We don’t hear much from the visual art community in Pittsboro, NC. We used to get sent something about Pittsboro First Sundays and exhibits taking place at the Side Street Gallery there, but not much lately. Not much in a few years. Some folks, when they learn their info is not being included in the printed version of Carolina Arts, figure it’s not worth their effort to be just listed on a website. Whatever.
We received a recent press release about an exhibit taking place as a benefit for a Pittsboro animal refuge hoping we could do something to help them get the word out. That’s what we do, but I’m kind of a stickler for deadlines and this release had missed the deadlines. The person sending the PR suggested that I might be able to give it some exposure on my blog. Now that was clever, appealing to my new toy. I guess it worked, but in checking out some things with a few Google searches I learned something too.
The Side Street Gallery was now the Side Street Gallery and Learning Center, and their hours had changed. That’s info I found on their website, but I was a little suspect when the only exhibit they had listed was taking place in Dec. 07 through Jan. 08 – a little old news. Maybe the gallery is more into teaching art now than showing art and that’s why I haven’t heard anything from them about exhibits.
Well anyway, back to the press release. Here it is:
Spring Art Show to Benefit Local Animal Refuge
Italian-born North Carolina artist Siglinda Scarpa will host a public Spring Art Show featuring a collection of her most recent pottery and sculptures. This show will take place over the course of two weekends: May 16 – 17, 2009, and May 23 – 24, 2009 in Pittsboro, NC, at the Goathouse Refuge Gallery and Gardens. The Spring Art Show will be open from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm each Saturday and Sunday.
Staged in the picturesque gardens of the 16-acre animal refuge, the Spring Art Show will feature Scarpa’s award-winning pottery and sculptures as well as works by three special guests. Guests’ exhibits include Saved: Portraits of Rescued Animals by photographer Abra Fortune Chernik andVedute di Roma: Views of Rome paintings by Leigh Brown and Lee Johnson.
The pottery and vessels of Siglinda Scarpa are fully functional as a pot, tea kettle, pitcher, bowl, or dish. However, Scarpa also creates purely artistic sculptures that mark a return to the delicate forms of the Commedia del Mare period and use aniline dyes and hot wax to make each piece glow with an inner light. These pieces, which she calls “Clouds,” are dense with meaning, a result of Siglinda’s years of rich experience in the medium and diverse life experiences across the globe. The Spring Art Show will also include Scarpa’s tileware and garden pieces.
Siglinda Scarpa’s work has been featured in one-woman exhibitions in the Chapel Hill Museum, Duke University Museum of Art and The Culinary Institute of America, as well as in galleries across the northeast United States and in Italy.
A large percentage of proceeds from the Spring Art Show will benefit The Goathouse Refuge, a sanctuary which houses over 150 abandoned or injured cats. The Refuge provides food, shelter and medical care while working to place cats and kittens in permanent “forever homes.”
To attend the art show, visit: The Goathouse Refuge Gallery and Gardens, 680 Alton Alston Road, Pittsboro, NC 27312 or visit for further info.
OK – I did my duty, beyond the call of duty. I imagine it’s hard for folks in Pittsboro to get publicity being so close to the Triangle (Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh), but while I was on the internet it seemed this benefit was getting a good bit of exposure and now some from us.
In a way – it’s all good. I’m trying to make it to having posted 100 blog entries in my first year of blogging. We first launched on May 22, 2008, so I have a few days to work. Some of my entries should count as 3, 5, or even 7 blogs – as long as they were, but I’m sticking to individual blog entries. So thanks Pittsboro for helping me get into the mid-90s.