gallery at Wesleyan’s Dunn Center, from Aug. 19 through Oct. 2, 2011. A reception will be held on Sept. 16, from 7-9pm.

Photographers Michele Cruz of Nashville, NC, and Brian Fleming of Raleigh, NC, have a long professional association since Fleming took photography classes with Cruz at Rocky Mount Senior High eleven years ago. Both professional artists, Cruz and Fleming have ongoing careers that bridge their commercial ventures and personal vision making creative art.

Michele A. Carpenter Cruz has been involved in photography for the past 30 years; she owns C-2 Printing and Graphic Design in Nashville and was the designer of Wesleyan’s book Folk Art of the Coastal Plain and a nationally recognized Wesleyan publication Farmer James Collection of African American Quilts 1860-1947.

Cruz began her career journey in North Carolina as editor of the Nashville Graphic newspaper after earning a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University in fine art and history. As an artist Cruz has exhibited her photos statewide and her work was featured in the Mims Gallery exhibition Textures and Tales. She was an award-winning teacher of photography and art at Rocky Mount Senior High School for three years, during which time she was Brian Fleming’s photography teacher.

Brian Fleming, after graduating from Rocky Mount Senior High in 2000, he earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fleming is described by his instructor Michele Cruz as one of her very best photography students; while a high school student his photographs were twice found on the cover of the BellSouth phonebook. Although he has a passion for North Carolina landscapes and wildlife, various opportunities have shifted his attention toward portrait, and sports photography.

Fleming now runs his own photography business in Raleigh and is the official photographer for the Durham Bulls Baseball Club and USA Baseball. Fleming’s work has been published nationally in ESPN the Magazine, Nature’s Best Photography Magazine, as well as two cover shots for Baseball America Magazine.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 252/985-5268 or at (www.ncwc.edu/Arts/Mims/).

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