September 2011

Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC, Installs New Folk Art Collection

The Hickory Museum of Art, located in the Arts & Science Center of the Catawba Valley, in Hickory, NC, is pleased to unveil a new permanent exhibition on Sept. 17, 2011, called Discover Folk Art: Unique Visions by Southern Self-Taught Artists from the Hickory Museum of Art Collection.

This interactive exhibition invites viewers to explore folk art in a whole new way. Along with traditional labels and text panels, the exhibit also includes: touch screens with information and videos about folk artists in the exhibit; family activity stations including an area to design folk art assemblages; re-creations of artists’ working environments including a school bus where James Harold Jennings lived and stored artwork; cell phone tour stops with information about folk artists and their creations; and sounds and smells that help evoke memories of growing up in the South.

The new exhibition is a way to showcase the Museum’s extensive collection of Southern Contemporary Folk Art, most of which came from the Collection of Barry and Allen Huffman. More than 140 objects will be on exhibit divided into themes: Personal Beliefs, Memories, Nature and Collecting.

Free Family Guides for the exhibition will be available at the Museum’s check-in desk in the first floor HMA Galleria. Copies of the children’s book, Discover Folk Art: An Adventure with Artie at the Hickory Museum of Art, will be available for $9.95. In the book, Artie (HMA’s art-loving mascot) takes a group of children on a tour of the galleries and introduces them to work by several folk artists including Sam “The Dot Man” McMillan and Q.J. Stephenson.

This project is made possible by a grant from the US Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional major support has been provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Inc. and the Unifour Foundation Endowment Fund of North Carolina Community Foundation.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 828/327-8576 or visit (www.HickoryArt.org).

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